L is for Lesson Planning.

July is our off month from school work, however July is my planning and prep month and this year I have a lot of prep and plan...  I am still working on the classroom conversion to a resource room and sorting through all the wonderful things we have in our space. I am also working to plan out next year and make it a little more doable....   I still need to figure out where the boys' workbox folders will go and start getting the things together that will be in the folders.  I need to find brightly colored file folders or Pee-Chee folders, I hope to find them locally otherwise it is going to be online, I have found a couple deals...  I don't want to spend a fortune buying and I know classic file folders would work just as well, but I really like the large size of the Pee-Chees and my boys think the colors and sports figures are cool..

I went through and mapped out the lesson plans for the boys beginning August and Ending June 2012. We homeschool using a 4 day week and various short breaks.
Each of the boys will have 5 folders they are responsible for each day.  I am using a very eclectic mix of resources including: journaling/notebooking , hands on math (Math-U-See and Elephant Math), read aloud books, visual word walls and word games, old style phonics and grammar from McGuffey's, Creative Writing using Write Source from Houghton Mifflin, and Science from Real Science 4 Kids. We will also have various unit studies mostly from Hands of a Child; Bible lessons from Scripture Adventure,  Sentence diagraming using Montessori Print Shop, and whatever wonderful resources come our way during the year.
The boys will again be involved in Adventurer club through our church and our local homeschool Co-op for enrichment activities. I am considering swimming lessons at some point but that will depend on timing and finances.
The next step in the lesson planning is to select specific activities for Cameron's journals and Nathan's Morning Messages and begin building their folder activities. (I want as much of it done before school starts, at least 2-3 weeks per printed/ sorted)  We have a full month of activities in July so I am trying to start early .

Over the next couple of weeks I will post links and overview reviews to some of the resources I already have ready for the year... I am also hoping to find a screaming deal on primary composition books before school starts... I figure I will need somewhere between 6 and 10 for the whole year...