Why I don’t waste my time lesson planning!

I am a born organizer.  Growing up,  cleaning and organizing under my parents’ bathroom sink was a favorite pastime of mine.  That doesn’t make me weird does it?…okay, maybe it does.

As a homeschooling mama, my organizing mindset has spilled over into our educational endeavors.  I’m always searching for ways to organize the bookshelves, the record keeping, the school work, our day…the list goes on and on.  But there is one thing I have never been able to satisfactorily organize – our yearly lesson plans.

Every year, I pour over Pinterest (my favorite place for inspiration) in search of the perfect way to schedule our lessons for the year.  Every year, I read blog post after blog post about so called “flexible” lesson planning, the type that promises to be flexible and fit real life.  Every year,  I think it all seems like a lot of work and what happens if we fall behind?  Every year, I feel like a big, fat lesson planning failure!

No more!  This year I am a lesson planning success!  What’s my secret?  I am CHOOSING not to plan.

Yep!  You read that right.  This year I’m doing what I’ve always done, but something is different.  I am making a conscious choice not to waste my time planning every last detail of the entire school year.  AND I’m okay with that decision.

Am I an unschooler hippie.  By no means!  I’m pretty ambitious with what we try to accomplish (I actually like homeschooling year round!).  I still take time to develop our daily schedules and routines, but now we just move to the next thing in our lessons.  No more day by day directions.  A daily subject checklist?  Maybe, depending on how independent of a learner I’m dealing with.

Before, I felt like lesson planning was something you HAVE to do.    Now I know from experience choosing not to lesson plan means our homeschool is actually a lot more flexible and surprisingly successful.

3 reasons you should dump the lesson planning

1. Flexibility

   The beauty and flexibility of homeschooling really shines through when you don’t write down what you will be doing every day.  You won’t feel like you are falling behind when you just need a day off, someone gets sick, grandma unexpectedly comes to town, or a concept is just not sinking in.

   I love to visit my family when Husband has to travel for work.  His traveling is often short-notice, so there is no way I can foresee these breaks in our homeschool schedule.  Since our lesson plans aren’t set in stone, we can easily pause school and  jump right back where we left off when we get home.  Sometimes we even shorten school because it is just too beautiful outside to keep our heads in the books!

2. Allows for Mastery

   Without lesson planning, you won’t feel pressured to move on to the next lesson until your child has mastered the current one.  Maybe you won’t finish that math book this year, but your child will have a solid understanding of what you do cover!  It also allows you to skip things your child comprehends well.

   I’ve recently seen this play out in our homeschool.  My bright boy has zoomed through math until this last month when we began working with fractions.  We have only completed 10 lessons in the last month because we have been giving him extra practice before we move on.  He must demonstrate mastery before we tackle new material.

3. Less Work for Mom

   No more all day planning sessions during gorgeous summer weather!  Of course, you will still need to map out your day and week, but nothing so rigorous as sketching out which lesson needs to be done on what day.  Routines, schedules, and rhythms are crucial, but perfect little checklists are not.

 

So how do I know we are still making progress and that our children’s education is still rigorous?  How can I tell we are still on track to reach our goals for the year?

Making progress without lesson plans:

1. Year round schooling

   Year round homeschooling has brought a lot of peace and success to our homeschool.  No more summer-induced academic amnesia!  We are also able to skip the reviews incorporated at the beginning of most curriculum.  I know we are making good progress even if it sometimes seems to be at a snail’s pace.

2. Daily grading

   I grade my son’s work daily.  This helps me know where he needs extra practice and where we can speed things up. It also gives him some incentive to work harder and improve his scores.

3. Do school!

   Let’s face it-I don’t always feel like homeschooling.  Instead, I tell myself we just have to accomplish a little everyday.  That little bit usually snow-balls and we end up accomplishing more.  Forward progress everyday means we accomplish a lot in a year’s time.

 

{Update:  We have since switched to Mother of Divine Grace (a boxed curriculum for Catholic homeschoolers).  MODG has a syllabus with lesson plans, but even now, we use a daily subject checklist and just do the next thing.  You can see how I coordinate our checklist with the MODG syllabus here.}

So are you ready to break-up with lesson planning?