Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Mike Smith:
HSLDA Early Years Coordinator Vicki Bentley is with me again today. Vicki, it makes sense to start lesson planning by considering the whole year—what your school schedule is, and what each child needs to accomplish at that time. But how do you practically do all of that?

Vicki Bentley:
Well Mike, first think “overview.” Decide on you basic timeframe, keeping in mind any legal requirements for your state. I always plan for eight weeks on, one week off, for five cycles.

Then look over the curriculum, what will you cover and what can you skip. Your curriculum is a tool, not your master, and you want to remember to include life skills, as well as academics.

Then divide your materials by the number of weeks or days, for a rough plan. But be realistic; there’s a difference between accountability and bondage. One year, I thought I’d be really organized, and I planned the entire year in advance. You probably know what happened on about day three: somebody didn’t get the math lesson done, and we spent whole year feeling that we were behind. So I learned to get more specific in smaller time chunks. So this would motivate me to regularly evaluate our materials, our methods, and any character issues.

And for some examples of what someone else’s day might look like, you can check out “A day in our homeschool” in the resources section, at www.hslda.org/earlyyears.

Mike:
Vicki, thanks so much for being with us! We’ll have more lesson-planning help on the next program! And until then, I’m Mike Smith.