I ask this question every year, but I still haven't found a schedule that really works for us.:? PLEASE (I'm begging), someone who has 3+ kids you are schooling, tell me what your daily schedule is like and also what curriculum you use. We still have 11 school days to go for this year so I'm just pushing through with what we've been doing for now, but I want to try something new when we start back up on Sept 10. I would so appreciate any help/advice/examples you can give me. Thanks so much!
I don't really have a "set" schedule but this is what we do. On Sunday I go over all the kids lessons for the week and I divide any worksheets into M-F folders. I then write down their weekly assignments and place it in their Mon folder. When they wake up and eat breakfast each day, they have to get out their work and do any worksheets they have. After that, they do any other bookwork and then after lunch we do group lessons (history, PE, Home Ec., Art, etc.) We try to finish everything before dinner but it doesn't always happen. I actually don't do a lot of teaching. My kids pretty much read everything and figure it out on their own. Of course, I do teach when I need to and they do come to me with questions. It makes it pretty easy for me as far as teaching. I hope this doesn't sound like I sit back and let them teach themselves! I help where needed, I just don't teach every little thing. We don't have a set time to start school or a set end time. My kids just know that worksheets and bookwork have to be done by lunch. Some of them can get it all done in 1 hour, others need 3+ hours. They regulate themselves (sometimes they do need a little reminding though.)
I'll be listening. I've had to switch my older ones to more independent curricula so I will have time for 3. I'll be working on our schedule next week. Discussions and reading together had been a big part of my time with the older two. I'm having to let them read independently and discuss with me later. The problem with that is that I need to read everything too and I'm trying to figure out when that is going to happen....
Okay, online on a real computer... Let me see if I can type this out logically! Okay, I start with our history curricula (which we use the Diana Waring Series - last year we did the Ancient Civilizations and the Bible, this coming year we'll be doing Romans Reformers and Revolutionaries). The history text is broken into 9 chapters, I call each chapter a "unit" and schedule each unit to take 4 5-day school weeks. I make a master document for each unit which is a 1 page breakdown of the reading, timeline, mapping, activities, bible reading, science experiments, historical fiction reading, etc. As much as I can possibly wrap around this history, I do. For each chapter my kids do an art project and a research project that i I use the master document once a month to plan out the next unit, where I break it down and schedule it for each day of the unit - being careful to mark out days we have co-op, field trips, days off, etc. For each chapter my kids do an art project and a research project that is due the last day of the unit. Also, I try to pick a historical fiction that goes along with the time period and usually do this as a read aloud....sometiems not, but they all fill out a form I call a "Daily Response Form" which has a spot for summarizing the chapter(s) we read, record words to look up (and then look them up!), and to do copy work of their favorite sentence. My kids get a copy of this schedule in their own schedule book. This schedule also includes things that are not wrapped around our history - like Grammar, spelling, math, etc. Even my youngest has a schedule and is very independent. She does have subjects that I do sit with her on, but for the most part she is a "read it myself and learn it" type of kid. Gotta love that. Right? Each of my kids has a file box with files broken down into subject. Each subject has a 2 pocket, three prong folder in it. Work to be done goes on the right, work that is finished goes on the left. The three-prong is used in case they need reference materials in there (like in their IEW folder, it has all the "helpful" materials in there so they're easy to find and don't need to go digging for it causing distraction. Also, i.e. in their Easy Grammar folder I keep the reference pages like their list of prepositions, etc). Their schedule book fits inside the front of the file box, and they have a spot on top of the boxes that has a place for pencils, pens, crayons, scissors, etc. So if they have their box, they pretty much have everything they need to do schoolwork. We can usually grab it an go if we we're doing school on the road for some reason (which does not happen much, but it's nice to know we could if we wanted to!). If you want to see any of my forms/documents, pm me your email addy, I'd be happy to send them to you!
