My Lesson Planning Style {Lauren from Mrs. Thompson's Treasures}

Being a homeschool teacher has it's advantages and disadvantages when it comes to lesson planning! One advantage is that I have complete control over my curriculum and daily schedule. I don't have to follow what anyone else thinks is best for my kids. I have the flexibility to change everything up if I need to!

But on the negative side, having no one to answer to about meeting certain standards, I can tend to get lazy with my planning. When I am on top of things, I like to plan a whole week at a time, but to be honest, many nights I am up late after the kids go to bed, planning for the next day.

Another disadvantage is I have multiple grades to teach each day, so I have a lot of different plans to make. This year my oldest is in 2nd, and then I have one in kindergarten and one starting preschool. So, when I write plans for the week, I usually am not too detailed. I have a simple template I print out for each kid, then I write in the readings and activities for each day. We also try to combine and do things together when we can - usually with science and social studies activities.

 

To make the day go smoother, I like to use the workbox system. Here is our setup from last year. The colorful drawers in the corner had all the activities for the two older kids to do for the day. They would each start with their red drawer, then work their way down through some independent work.

This year, I am hoping for a setup similar to this: (found on www.justlaine.com)

We just need to make a little trip to Ikea to make it happen :)