When I was first looking into homeschooling our kids, the most daunting task for me seemed to be how to schedule and manage a school day, school week, and school year. All the examples I could find seemed to be in such contrast with each other, and I was having trouble determining the "right" or "best" way to be organized. Some home school moms are uber organized. They can plan an entire year for 8 children in one sitting, and rarely deviate from the master plan. Other moms like to go with the flow, they have a plan but it's very loose and fluid and they feel comfortable about changing it last minute to do whatever feels best when they wake up in the morning. Most are somewhere in between, but still with a lot of variety. Some families do all their school in the morning. Some focus on one different subject each day of the week, while others do all subjects every day. Some families only school three days a week, and others school seven. Some stick to the "typical" public school year, and some school all year round. Some families take off an entire month for Christmas. Add in all the different curricula out there, and you'll soon notice that very few families are studying the exact same thing in the exact same way.
So it finally dawned on me, that I wasn't going to be able to copy anybody's routine; but rather, I was going to have to go through a trial and error process to see what would work best for me as a teacher in combination with my individual children and their needs and interests. It is a work in progress. And I think it always will be. I think we will always be adjusting here, and tweaking there, to make the right fit for our family.
For me, the first major priority was deciding what curriculum we were going to use. I have a Kindergartener, a Preschooler, a toddler, and a bun in the oven this year. So it took some time to decide what I wanted to teach, what was going to be best for each child, and what was going to be realistic and do-able as a whole. For example, my personality is more inclined to put together my own curriculum, as opposed to using a scripted one. But this year, time, energy, and patience are big factors. So I opted to go with a more scripted Kindergarten, while still putting together my own Preschool agenda. In a nutshell, that's how our current curricula came to be. Some day maybe I'll do an entire post on it, but not today.
Next, I had to decide how to accomplish all the schooling I'd taken on, and still squeeze in some time for house work, errands, down time, play dates, and some personal space for me. It's not always perfect (ok, it's very rarely perfect!), but here is what is currently working for us.
First of all, I needed to plan and write the plan down. But I found that I feel too confined when I schedule things out very strictly. Planning for an entire year at a time is not an option I can do. It stressed me out, and I find that I don't stick to it anyway. The ideal amount of time for me to plan in advance is a week. Usually, I know within a week's notice what kind of doctor's appointments or field trip opportunities, or weather, or holiday I'm going to have, and I can plan around them. I also discovered, through trial and error, that I am not able to stick to a schedule where everything has to be done at a precise time of day. I am unable to say that we'll start math at 10:00am sharp and finish at exactly 10:30 so we can move on to handwriting. Doesn't work for me. My life with young children doesn't fit nicely into half hour blocks I'm afraid.
My wonderful husband bought me a weekly planner (with monthly calendars too!) at WalMart, and it has literally been a life saving device for me. A typical week looks like this:
(If you click on it, it will get bigger)
What I do, is make a list of everything I want to get done for school that day, divided into who is supposed to accomplish what. Every day is divided into All, Lincoln, Ivan. All being what I want all three children to be apart of, Lincoln being what is specific to Linc, Ivan being what is specific to Ivan. Then if there is anything else going on that day, it goes either before or after the "school block" depending on where it would fall in our day. For example, on Wednesdays Ivan has preschool co-op starting at 9:30am, so I write Preschool 9:30-11:00 before our school stuff, because I take Ivan to preschool before we do any school work. On Thursday of the week shown above, I had a doctor's appointment at 3:00pm, so I write that below the school block, because we'll most likely be finished with school before I leave for my doctor's appointment.
Now, I'll do a run-down of a typical week. I can't really do a typical day, because the days can be so different depending on what day it is. I'll use the week above as my example week.
Monday and Tuesday- These two days are about the same. And they are my best days for school because they are uninterrupted and we don't generally need to leave the house for anything.
We wake up sometime between 7:00-8:00am. The boys have to get dressed and clean their rooms before breakfast. We eat breakfast. Read scriptures and have prayer with Dad before he leaves (some time between 8:45-9:10). Then I usually try to finish getting ready for the day and/or clean up the kitchen so it doesn't drive me nuts while we do school. But sometimes we start school even if the house is a disaster.
