Mixing it up

I'm sitting here doing some planning. I know, obsessive.

Anyway it occurs to me that Bambina is really getting into writing down ideas of things she would be interested in learning about on her "Things I Want To Learn About" sheet which lives on the fridge (gotta love that laminator!).

So having given her the opportunity to have input in her curriculum I now have to incorporate it into my forward planning don't I? Aaggghh

 So far in our homeschooling journey I have been planning monthly themes or Unit Studies as far in advance as possible so that from one month to the next themes are ready to go.

This works great for me but for two reasons it may not be whats best for Bambina. One reason is that if I prepare them all ahead she has no input and just gets thematic "ready meals", and the other reason is she may have forgotten or lost interest in what she wrote down on her sheet if I take too long to slot it into my planning.

 Catch 22

I may have thought of a solution. In a bit of a light-bulb moment I thought why not do both?! "My" topic, planned within an inch of its life for three weeks of a month and then a topic that Bambina has recently put on her sheet for the fourth week.

For example; in September I am planning to do the Solar System, studying each planet and note-booking about them. Complete with the mandatory model. But instead of doing this for 4 weeks, I crunch it down a bit, and complete it in 3. Then for the last week of September we go to her sheet for inspiration. Of course I will be looking to prepare just a little if I can, I'm not great at the "seat of the pants" stuff, can you tell?

Perhaps this is a bit "have your cake and eat it" but..... I like cake! So I think we will try it for September and see what happens. Wish me luck.

Any of you already doing this? Wanna join me? Or do you think think I'm barmy? I'd love to hear from you.

 QM