I am still processing our time with Julie Bogart. She said many things that resonated, shook me, and are rattling in my brain. One of them popped out this morning. She said that one of the downfalls to Unschooling is that there is no sense of accomplishment, or no record of it. Even though I don't consider myself to be Unschooling, I suppose I am in that I don't have a set weekly plan for school. I have found that as a teacher, I work best throwing out the guidebooks (thank you Maura for that tidbit 2 years ago!) and just buying living books & materials that I want to get through eventually in the next 1-2 years. However, Julie is right too, there is not a feeling of accomplishment because my plan is pretty vague.
So today I got inspired to create a very short and simple 1-page tracking device... what my old job would call a dashboard. I have the three subjects that I want to do this year: Bible, Nature Study, and Language Arts. I decided to set realistic goals for this term, to correspond with Term 1 of the Great River. I have 12 checkboxes for each of those subjects, so I know I've done them once a week and then I have lines on the right side of the page, so that I can fill in what books we read, etc.
Time will tell if I can stick to it for the whole year! If I can, I'll be able to see at a glance how much we accomplished this year and what resources we used, which will help me determine what to buy/plan for next year.
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