Ok here I am again with my crazy questions. I have only been homeschooling for 3 years. The first year was hit and miss. I bought curriculum that planned everything for me. Didn't like it because it seemed way to structured. If we missed a day due to illness, we had to make it up as soon as possible and stay on track to complete by the end of our school year. The 2nd year I planned everything but waited until a few weeks before we started. It seemed like all that I did was plan. This year we are just going day to day and I am trying to list what we have done at the end of each day. I admit that some days I get bogged down and wait until the next day to list and do two days at once.

I am thinking I would like to have a plan or should I say an outline of a plan subject to change. :-) We start are around July each year to give extra time before we SAT test with our group in April. I have been looking for curriculum and starting to plan (in pencil) for next year. Am I obsessed? Does anyone else try to plan this far in advance? My fear is not having the time to spend with my husband and children during the year because I am spending a lot of my free time (what is that?) planning. Any suggestions would be grateful.

Personally, I start my planning in January of each year. Our year begins in September and ends in June, and for me this works. I find that the sooner I start planning the easier it is. I usually begin with a general outline for each of my children for the year and then start with one subject and expand and prepare the lessons from there. I find that it takes me about 2 months, this to has helped me not get so crazy and feel like I am ten steps behind. I don't think you are crazy, rather smart for getting a well planned start on things.

I'm already starting to plan for next year. I usually wait until summer but not this year. It's obvious we're not going to get everything done this year that I had planned (we never do) as far as unit studies go, so I will roll them over to next year. Also I have evaluated what we have been using and we will either finish it up, like the Explode the Code series, and move on, to the Wordly Wise series, or ditch it, like this years math program and use something else.

I try to make some sort of plan for each book soon after I buy the book. It is usually just a reading schedule like the example on this page: http://donnayoung.org/forms/help/go/tsoi.htm

Some subjects need more than just a reading schedule though. Through the year, if I can manage to look ahead in the books, then projects or other activities are planned.

So, I plan as soon as I get a book, then as the year unfolds, I might add some projects or other activities to do.

I am a compulsive planner and poor follow-through-er.

For the school year, I do an overall year plan in June and then do mini-plans throughout the year as we go. I have learned to not worry if we fall behind. I just toss that plan and make a new one.

I start planning early. I get an idea of what I want to cover, then start looking for books/materials to do that. Then I start planning how it can be planned out to be done.

Currently, I have taken over the dining room table...it has my file box, school planner book, papers galore....and am working on plans/records. I just wish I could have a table this size in my little office ... I have to go to the front of the house, through the school room, to get to it. Naturally ... I get stopped along the way!

Me too, me too! I get so excited about all the things I think my daughter would enjoy learning about, and needs to learn, that I go crazy with the plans. Then reality hits and we can never do it all!

I don't think I stop planning. Usually in January I will start to think of things I would like to cover for the next school year. Sometimes I plan on a monthly basis. This month and part ,if not all, of next month we will be doing FL History. I started planning for this two months ago, but had the book since July. Last summer I had "school" on the brain the entire time and it drove me batty . This summer will be different .

My goal for next year is to plan everything in advance. I'll be using Donna's goal sheets and planners . I really like the way she plans out her books. Come May during our HS Convention, I will be by myself and the planning will begin . I am so excited about it.

I do but then I forget to use it sometimes.

I used to have that problem but since I'm getting a little more organized. I know where most everything is.

I bought two bookcases in the fall, 4'x7' so most of our books(not all of them mind you) are on them and I have a few shelves with education stuff on them until I get a deep cabinet to put that stuff in.
A client of mine had a pantry that was deep, had shelves and 2 drawers in it. So that is what I'm looking for now, but I think we need at least 2 maybe 3 of them.

I just realized that this post starts a new thought process

Every reply was so very helpful. Thank you all very much! Don't know how I ever managed before Donna's web site with so much info!!!!! Thank you Donna.

I have another question and I am not sure if I should have made a new topic or not but here it goes.

My plans for my daughter is a little of everything We have tried everything at some point and she likes it for a little while but then gets bored. My ideas are some unit studies with some workbooks, computer games etc. I think most of you get the idea. NOW the question.....How do I plan for unit studies AND say traditional math curriculum? Is there a way to use the same type of planner or should I use both types of planners. The problem I am thinking about is this. We are going to use beyond FIAR BUT there is some extra science or history I would like to touch on that isn't in the book as well as history and writing. How would any of you do this? Looking for suggestions!

Thanks everyone!

I am homeschooling my 6 1/2 yr old son and my 2 1/2 yr old son and I use Well Trained Mind which is a classical method. They give you a plan and if you don't follow it to the letter that is ok. Most of the planning is done for you really.

I still use some unit studies, but I make them up myself. I still use the materials I have bought, but don't use them all in traditional curriculum format. I instead refer to them as resources.

So when I plan, I break up the various subjects, and put them in the planner, and use the resources. But when actually doing the studies, they are all grouped together. In other words...the 4 hour stretch of studying, say, Rome, encompasses art, literature, history/geography, language arts, Bible, science (if I find some science stuff), and math. With the math, we learned units of measure during that time period, compared to ours today, but they also did their regular math. We actually did the math lesson for the day first thing ... worked great cause they all wanted to get into the 'project'.

Then...as I said before ... recorded the components in the planner (once it was actually done)

Thanks to everyone for their ideas on this topic of planning.

We'll be starting The Weaver Unit studies here very soon. I know that I need to have a plan for this as this is ALL new to me. We've only done workbooks to this point.