I am busy planning – most of second and seventh grade is done in  a fair amount of detail, although I will have to go over each block/week at a designated time each week or two during the school year and make sure I have ideas for what I want to do with the Main Lesson book.  My tenth grade planning is coming along slowly, but I hope to have a majority of it done by the end of the month.

One thing I have noticed this year is there are a lot of “moving parts” to this year.  I have started thinking in terms of, for example, second grade:

• Second Grade Blocks
• Second Grade math to run through the year
• Second Grade language arts (mainly games)  to run through the year
• Warm up/circle for  the year
• Extra form drawing, wet on wet painting, crafts, nature to run through the year
• Flute to run through the year
• Things for my older two to do with my second grader each day to help

It seems like a lot to think about, especially when I have similar lists of things for seventh and tenth grade.

One thing that helps me corral these “separate lists” is to create templates and use them to fill things in so things are more harmonized and work together.  This was form I created and used back when I had two in the grades and a toddler.  Our days are much, much more full now due to having one child in middle school and one in  high school, but I think right now I have made template forms to create the second grade circle, a form for the warm up for seventh and tenth grade, and then structural forms for running three grades.  This year, with high school, middle school, and tenth grade this sort of daily template looks like this:

M T W Th  (circle day)   (some weeks have three days, some have four days)

Second Grader

• Warm Up
• Weather/Calendar
• Number of Days of School, Number of the Day, Math Practice/Mental Math
• Form Drawing (Mondays, unless a form drawing block)
• Block work (includes all lively arts)
• Weekly extras at end of lesson :Tuesdays Seasonal/Festival Painting, Wednesday Crafts/Handwork Projects
• Nature Walk weekly during tenth grader’s  outside class

#2 Main Lesson Period (typically the seventh grader; varies on the day if it is the seventh or tenth grader – sometimes the Main Lesson is combined work)

• Warm Up
• Movement
• Growth Mindset
• Poetry/Speech Exercises
• Math Review/Mental Math/Math Games or Puzzles
• Block Work (includes all lively arts)
• Help first grader  during other Main Lesson period: Mondays Reading Practice, Tuesdays Math Games, Wednesdays Extra Modeling tying in to nature studies, Thursdays Reading Nature Books

Main Lesson Period #3 (Tenth Grade typically)

• Warm Up
• Movement Games
• Growth Mindset
• Poetry/Speech Exercises
• Math Review/Logic Puzzles/Math Games
• Block Work (includes all lively arts)
• Help Child #1 during other Main Lesson period:  Mondays Jump Rope Games, Tuesday Crafts, Wednesday Baking, Thursday Math Games

Other considerations:

• Combination Writing (twice a week)
• Combination 10th Grade Health/7th Grade Physiology (twice a week)
• Combination Math Experiences (once a week)
• Combination Theme each month with weekly meeting (once a week)

Once templates are made, it becomes easier to plug in verses, songs, art ideas, the content of a block into the template, or it can be easier to say, we can cook or garden for our warm up and movement on this day and then jump into block work.  The template provides the framework for the flexibility.

Hope this idea helps someone with their planning!

Blessings and love,
Carrie