Planning

Well I've spent the whole day planning for the next 3 months home ed. But how do I decide what to cover?

At the beginning of the year I decided what skills I wanted the kids to work on for the year. How? Well I looked at the government targets and decided what they already knew, and what they needed to cover - not necessarily at their year level but tailored to their own individual learning needs - unlike school. But it didn't stop there. The beauty of home ed is that we can follow the children's interests and add in extra things to study that may not be on any government curriculum, or spend extra time on things they find fun or that they need more practise with.

I keep a diary of activities we have done and things the children have learnt. So today I went back to my year plan to check what we have covered so far, what we need to revise and what we need to progress onto. This term we are going to be working on:

• counting, number bonds to 20, measuring, recording data
• phonics, sight words, writing sentences, reading aloud
• scientific investigation, using science equipment, hypothesising and testing
• drawing, making 3D art
• experiencing different types of music, singing
• vocabulary of history and time
• map skills
• swimming, ball sports
• life skills
• fine motor skills

As well as subject specific projects we are going to work on 3 topics that integrate many subjects. These are "ourselves", "maps" and "the post office". Check back soon to see how we do.