I am currently working on plans for next year for my 1st grader (finalizing book selections, deciding on projects, making lists of library books we'll need for each week, printing maps & worksheets, etc). I'm hoping this advance work will help me to not have as much prep to do each weekend. But, since this is my first year teaching with TOG (year 1) I'm not exactly sure what kind of preparation is necessary for each week.

What do you do to prepare?

Kacie

I did Yr. 1 with my LG daughters last year. Prep was pretty easy and didn't take much time at all. Usually Sunday night I would read through the teacher's notes and be sure I knew what we were to focus on that week. I made sure we had all the supplies for the projects and student activity pages ready. (Doing this during the summer is a great idea and will definitely save you time.)

Since we did all our history and literature reading together I didn't worry about reading the books ahead of time. I usually scanned the ToG website for links under that weeks to see if there was anything I wanted to use online. I know the week we studied the Indus Valley civilizations we found a wonderful link to a BBC School website where the kids could do a virtual archiological dig. They loved it!

That is about it! And remember, don't try to do it all. Just have fun and enjoy it. Plant lots of ideas that you can return to later when your child is older.

Beth