Resource Series: Summer School

The school year is winding down and plans for days at the pool, vacations at the beach, and weekend camping trips are in the works.

Now is the perfect time to catch up on "mom's" school. All the time invested in planning your next school year, and beyond, can be much more efficient with just a few well chosen resources. It's also confidence building to be able to refer to your plan when the school year hits those inevitable bumps and snags.

Education Plan Grid: This simple spreadsheet allows you to plan ahead for single or multiple children using Sonlight Curriculum materials. It can also be modified for use with other curriculum programs. Though nothing is ever set in stone, it is helpful to do some long-range planning for your student's education.
Includes digital file and practical suggestions for education planning.

High School Transcripts: Homeschooling a high schooler comes with its own set of challenges, but record keeping need not be one of them. The time to begin thinking about college is when your student is in junior high school, not his/her senior year! This transcript form allows for tweaking and personalizing, and gives you an easy way to plug in your child's high school accomplishments.
Includes digital file and practical suggestions for college planning.

Sonlight's Homeschool Goals Guide: A short white paper that outlines practical ideas for setting goals for your homeschool and reaching them. If you aim at nothing, you'll probably hit it ... so be sure you are clear in the purpose and intent for your homeschool.
Includes a pdf white paper.

Please feel free to request one or more of these planning resources by sending an email to: champion@sonlight.com. Please use the subject line: Education Planning Resources

Keep an eye out here for more in my resources series.

Blessings!
~Judy
Sonlight Curriculum Consultant

Planning for 2009

Catalog and convention fever has hit the Sonlight Forums! Who would imagine that a curriculum catalog would generate so much excitement?

But sometimes a new Sonlight catalog generates frustration and confusion. Why? Because it seems as though it can't possibly be time to plan for a new school year when we're not done with this year's materials yet! Planning what to purchase for the coming year can cause your head to spin at all the possibilities, especially if you're trying to plan for multiple students.

A simple tool that I've found particularly helpful over the years is a spreadsheet that allows me to do some advance planning. There are many benefits to the exercise of filling out this type of spreadsheet:

• it allows me to *see* my planning all in one location (I tend to be a visual person)
• it often generates planning ideas that I hadn't considered before
• it prevents me from possibly "missing" doing a Core level before a student graduates
• it makes it easier to see where I might combine students with one Core, or at least plan on using "complimentary" Cores.

I'm sure there are more benefits to planning ahead ... including the fact that you really can't aim well at a goal until you set it ... but these few were sufficient to motivate me to invest the time in creating the spreadsheet.

Perhaps my spreadsheet will be helpful in your planning as well! Please feel free to copy this idea and utilize it for your own homeschool. This one is a sample of our homeschool plan ... take some time to create your own! If you like what you see, feel free to email me for a blank copy of this Excel spreadsheet.



~Judy
Sonlight Consultant