I have 4 kiddos homeschooling and for some reason, my schedule seems more simple than the others sound! Maybe I'm not doing enough!!! For each child, I sat down and broke each subject into 4 day weeks, for 32 weeks. Math, LA, and Religion it looks like about 3-4 lessons, quiz (or test). Creative Writing is daily. Some others - the reading comp. wkbk, mapping wkbk and spelling/vocab are weekly (I got a fiction and nonfiction reading comp. booklet to have it 2x a week). My younger 3 do handwriting (cursive daily, but my oldest practices 2x a week.) Spanish and Latin we alternate, and Science and History/Geo alternate, so 2 days a week for those - which is what Apologia called for (I am using the days planned in the front of the Journal) and I just broke the ABeka History into 2 days/32 weeks increments. If there is a project or experiment we do it Friday so we can take all the time we want. I made this all into an excel spreadsheet for each child, weekly, and they are in charge of getting it all done by Thursday (well, my two oldest are, 11 and 9, the younger two, 5 and 8, need "help" to stay on track). I am there for questions, going over lessons, help and/or teaching, but its as needed, not scheduled. I spend a lot of time with the youngest, obviously. I do go over each subject pretty much as they finish or are working to be sure they know it. We check it all off on their little "goal sheet" on Thursday, any subject thats behind is made up Friday before projects/outings. I also do all quizzes/checkups Thursday and if there is something they still aren't getting, we spend more 1 on 1 time Friday. I record progress for each child/subject on my master excel sheet Fridays. Also, I kind of 'wing' the projects for History. Sometime over the weekend I'll read over next weeks lesson (or 2) & come up with a hands on by googling, or extra stuff - library books, video, outing, ect. We are using ABeka for LA subjects, math, history/geography, Apologia for Science and Creative Writing, Rosetta Stone and HWOT for cursive. Hope this helps, its really simple, but it seems to be working again this year!
I have four kids. My plan (and this is untested as of yet) is to sit and have calendar time together - my oldest two will have calendar notebooks to fill in each morning and my younger two will have a calendar board. I will do Letter of the week with my younger two while I set my older two up with individual work - math for my oldest as he's doing MUS and should be able to do that mostly independently, and his worksheet folder for my kindergartener. They will swap stations and my older son will do some independent reading and grammar work and my kindergartner will do some math activities at our math station. I plan to do book units with my little two so we'll read our book and do an activity with that during the 2nd part of my older two working independently. Then I will put on a video for my youngest three and finish working with my 2nd grader on his spelling/grammar, checking his math etc. Then I will do whatever hands on activities I need to with my kinder while my oldest goes to play with my younger two. By then it will undoubtedly be lunch time. After lunch while my daughter naps my sons will do social studies, and Science or art (we're alternating days for this). I hope to finish all school by 3pm when my daughter wakes up from her nap. So that's how it will work in my head. We start in a week. I'll let you know how it goes. :lol:
Although I only have two kids, this thread is very helpful. Thanks for all the ideas and suggestions.
Well for year schedule I started out with the basic school schedule for time slots. We did bible first, then either Math or Language Arts, each day, I alternated ages so I did math for two hours some times and lang arts for two hours another, why two hours? Cause I had three different levels. We had slots of 1 hour for Math and Larts. We had 30-45 mins for Science, History and Geography, and Bible. Electives were minimal in grade school cause the basics had alot of art and stuff in it. AOP had schedules inside so I followed their p,an for starters. With Easy Grammar I did daily so it was per day, each book I have used or curric. has fit my basic 8=830 Bible 830-930 Math /Larts 930-1030 Larts/math 1030-11 recess 11-1130 H/G 1130-12 Science noon to one lunch Nap for younger children After noon was extra work help or PE, or whatever was left up to 2 pm.
Hi there~ We has been using beestar for math, reading, science. It is curriculum-based from 1st grade to 8th grade, interesting and systermatic. The worksheets are full of all real life world problems, challenging stuff to help kids thinking - some of them make my daughter think or is a great opportunity for me teach advanced concepts. I think it is amazing and easy to used. Lisa
Good help for me too. Thanks. Last year we used morning hours to get housework and errands done. Those are the hours that my two girls play best together -- I guess they missed each other while they slept. ^_^ So I'd usually let them play undisturbed if they didn't have any extra chores to do that day. That way when we sat down for lunch, everyone was full, happy and already settled down and at the table. (We have to use our kitchen table for school too). And an added bonus was that I didn't have any work hanging over my head that I felt pressured to hurry up so I could get to it. Now, last year only one was officially in "school". This year the youngest is going to be in Kindergarten. Even though she sat with us almost the entire school lesson time last year, this year she is going to require even more attention on her own. So, I'm a little anxious. But I'm hoping to start the year giving my 3rd grader assignments and slowly wean her into being completely responsible for some of her subjects by the end of the year.
