It is coming up to that time of year again. Questions about how this year have gone start to bubble up in my brain. What worked? What didn’t? What did we miss out? What needs more attention?
The end goal of all this navel gazing? A plan for 2017.
I haven’t finished with my assessment of this year so far, and that means I only have half a plan for next year. But it will be a definite part of the plan for us to continue to follow the Build Your Library curriculum. My kids find it engaging and they have enjoyed nearly all of the books we have read so far. The lessons are nice and short, so if we ever fall behind like we have this year, it isn’t dreadfully difficult to catch back up again in bursts of energy. I like that it covers many key areas and that it is possible to do it in a very laid back way, if that’s what suits you.
So to that end, I have begun to gather the book list together. Sadly there seems to be very few of the list available through our local library system, so another buying jag is on the horizon.
The new thing I am doing this year is to use my Bullet Journal to keep some of my planning items in a more permanent place rather than on a random scrap of paper. (Did I just admit that out loud?) Indexed and marked by a post-it label, I can refer back to it any time I need to, and it will allow me to keep a track of any items still to buy as the year goes on. It’s ridiculously simple, but sometimes that is exactly what makes an idea a winner.
Here is what it looks like, with most of the titles redacted.
I’ve added a second page for any extra books I come across that would be handy to add in to the mix. And since we are coming close to the end of another year of maths books, I will be adding them to this extra page as a reminder too.
I will probably do the same sort of checklist for any other curricula options – like RSO – that we may choose to use next year. It will save a lot of headaches knowing in advance what is required, what we have and what we might need to find or buy.
How do you plan for your year ahead?
The Pukeko Patch 
We’re four months into our school year, and I’m going through a major reassessment right now. I find it amazing how quickly something that worked for a while suddenly stops working! Organizational tools are a big help. I use a teacher’s academic calendar for lesson planning, but I don’t really have a system for keeping track of what resources I need. I just try to *remember*. Definitely not the most effective approach!
My daughter is formally finished for the year so I should be in planning mode. I’ve got as far as brainstorming a list of things she might be interested in plus noting what skills I think need finetuning before I release her into the world.Now I just have to see if she is keen on any of them, before I put any energy into hunting out resources. Some maybe textbooks but for others I suspect I’ll be desiging the course from scratch. No sense putting too much time in until I know exactly what she wants.