Reality
This approach to home schooling will not work for everyone, so let me manage your expectations right now. For others, it might present a lightbulb moment and for that hope, I am passing it along. This is about the trick I wish I learned a little bit sooner.
Home schooling provides the opportunity to customize the learning environment which makes it particularly beneficial. It also means that there is not a one solution for everyone.
However, this approach provided a brilliant light-bulb moment for us — so if your child is like mine (read more here), this just might be a great approach for you, too!
What We Do
We follow the provincial curriculum and are connected with a distance education program that provides a dashboard of lesson plans, so this frames our coursework.
I adapt the lesson plans through the dashboard into bite-size steps in a Google doc for each assignment.
These assignments are then marked on an Outlook calendar, titled by the subject and lesson. In the notes section of the calendar event, I link to the Google doc.
My child adds other activities to his digital calendar as well. In doing so, he self directs his day by clicking on an event and following the steps provided in the Google doc.
To start the day, my child opens his calendar and has the freedom to choose which subject to start with. With a click, he dives into the lesson. This gives him a safe space to make a decision and be self-disciplined to complete a particular volume of “tasks” each day.
When my child completes an activity he adjusts the event as per a colour-coding scheme he developed to “completed”. This gives him a great visual of the work he has accomplished and want he still needs to do.
The process gives him flexibility to do the work, and where there are time-specific tasks such as fields trips with other home learners or community programs that he participates in, to plan around these other commitments.