I try to start school around 9:30am. I start on my all list, because it's easier to keep the kids all together and interested very first thing. Under the all list looks like this:
All
Devotional
Read Aloud
Handwriting
Story of the World
Devotional- For devotional each child gets to pick a primary song to sing. My kids like to lead the music with pencils while we sing. I let them, because it helps them hold still. Then we have a prayer. Last we read a chapter out of the illustrated scriptures for kids.
Read Aloud- Then we read a chapter from our family read aloud book. Right now we're reading George's Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl. Some we've read in the past are Peter Pan, Dr. Dolittle, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, James and the Giant Peach, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, etc.
Handwriting- Lincoln and Ivan are working through Handwriting Without Tears. When we finish with the Letters and Numbers for Me book, Lincoln will move on to the next one, and Ivan will repeat this one. While the boys do their handwriting, Adelia gets to sit at the table with us and either scribble on a paper with a pencil, color in her coloring book, draw on the white board with a marker, or use scissors to cut a scratch paper into tiny bits. She thinks she's doing her handwriting. And in a way, she is, since the things she gets to choose from help her fine motor skills.
Story of the World- The last item on our All list is Story of the World, which is our history curriculum. But we don't do that every day. I have it on audio CD and we listen to it whenever we're in the car. I call it multitasking. And I am amazed what kinds of facts the kids pick up from it. They prefer listing to "stories" as they call it, over music almost all of the time.
The All list takes us anywhere from 15-35 minutes, depending on how cooperative my children are, and the length of the chapters in the books we read aloud. Then we start on the Lincoln and Ivan lists, which look like this:
Linc
EtC
Math U See
Funnix
Writing w/Ease
Ivan
Cutting
Name
Letter of the Week
EtC- Explode the Code, we are 2/3rds of the way through book 3. Lincoln does one page in this every day (unless we miss a day, then he does two to make up). He can do this mostly on his own, so I let him do it independently while I help Ivan with his cutting.
Cutting- Ivan is using the Big Skills for Little Hand I Can Cut! book, he does one page per day and we're about half way through it. When he's finished with it, we'll move on to one of the other books in the series, either I Can Paste, I Can Draw, or I Can Trace. Ivan usually finishes his cutting before Lincoln finishes EtC, so then Ivan moves on to writing his name.
Name- I have Ivan write his name 3 times, we're working on trying to make the letters as big as the lined space, getting the letters in the right order, and putting them close enough together that they look like they go together. Depending on Ivan's mood we are more or less successful. When Ivan has finished the first two things on his list, I let him have 20 minutes of screen time. He usually chooses to play Fungooms on the computer, but sometimes he'll watch Signing Time or Letter Factory. Adelia usually chooses to watch with him. By this time Linc is done with EtC, I check it and make him fix any mistakes he's made, and talk about the ones he did really well, then we move on to math.
Math U See- Math U See is a curriculum based around using manipulatives to solve the problems so that you can "see" the answers in front of you. I probably wouldn't have picked this curriculum if left up to my own thinking, but I felt VERY strongly that this was the right curriculum for Lincoln, and so far that is proving to be true. We are 3 lessons away from finished the Primer, and I will be ordering Alpha soon, so we can keep going with it. Each lesson is divided up into sections A-F, a section being a front and back of a single page. On Mondays and Tuesdays Linc does two sections (eg. A and B) and then Wednesday-Friday he only does one section, unless we miss a day, then he does two to catch up. Math usually takes us anywhere from 10-40 minutes depending on 1) How cooperative Lincoln is, and 2) how hard the material is that we're working with. Sometimes, if Linc has the material down pretty well, I can stand at the sink and do dishes while he sits and the kitchen table and does math. When he's finished, I go over all his answers and make him fix the ones he missed. Generally speaking we are done by the time Ivan's screen time is over.
Depending on what time is it after that, we either, let the kids take a break while I make lunch, or start on our Letter of the Week activity.
