[dropcap]Y[/dropcap]ou all have been asking me about this for years, and I’ve been putting it off. This is mainly because I think that there is nothing profound or special about what I do or the process I use each week to prepare for the upcoming week of homeschooling. But maybe that is precisely the point? Maybe we need to be reminded that nothing profound or special is needed? That we can just prepare in the usual sense, and that’s enough?
No magic spells or Olympic feats required.
The time required for school prep has gone up with each passing year, of course. We can’t expect it to be as easy to prepare for a week of eighth grade as it was for first grade, nor can we expect it to be as easy to prepare for four students as it was for one. This is life: while some things definitely get easier {I miss having toddlers, but one hasn’t wrecked my living room for years}, homeschooling isn’t one of those things. Prep time increases with the age and number of our students.
My weekly prep has three parts, and I generally do them in this order:
- Spreadsheets
- Clipboards
- Reading
Let’s walk through it.
Spreadsheets
I run our homeschool on spreadsheets. I’m pretty sure we should have shirts saying “Powered by Excel” or something. When I only had one student, I didn’t need this level of organization, but this is, frankly, how I keep my head attached to my shoulders these days.
I put the rough drafts of these weekly spreadsheets together in the summer. But I don’t print them until the week of. This is so I can make adjustments as we go along. Planning extensively in the summer saves me time, but I don’t print because I would find nothing more annoying that to see our printed plans get further and further behind or “off” as we went along. This way, we’re always right on time. It’s totally a mental game, but it works for me.
My first step is to adjust the spreadsheet to accurately reflect the coming week. It mainly involves moving a few things around, adding any notes about appointments or plans, etc. It doesn’t take long at all.
When everything looks good, I press that print button.
Clipboards
Each of my children has his own clipboard that I load over the weekend as part of my prep time. This is super simple, too. I add to it anything the child needs to do the work listed on their spreadsheet, and top it with the spreadsheet. For my first grader, this means he needs his copywork worksheets {for practicing letter formation}. For my girls, it’s blank copywork sheets plus cursive worksheets. A couple children have poetry that is printed rather than found in a book. One might have a blank map for map drills. It changes as the weeks and years go by — the key is to always check the spreadsheet and make sure everything is ready to go.
Sometimes, I put this off. Usually, it’s because I’ve run out of ink and I’m putting off refilling the printer cartridge. And then I forget. And then suddenly it’s Monday morning and only my oldest has a spreadsheet ready to go. This is a Mistake. Nothing good ever comes of it. So, I try to discipline myself to always have the clipboards ready.
Reading
This is what people usually think of in regard to school prep, and that’s probably because this is what takes a good chunk of time. Everything else can be done fairly quickly, but reading requires hours, there is just no way around that.
I have made a commitment to pre-reading. I often feel bad saying this because I know it takes time and I know finding the time is incredibly difficult. I don’t know what else to say — I think the vast majority of books have to be read by us if we’re going to be able to teach them. How can I hold a child accountable for a narration? How I can answer his questions? How can I know if the chapter is appropriate? How can I have a discussion? I really can’t do any of those things if I’m not familiar with the books.
One thing I’ve loved about using the same curriculum for all of these years is that we use the same books over and over. This allows me to only pre-read for my oldest child. With everyone else, I tend to remember well enough because, in addition to the reading I did myself, it was followed up by listening to a narration and answering questions and having a discussion, all of which solidified a lot of the book into my mind. My recall is far from perfect, of course, but having read for my oldest I find is enough — I can just glance over the chapter to reorient myself before listening to a narration from one of the younger children.
I try to make the pre-reading beneficial for me, personally. I want to continue to learn and grow, too, but the truth is that after I pre-read, there isn’t much personal reading time left over. A number of years ago I decided that I could approach pre-reading one of two ways: I could either carry it like an inconvenient burden, or I could make my oldest child’s reading list my reading list. I chose the latter. So, when I pre-read, I have my commonplace book with me. Sometimes, I also have my Book of Centuries or nature notebook, but my commonplace is the most essential. I don’t have the luxury of reading very slowly because there is a lot to read, but I still take the time to stop and copy out passages that strike me.
In a few places, I will underline passages for possible discussion. I used to make notes elsewhere. I find it distracting to read a book with someone else’s underlining, and wanted to be courteous to my children because of that. But, more often than not, I would forget about or lose my notes. So now I just underline the passage. I don’t really have to worry about definitions anymore, but when my oldest was younger I also made notes of definitions at the beginnings of chapters, a little trick I learned from Kathy Livingston.
Lately, I’ve taken to a coffee shop for a couple of hours. I find I get it all done faster when I can focus and my children cannot find me and interrupt me by asking me a thousand questions they could have asked their father instead. Also, it makes it a bit more fun — another way of trying to use it as personal enrichment instead of personal burden. I have to do my job; why not learn to enjoy it? This can be my weekly retreat, if I allow it.
I try to read everything over the weekend. Sometimes, this is not possible. Those weeks, I read in the evenings. That is not as easy for me — it puts some pressure on the week. But, it’s a better option than skipping it, and it makes it possible to have a busy weekend without too much consequence.
Over the past two weeks, I was very sick. I mean in-my-bed sick. I got behind on pre-reading. Translation: I did none of it. One thing this did was reaffirm to me the importance of pre-reading. I didn’t really feel like I was educating my oldest at that point — I said “I don’t know” countless times when he asked me questions about this or that. I’m sure part of it was due to having a fever, but the rest was lack of preparation. I am doubling up this week so as to catch up and be ready, also, for next week.
How Do You Prepare?
Let’s talk in the comments! Maybe some of you prefer reading throughout the week instead of all at once over the weekend? It’s not like there is one right way to do it…
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