Friday, April 23, 2010

Speaking of Planning...

...I already have a plan for the upcoming school year. I know, I know. THIS school year isn't even over, yet. But, I like to plan ahead.

My goal is to sit down with my Well Planned Day planner several days throughout the summer and plan each lesson for each day of the new school year. For instance, get out my children's math books and go through and plan what lessons and what pages they will be doing for each day. Then, on to English. When will that test be?

As we know, the best laid plans tend to fall victim to real-life. There will be days that someone is sick or an unforeseen field trip occurred. But, I will have finished all of the hard lesson planning during the summer, so will only have to take a few minutes each week to re-evaluate where we are and plan my children's days accordingly in the Home Schooler's Journal.

That is my plan of attack in lesson planning for the 2010/2011 school year. Do you have a plan? I would love to hear it. I'm not above changing my plan for a better one. :)

Monday, April 19, 2010

Planning is Everything

But how do you plan?

Some people don't. They fly by the seat of their pants. Some make it look effortless and manage to accomplish much. Others, like myself, fail miserably in this method. Sometimes, it's necessary to just be flexible and do what you can when you can. But, for the most part, a plan is needed for homeschool survival.

In the past, I created an Excel spreadsheet to help organize my children's lesson plans. I've used individual assignment books so each of my children can see what is expected of them each day. Unfortunately, this creates a lot of work for me and my kids somehow seem to lose things in about 10 seconds flat.

In my search for the perfect planner, I've come across a few very helpful materials. I am listing them on my website this week including the one planner I've stuck with these last several years.  Go on over to Homeschool Potpourri an take a look.  Let me know if you use or have tried any of the planning helps I've listed.  What do you use & why do you like it?

Have a blessed homeschool day!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

New Site for Booksellers!

Funny.  I posted about Homeschool Classifieds the other day and I get an invitation in my e-mail inbox to be among the first to join another homeschool book selling site.  Ironically enough, the site is called sellhomeschoolbooks.com.  If not catchy, it's easy an address easily remembered!

Though I'm still getting a bit used to this site, it's really easy to use.  Posting is similar to e-bay, though much less complicated.  The best part is that it's FREE!!  Looks like you could use some options that would cost money. This leads me to believe that someday they may decide to charge for membership fees and other niceties on the site.  But, for now, I'm taking advantage of my free year.

Check it out.  Be one of the founding members.  Who knows what you might find there.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Homeschool Classifieds

I absolutely love Homeschool Classifieds.  It is a great site for homeschoolers to buy and sell their used books for free!  You can pay a minimal fee in order to list more than 5 books at a time, but it is more reasonable than e-bay.  Not to mention, they also allow you to sell Teacher's Editions!!  I mean, really, aren't those the books we're looking for the deals on or desiring to make some of our money back?

Check it out.  You do not have to have an account in order to buy, only to sell.  Let me know what you think!