Letter of the Week- These are meant to be preschool activities so I gear them to be on Ivan's skill level, but the other two are allowed to participate with us, and usually choose to. I plan on the Letter of the Week activity taking around 20 minutes, but it most definitely depends on what it is. On Monday I usually try to do a letter craft, which is a fun craft that looks like the letter of the week, and apple pie A for example, that way we can hang it on the fridge all week to look at. Some activities are food activities, and depending on the food, we'll eat it at a meal time instead of during letter of the week time of day. If it's an outing, then sometimes we do that in the evening as a family. Sometimes we'll do a couple letter of the week activities in one day, and none on a day when we're busier or tired. I generally try to include a craft, story, math or science something, and a food item of some sort into Letter of the Week, but the activities do vary topic to topic.
I try to eat lunch by 12:00 so I can get Adelia down for her nap by 12:30. Sometimes it's earlier, sometimes it's later. Also around 12:30 Ivan goes down for quiet time. He may or may not sleep, depending on what he feels like, but he has to stay in his room with a stack of books and a bucket of legos, listening to a Jim Weiss CD and being quiet while Adelia is sleeping. I use the first part of quiet time to finish up Lincoln's list.
Funnix- Funnix is the reading program I just started with Lincoln. It's on the computer. It takes us about 30 minutes to do a lesson. It's not my favorite program, I like it, but I don't love it. If I ever find anything I like better that is on Lincoln's level I'd switch with no regrets. That being said, there are a lot of things I like about Funnix, and Lincoln is currently enjoying it. After his reading lesson, we finish up his school day with writing.
Writing With Ease- I like Writing With Ease a lot! It's probably my favorite piece of curriculum. It's written by Susan Wise Bower, the same lady who wrote Story of the World. And I just really agree with and like her approach to teaching children to write. I like that she uses examples from classic children's literature. Lincoln calls it his "story book writing" or his "writing with all the stories in it". He does one section out of the work book every day Mon-Thurs. and takes a break from it on Fridays. It take him about 10 minutes or less to complete a section.
So, at about 1:45pm or so, Lincoln goes upstairs for quiet time, he usually chooses to play Legos or make cards for people. Then I have from 1:45-3:00pm all to myself. I usually take a break, as opposed to house work, because I need a little down time too. I read, or blog, or get on facebook, or answer emails, or make phone calls, or lately take a nap. :) This is my time.And I'm cranky if I don't get it!
Nap time ends at 3:00pm or right around there. I try to have this be fairly unstructured time for the kids. We either play outside, go to the park, visit Grandma Swan, or have play dates. Sometimes we run errands in the afternoon. Or, if we took the morning off for any number of reasons, then we'll do school in the afternoons, but we aren't as productive when we do that.
If we stay home, I usually turn on a Magic School Bus episode at about 4:45pm so I can either start on dinner or clean up a little before Aaron gets home. Aaron gets home anywhere between 5:00-5:45 depending on what time he left in the morning. We eat dinner around 6:00. Then the kids get some Daddy time, or we go somewhere as a family, or to a soccer game or swimming lessons if either of those are in season. Bed time for the kiddos is 7:30 (ish). Bedtime for Aaron and I is 10:00pm (ish).
Wednesdays
This is my crazy day. Ivan has preschool co-op in the morning, so we don't do the All or the Ivan list on this day. While Ivan is at preschool, Lincoln and I can usually complete his whole list. If it's my turn to teach the co-op (once every 5 weeks ish), then we bag school entirely for that day. Ivan gets home from preschool at 11:00, and I give the kids free time from 11:00-12:00. At 12:00 we eat lunch, and get ready to leave the house, because on Wednesday afternoons we have clubs with our home school group from 1:00-2:30. We get home from clubs around 3:30ish and the kids have to have quiet time for about an hour. I am done and usually frazzled by this point, so when they get up from quiet time they can do whatever they want until Daddy comes home.
Thursdays
By Thursday, I'm usually tired, and don't have as much energy for school as I did on Monday and Tuesday, so we take it a little easier. We still have the same basic schedule as Mon/Tues but I'm not quite as adamant that we finish it all. I try to schedule less book work, and more art projects, games, etc. This is the day I usually run errands, or schedule Dr. appointments.
Fridays
Fridays are about the same as Thursdays. We do some school in the mornings, and then we have Park Day with our home school group. As soon as our group starts Friday Fun Classes (at the end of October) I won't schedule any school at all for this day.
1 comment:
You are supermom! Way to go! I may take some ideas from you. :)
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