The following is a guest post, written by Lora Lynn Fanning of Vita Familiae.
The thought of filling a lesson plan book full of notes that I may or may not ever refer back to has always seemed to be a daunting and unexciting task.
But when the idea of using a shareable online calendar for lesson planning came to me, it seemed ideal for my computer-reliant personality and our family.
Here are some of the advantages I’ve found from using Google Calendar in our homeschool.
- Events are easy to set to repeat. This means that once I have our schedule for the year set, I put each subject or meeting into the calendar on repeat. I don’t have to continually add math, science, and spelling to a day. They’re already there, just waiting for me to fill in the specific details.
- I have a printable, savable archive of all of our lesson plans whenever I need them. When my life is already cluttered, I’m not likely to hold onto bunches of paper that I don’t need anymore. But should the need arise, it’s comforting to know that all of my lesson plans, both present and past, are available to me via Google’s super-servers.
- My husband can access our calendar from work and knows exactly what we’re doing every day. This is one of my favorite features. I like knowing that when my husband comes home from work, I don’t have to whisper, “Ask about their history project…” He knows what questions to ask and how to encourage the kids. (He also knows that if the calendar says “arts and crafts,” he’d be wise to come home with Haagen-Dazs in his bag for “teacher.”)
- I can access my library list from anywhere, especially from the library. I’m notorious for planning a trip to the library and then arriving without my list. When I do our lesson plans, I keep a task list in the sidebar for the library and for “supplies needed.” Using my iPhone (another techy-tool no Mama should be without), I can pull up those lists any time, at the craft store or at the library, and know what we need to have on hand for any given week. I can also set up alerts to remind me to put books on hold a few weeks in advance.
- Google Calendar makes everything neat, tidy, and color coordinated without me having to wrestle with an Excel spreadsheet. I tend to require sedation after a few rounds with a spreadsheet document, so Google makes it easy for me. I can have the “pretty” without losing my mind.
It took a bit of time to play around with Google Calendar and learn how to make it work for our schooling and for me. But the time spent was minimal and well worth it.
I can make changes, keep better records, and access my plans from any place with internet access. Best of all, I can include my husband in our daily activities, just by making them available for him to see.
And if I’m lucky, I might even score a pint of ice cream for my efforts!
How do you use technology to help your homeschool run more efficiently?
Yesterday I had a computer issue that resulted in me having to switch from my normal computer to my old Acer. This convinced me to start doing as much as possible online instead of storing stuff on my own computer. I wonder if we will ever go to computers with *less* memory because everyone is storing everything online.
Ugh. When I think of all the erasing and repeating of things in lesson plans I did in my years of school teaching it makes me not want to plan another thing. Now I am just starting with homeschooling. Thank you for sharing this idea. It looks right up my alley.
I have a question. If you set a subject like spelling and have it repeat….then when you go in to make different days (by typing in the description) doesn’t that repeat as well?
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Brilliant idea! Thank you.
Please share ideas on a little Homeschool learn and earn project I am working on through Google+. Could you post this idea as it is great!
https://plus.google.com/106718256532906705388/posts
Would love to hear stories of children being bullied in school as I believe if we talk about these things we can put a stop to it! Our children deserve better!
One of the reasons I like Google Calendar is that my students can access and update their own plans & studies on their computers. For example my 12YO sees that singing practice is on her calendar for today and once she completes it, she marks that on the calendar, too.
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Thanks for posting this. We are starting w 1st grade this year and I’m trying to learn from my prek/k efforts and know I need to be better organized and planned. We use google calendar for everything else in our family but I hadn’t figured out how to effectively do it for school. I wasn’t aware if the task list feature and could really use that to help me w library/supply lists like you stated. Thanks for the tips – guess I’ll be soon some trial runs w it next time I have!.
For teens, set up each student in their own calendar and then share that google calendar with them. They in turn can set up calendars for work hours, activities, events and share it back with you. This way you can see that they might have extra work hours and can know what their whole weeks schedule looks like. This is also good for groups like co-ops, if the leaders share the planned calendar with the parents, the parents can simply import it and overlay it in their master calendar.
My family loves Cozi! We have been using the calendar, to do list, shopping list, etc.. for years. You can import via iCal any other calendar (including Google calendars). It is coded for each child and they can review their own calendar on their devices (there is an app for that). It has been rated the number one calendaring software for families for many, many years. Best part it is FREE. I do not work for them in anyway, just a very happy calendar user!
This is an excellent post! I love Google Calendar. I’m not homeschooling yet (that’s the plan for next year), but I am using Google Calendar for everything else that I organize for my family. I was so happy to read your tips here on how to use it for homeschooling! Thanks!
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