Planned Units Coming Up

I am finally getting back into my groove after not working again. Its been one full month and its felt fantastic to have time to organize things back to the way it was before I started working ((lol)). While working it was hard to keep up with school much less file paper work and expand studies outside the normal area... So back to real life has been fantastic. I have been able to slow my life style down. Which I think has really benefited all. I do however start back working in the evenings this week. Only 2 hours a day, So I don't see a problem with that at all. Its in the evenings and its again only 2 hours!

 

So planning. 

How do you go about it? 

I am very simple at planning! 

I ask the kids if there is anything they would like to learn more about. When I ask that I make them look in our bookcases to help fuel that thinking. I also then bring them to my computer and we go through and name what studies I have on-hand. You must imagine why I do this... Because I have almost 140 Unit Studies on my computer... So buying more just isn't going to happen... Free is alright... Buying no more!! If I don't have it covered already then there's a HUGE problem!! 

I go off of what the kids are interested in when it comes to our Unit Studies. If I can find a Lapbook, I incorporate that in as well. Homeschool Share is a wonderful free community that has FREE, yes FREE, lapbooks and Unit Study material. They add new items all the time. They are my favorite homeschool site! 

So on to what my plans actually are for the next couple months:

DS2 chose - Robots. We will be using DNG's unit for that. I will incorporate several addition items into this and will likely take 3 weeks. 

DD chose - Owls. We will be dissecting pellets for this and learning about their life cycle, environment and the overall nature of the animal.  Planning 1 week.

We will be using HOAC Lapbook and HSS Lapbook to do our own thing!

DS1 chose - The American Revolution. We will be doing a Lapbook/some notebooking. Not sure how long it will take but my guess is about 2 weeks.

Once we have gone through every unit that was choose we will start over with asking what they would like to learn now. This is the way I do it. Find it easiest to let everyone pick something. I do however pick subjects at times but normally I allow them to pick and I teach. I find they are more willing to listen and learn when they actually choose what they are learning!!