Lesson Planning

Sorry to have left everyone hanging this past week, my son was sick so there was a lot of cuddling and general clinginess going on here :)


Anyway, I wanted to make sure everyone is on the same page here and give you an idea of where to begin with lesson planning for each of the months. First, for whoever has December, keep in mind that there are 5 weeks in that month and of course the Christmas season, so I'd say we only need 3 real weeks of lessons for that month, maybe with a few fun extra activities if you feel like it in case people's kids' get antsy Christmas Eve :)

For your month's theme, refer to the themes and fruits of the spirit lists on the blog. You'll need to plan for 1 nursery rhyme, 2 activities, and 2 books for each day, 3 days a week, for 4 weeks so that's a total of 12 nursery rhymes (these can be repeated several times), 24 activities, and 24 books (one easy book and one harder book for each day).

With that in mind, I'd like to let everyone see how I'm organizing my ideas. I am using the File Crate System. This system is wonderful and Dawn over at By Sun and Candlelight has been so great about explaining it in detail for her readers. So I have a plain folder for every week of the year. On the front of the folder I've stapled a piece of paper so I can jot down doctor's appointments, notes, to-do lists, and dinner plans. Inside the folder I put not only household items (bills to pay, grocery lists, etc.) but also the activities I plan to use for that week. So when I spot a neat activity that relates to September's theme (apples, trees, letters A-D, and beginning number sense) I print it, cut it out, or write down what it is, and put it in the folder in the correct week. I will also put my 3 daily lesson plans for each week inside that week's folder.


So if everyone could scrounge up just 4 file folders and write the dates of the weeks (Sunday-Saturday) in their assigned month, you can use those to collect ideas. Just anything you see over the next few weeks that sounds interesting or relates to the theme or phonics/math go ahead and stick it in. Soon I will make another post describing the lesson plan format (sounds complicated but really it is super easy and you'll like it I promise!). For now focus on collecting interesting ideas and sticking them into your 4 file folders for your month.

Also, so everyone knows, this is the current list I have of planners:

September--Manda (imagine.more)

October--Robin (rowbinemichelle), Mollie (blueflower100)

November--Rene (rene2cute)

December--Danielle (daniellega)

January--Tracy (tarceo)

February--Casey (waitinginSF)

March--Sue (suehaydon)

April--Kristi (ilovemycutiebabies)

May--MoMommy16

Fruits of the Spirit--Christine (crisby5470), (meghanjane'smommy), Becca (improvingmama)

Spanish--Rhianna (rhihug)

*If you have not sent me your e-mail address I can't add you to the blog authors yet so go ahead and send that to me on BBC or at my e-mail address imagine.more@yahoo.com whenever you have a chance.