Got weeks 1-6 of our new plan...

all written up. I actually pulled together all our resources/workbooks/etc. and went in and put lesson numbers, pages I hope the kids finish, and so on and so forth. I only did 6 weeks as that's the next two months at the charter school (the one right after winter break is only two weeks), and I figured that was enough to try my new plans. I feel so darn organized at the moment! Of course, while my newly printed plans are sitting on my desk next to me, there's a pile of dishes in the kitchen waiting to go in the dishwasher, which first must be unloaded, and a pile of laundry to be folded.... well, one thing at a time.

I also came up with a plan to handle both the stuff I want to do and the stuff the state wants us to do (the one downside thus far to charter schools)... of course I have to attribute much of this idea to M... I want us to continue on our chronological path through history, kind of along the lines of the Well Trained Mind, and the state wants us to cover county history this year and state history next (for Elf). So, the first week of every full month in the academic year, we'll focus on state standards, and the other three weeks back to chronological history. By the time he hits 5th grade, we'll be up through early exploration of the New World, and then I can fold in US history (state standard for 5th) pretty seamlessly. Phew! We're trying this new plan in a couple of weeks, when we'll shift focus away from ancient times to county history for a week, and then back to ancient, forming a nice little gap between Greek and Roman history.

Plans for next week include the Greek vases we never made, and then the following week we'll wrap up Greece with an Olympic festival of sorts and a Greek feast! Off to plan a "class" in Global Arts and Crafts now.