Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Planning Phase II

More use of the whiteboard
We have a big white board that hasn't been used as much as I had hoped. I'm going to teach using the whiteboard much more often, illustrating concepts and writing down ideas. Boy is visual, and I'm sure it will help him to see as well as hear it.

More organization
This lies with me. I have a confession to make - I have papers everywhere. I have a hole puncher, binders, but I still have papers everywhere. Next year? Use the hole puncher before school starts, and have notebooking pages acquired from Currclick hole punched, inserted in binders, and ready to go. At least my bookshelf is already in order. Take time on Sundays to review what's coming the next day, week. Have everything literally at arm's length before starting. Looking for materials or copying, printing pages is a huge time-waster.

Longer class sessions, going a bit deeper
Boy and I had this conversation. I asked him if he'd rather do History every day, in smaller chunks, or two days a week in bigger chunks. He asked for bigger chunks. I was surprised, but also with a renewed sense of enthusiasm. History is going to be twice a week, an hour each. This will mean listening to 2-3 chapters of Mara Pratt's American History Stories at a time. Projects will be relegated to afternoon projects, after extracurricular activities, up to half an hour each, so up to 3 hours of History a week. This exercise leads to the following point.

More input and active participation from the student
I will have more of these conversations with Boy and see what he comes up with. If I do History twice a week, I could do Natural Science for an hour each three times a week. Will plan on having activities/experiments built in to lessons. Boy has asked for independent assignments, and I will accommodate him through checklists.