Planning · Friday June 22, 2007 by june
I’ve been giving some thought to planning this morning.
Ever since I began Home Educating, I’ve been aware that as well as a daily plan we work on a seasonal plan.
In the Autumn I’ve always tried to get out of the house. The weather is usually nice enough and the countryside is probably at it’s best at that time of year – lots of interesting things to see. Yet there is also an urge to get moving, to get started with Home Ed, probably because of the whole “back-to-school” feeling. So we tend to plan lots of Home Ed activities, and fill the days with those, meaning that we have to shoe-horn in the trips out of the house. Autumn is a time when we tend to be quite ambitious – starting big projects and working on lots of creative activities.
There aren’t many indoor places to go around here on colder days, so our Winter schedule is very much home based, with maybe the odd trip out to the library, swimming baths, and Home Ed group. We tend to use a quite structured Home Education approach during these months, and our days are full of the more traditional educational activities.
In the Spring we try to take advantage of the good days when we can. When the children were younger – specially when we had toddlers too, we would try to fit in as many nature walks as possible. The wood, the beach, walking up a hill, feeding baby ducks… The children had nature notebooks, and spring was the time when most of the work was done in them. The children have grown out of this stage now. Spring is similar to Autumn, in that there is the need to get out and do things, but still work to do at home. There is also the feeling that educationally we need to lighten up and do some more fun things.
Then on to summer. Summer has it’s own rhythm, specially after half term (i.e. now). This is when we all do our own thing much more. We are much more relaxed. Days out are planned, walks are taken, the days become much more about ‘living’ than about ‘education’. We try to get to the Home Ed group more often, because it is more pleasant during the summer months when the children can play outside. During the Home Ed day the children plan their own time and activities… Education becomes much more informal.
