MFW modified: REWRITTEN

As explained in a prior post I prefer to REWRITE my MFW lesson plans. (Lingo break: MFW=My Father’s World. That original post can be accessed: HERE.) I get easily confused looking at grids with superfluous information, or grids organized by a system that doesn’t pertain to my life — such as a grid structured Monday through Friday…when we may be doing a Tuesday’s work on a Thursday. Or perhaps our light day is on a Wednesday and the grid offers lighter work on a Friday. Or it shows books/subjects/plans we will be substituting. I found myself opening the MFW Teacher’s Manual and trying to navigate to the pertinent information in a sea of stormy excess…with three pairs of eyes staring me down ready to start throwing paper airplanes at the first hint of a quiet motherly lull. It’s like my children know 15 seconds of mom staring confusedly at her TM = time to launch Operation Mayhem.

Let’s talk about my process of REWRITING. I can’t show the original MFW Teacher’s Manual (TM) pages here out of respect for the author and copyright rules, but I will give you a peek at one of my REWRITTEN grids for “Rome to the Reformation.” If anyone wants to see the original grid, there are samples available for free on the My Father’s World website. I will share my reworked “Week 18” below, which is one of the weeks currently offered publicly as a sample on the MFW website. (All other text copied directly from an original TM will be intentionally blurred out.)

FIRST: DECIDE CONTENT

My first step is to open my MFW Teacher Manual and decide which subjects and resources we’ll be using that year.

For RtR, I decided we were going to use everything except: Streams of Civilization and Science. Instead, I decided to leave space for bookish-deep-dives as we went along, and I subbed in a different science program.

SECOND: EXTRACT

My second step is to make a fresh grid.

To do this, I create a simple table using Microsoft Word. Then I get to work copying the content, skipping the portions we won’t be using.

Since I decided to use a different science curriculum for RtR, I will skip all the original grid cells pertaining to MFW science. I prefer science to have its own page anyway, unless its content is tied to our history lessons. That way we are free to speed up/slow down in either subject b/c they are tracked separately.

I arrange all remaining content into one of (5) categories: Latin, Activities, Reading List, Bible, and Book Work. Those category headings are highlighted grey in my grid sample. Now I will be able to instantly see every Bible task, or every planned activity — without having to scan a mass of boxes.

Across the top are (4) main columns arranged by TOPIC. The original grid in the TM has (5) columns with the 5th one dedicated as the week’s “light day.” The work listed in that 5th column is almost always a continuation of day four’s topic. Since we aren’t using the typical 5-day-week schedule, and we don’t do ANY history on our “light day,” I opted to consolidate everything into (4) generously-spaced columns. The weekly column topics are copied directly from the original TM, no creativity required.

Any consecutively repeated book titles get their own dedicated row. This way, a quick glance at the left column tells me what books to grab on any given day.

I leave a handful of blank boxes, allowing space to add things as we go.

Okay, the elephant in the room. WHY DO I LABEL MY GRID USING WEEKS, IF I DON’T INTEND TO COMPLETE THE CURRICULUM WITHIN A SET TIME FRAME? (Notice the WEEK labeled at the top in green, which correlates EXACTLY to the content’s origin within the original TM.) Allow me to explain–and this is SO important: I do *not* associate that AT ALL with what “week of school” we are in. It is there as a reference tag only. Although I rewrite all 34 of the MFW week-at-a-glance grids, I *do not* rewrite the pages of weekly notes from the TM that correspond to those grids. Remember, I am not abandoning the original TM altogether–I’m only abandoning it’s cluttered weekly GRID. I still need to be able to look up its notes for whatever topic we are on, and to reference the book-basket suggestions in the index. Keeping the main label “WEEK ____” also helps me grasp where we are within the scope of the curriculum. I don’t intend to spend eight years studying one era of history, but am fully capable of it if I don’t know where we’ve been and how long the road is ahead. If we deep dive for 4 weeks on castles, I’ll feel free to cover only the basics during less-interesting weeks …sometimes combining two weeks into one. I guess what I’m trying to say is: this method helps me make educated choices.

THIRD: ADD INTEREST!

We live for rabbit trails. With the original TM grid, I never knew where to slap those in. Now I call the shots! I am the master of my curriculum with plenty of space to fill in additional titles/projects.

When we finish a task, I simply cross it out and write the date. If our interest in a topic is waning, I scribble it out. My plan is always fluid and flexible. I highlight the activities I want us to do together as a group. The rest I assign.

THAT’S IT! THREE SIMPLE STEPS.

Why ON EARTH would ANYONE spend time rewriting what they PAID to have already written out for them?? I know–I KNOW. I procrastinated doing this for sooooo long thinking it would be an epic waste of my already squeezed time, and told myself: “SELF. Just focus harder, highlight stuff, copy it off and Sharpie it up or something–for REAL, girl!” So I tried all.the.(quick).things. Then one year I cracked. I had modified the original grid SO much that my copied/highlighted/sharpie’d page was a royal disaster.

It *IS* a labor of love to retype 34 weeks of lesson plans, but for me it’s worth the time investment in order to sail smoothly through our year. Thankfully the content is brilliantly curated by MFW, and all I need to do is copy and corral and carpe diem!