Lesson Planning

I'm still trying to work out the kinks in the lesson planning.  Frankly the whole thing just overwhelms me.

Thankfully I chose (very much on purpose mind you) curriculum for Kayd that is basically: open the book, do the next lesson.  The lessons are scripted for me and I can see at a glance what we need to do that day.  For his math I just hand him the next two worksheets.  I mean really how much more simple does that get?  It just doesn't.

But I struggle in planning out the other areas of learning - the history, geography, art, science etc.  I bought FIAR for this portion but I have struggled with it because I feel that it doesn't have much hands on stuff and well in this house we have a hands on teacher and hands on children so yeah.  But trying to add in the hands on stuff has been overwhelming to me and I was on the verge of giving up.

So last night I spent a copious amount of time searching the wonderful internet for other blogs of families who use FIAR to see if I could find some inspiration.  And find some inspiration I did.

Here's what I'm going to try.  I'm going to choose the book I want to row and read it through.  Then jot down two to four things I want to focus on learning about with the kids.  I will check out the manual for their ideas and suggestions and find activities to make it feel more hands on.

I know a huge part of getting the hands on stuff in there is planning ahead so we have the supplies we need.  One blog I visited the mama puts the whole weeks supplies in a nice basket - supplemental books, art supplies, worksheets.  All in one nice location.  I NEED to do this.  This will help immensely.

So this week we're going to finish of Grandfather's Journey (a really neat book IMO) by learning some about the location and culture of Japan, making a couple of recipes from a Japanese recipe book we took out of the library, and make a family tree together since the book is about a couple of generations of a family.  I think it will be fun too to map out where each family member was born so the kids can see that while we haven't moved to a new country some of us have moved around from where we were first born - including all three of the boys!

I'm working on a Thanksgiving unit right now to do Mon-Wed next week.  In December we're going to be working on a giving project as a family so I'm only going to do one row that month.  We're going to focus more on Christmas for December. 

I would LOVE to hear how other mom's pull it all together - how you keep your stuff organized, how you do your lesson planning.  Feel free to link me to any posts you might have on your own blogs regarding the topic.  Truly I can always use more inspiration.