Planning and Record Keeping

In theory I should be doing one post a day, I guess that's the nature of blogging. But I keep meaning to post about a couple of things, so bad luck about the one a day.

Last year before I even started I went to browse at a Teachers resource store. I spotted a teachers diary and thought it might work so I paid over my $17.

When it came to more detailed planning I decided that it wasn't detailed enough, I needed more so I bought a folder and made a very impressive record system and printed it out.

I also made the most beautiful excel spreadsheet, it wasn't colour co-ordinated but it was timed down to the minute and all set out in such an organised way, I was sure it would work. HA! Yeah right, I don't think we even for one day managed to follow that time table so I ditched it.

I was finding the record system time consuming and messy and there were double ups with putting the info in multiple places.

I got out that Teachers diary, saw it had 3 "periods" a day and room to write in everything I need. So I have ditched the folder and gone back to the teachers diary and it is working perfectly! I now plan into it and then just write the times that it takes to do the assigned work, it's all done in pencil so no big deal to adjust on the day. Plus the back has room for individual students results for different subjects, so I'm using that in an altered way to record details of maths, spelling etc. So now I put in the basics and any commitments for the week and just add the extras....history, unit study, art, pe around the basics.

Planning is now taking MUCH less time for the basics. I still have to plan a little for unit studies, but things are definitely getting easier.

The next "phase" of planning/recording: I've started noting in the book other things that CJ does during the day that are educational, so how his play enhances his learning. It's good observation for me.

At the moment I am writing in the times each activity/subject takes. I think I will keep that up for now, but might drop it later. It doesn't look great on records that grammar only took 5 mins today, but the reality is that as much was learnt in that 5 mins as would have been acheived in an hour at school. So perhaps times are superfluous and really don't matter.

Yesterday the book records 3 hours of work, this was maths, reading, grammar, writing, memory work, history and art. Of course the elapsed time with breaks etc was much greater but if They (the almighty They) say that we must educate 5 hours a day as I believe some states say, then we are falling far short. But what does it matter when the volume of work was greater than he would have ever managed at school.
Plus then Connor grabbed out a book and read a bit more for FUN, then built an elaborate Duplo house which required lots of maths and science type thinking, we also did some baking and talked about fractions (actually I think that was IN the 3 hours) and had a discussion on Sphinxes. There is so much learning going on all day that can't possibly be recorded.

Home is SO much more conducive to learning than school ever was.