Planning 101: The Preparation

I am sometimes asked, "How do you plan your subjects?" Today I thought I'd give a tutorial on the preparation stages of planning, you know the preparing to plan stage. This, of course, comes after you've researched, ordered, and received the majority of your material for the following year, but we're not talking about that today (not until my counseling appointment anyway). So, leaving the chaos of choice behind we forge ahead in our preparation to plan.

What's the first thing you need? Well, YOU, of course. It's best to start early in the morning, when teen boys are still relishing the sleeping in stage of summer vacation.

Some of us could use more sleep too. But you can't plan while sleeping. Technically you can, I guess. I know I'm not alone in the I-dreamed-about-homeschooling-last-night. 

I recommend large quantities of your favorite morning beverage, MORNING beverage people!

Grab yourself a stack of books, preferably ones you plan on using next year. If you're very astute you'll notice the book The Discovery of Time on top of the stack. It's on my to-be-read list. I seriously doubt I'll find more time while reading, but that would be nice. 

You'll need a stack of papers too. See the paper with a tear? That one has been cat approved, that's what we say when the cat decides to rip through a piece of paper. That is my proposed schedule for the fall. Currently I'm wondering how it the world we'll make it work.

For today I have two choices, I can grin and make it work (Tim Gunn is echoing in my head now). 

OR

I can be like the dog and pull the curtain over my head and gaze out the window. 

For now, I'm going to get more coffee. Stayed tuned for more tutorials in Planning 101, the actually planning. 

Classroom Summer 2011

I haven't done pictures of our new classroom because it's been such a mess. It still is. However, we have a tad more organization. Yesterday I arranged the desks and one bookcase. It's a shell of organization. 

Both desks will get painted white soon! We're out of school for the summer, by fall Z won't have to contend with my stuff on his desk. Hopefully. 

My corner is still a mess. I still have two large bookcases in storage, which will replace the mess in my corner . Z's short bookcase will also be replaced with the tall , nice bookcase. 

This was formally my desk. I like it, but it wasn't big enough once we moved. In our previous home we used the dining room table for school and the small desk was sufficient. My new desk is much larger. 

This is just getting creative with the space. My nice Target bookcase is supporting the inexpensive bookcase from Walmart. Eventually Tigger is going to build custom designed bookcases for this area between the doors. It should be able to house a large majority of our books, hopefully. 

This house actually has two doors into it. The one we use opens into the small hallway. This one opens directly into the living room. It's great for moving furniture in and out, but we won't use it on a regular basis. Plus these doors are so great, they are original to the house. They're also a great frame for a custom designed bulletin board. One can never have too many white board surfaces :grin:. 

The bones are in place, I still need more bookcases, and it needs some final decorating touches. Once completed I want it to have a vintage around the world theme. I have most of the stuff I need to make that happen, it just happens to be in storage. *sigh* It's a process right? 

I love my floors, I love the wide white trim, and I love the mocha colored walls. This classroom is smaller than our previous one, but it's perfect. It's cozy, it's calm, and you can shut the door at the end of the day. 

For now I need to finish planning school for the fall. Taking pictures is more fun.