Summer is for Planning

For a homeschool mom and support group leader, summer is all about PLANNING! There are hours of planning that go into preparing for a new school year - choosing curriculum, finding enrichment classes, figuring out a weekly schedule, deciding on extra-curricular activities.  I have ordered my TOG Year4 and most of my books. I still have to decide on a few things, like what Jason is doing for science, and then get things organized and sketch out lesson plans. 

This week the moms in our TOG Co-op are having a "down & dirty" meeting. I'm pretty sure that name came from Marcia Somerville, the creator of the TOG curriculum, but it is a full day of planning out the details and expectations of Co-op for the year - setting the calendar, planning out Unit Celebrations, writing out our "handbook" for the year, deciding what the minimum expectations are for each class in the Co-op.   We have learned over the last 4 years that it is important for us Co-op moms to communicate and get on the same page right at the beginning.  

This past weekend was our Lighthouse Leaders Retreat, a 9 hour planning session over 2 days.  Part of the purpose was to bring the Board and other leaders together to go over foundational things like the vision, purpose, expectations, and By laws of the support group. In addition, we discussed some ideas for changes to existing ways of doing things, we planned out the monthly meeting topics for the entire year, we started putting together a calendar of activities & field trips for the year, we discussed facility needs, we talked about qualities of leadership.  There were 16 people in attendance, including a number of husbands, and we had some really good discussion, I think.  There is still a good amount of nuts & bolts planning that has to be completed over the summer, but at least we got a good start. 

Now for our family, vacation planning is still underway as well, because we don't get much nailed down far in advance.  We have been trying to figure out when to take our annual trip to Massachusetts to see family. Part of the problem has been trying to work around Alex's visit home, and the military doesn't make things easy when leave isn't really decided until a few days before!  Alex just arrived home Saturday for 2 weeks, so now we are planning for at least some of us to go to Massachusetts between his visit and Amanda's week at Worldview Academy Leadership Camp in VA. We are also hoping to squeeze a week of camping in sometime this summer. 

Proverbs 16:9
In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.