Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Schedules


From Grades 1-8, we found that this schedule worked best for us:

1. Reading time after breakfast

2. English and Math Assignments, along with musical instrument practice (daily showers for the boys thrown in the mix somewhere. I took my shower at night.)

3. Lunch and recess

4. Unit studies which blended science or history with fine arts and other topics.

5. P.E. which was often an afternoon sports club or school sport team.

We didn't do this rigidly. Sometimes we had special projects or events that started in the mornings. But mostly, we found this pattern to be the tried-and-true blueprint for our school days.

When my sons entered high school, they preferred to make their own schedules. Interestingly, they kept a pattern very similar to this. I think that's because it fit comfortably on us. They still read for an hour or more and studied English and Math on most mornings. They added one more subject just before lunch -- usually social studies or science. This left them with one core subject, fine arts, foreign languages, and other electives in the afternoons.

I want to hear from my readers and give you a chance to share ideas with each other. What schedule works best for your home school?

4 comments:

  1. Last year we had a hard time sticking to any set schedule. This year, we will be sure to get our bible study, math and LA done in the mornings and electives in the afternoons. I want to open our schedule on Fridays for outings, nature studies, and other fun things. But, I am still in the planning stages! lol

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  2. Thank you for sharing your schedule. Ours is pretty similar. Especially Math in the morning :) Completely agree with not being rigid. Who knows what's truly in store that day? Just today we got side-tracked because there was a backhoe in the backyard. We had to gawk at the large mud pile!
    I also try my best to overlap subjects while living in the "real" world. Maybe a birthday thank you note is the 2nd grader's handwriting assignment for the day.
    I have our schedule posted here. Hope it is a help to someone: http://www.hodgepodge.me/HodgePodge/Homeschool_Highlights/Entries/2009/7/23_Schedule_and_Photos.html

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  3. We're working on a schedule. This is our first week back to school so I'm observing how everything goes. Right now, I wake my daughter up at 7:00am so she can have time to just relax and wake up while I make breakfast. After breakfast, we do some chores and then try to start school by 9:00am at the latest - preferably 8:30am. I have her start with Bible first. We try to do Grammar, math, and history by lunch. If we finish those and there's still time before lunch, I have her move on to another subject, finishing whatever needs to be finished after lunch.

    This afternoon, I did the reading time like you talked about in one of your other posts. I'm still reading through a book that my daughter wants to read so we took about an hour, had coffee and a snack, and had some reading time while our little one had her nap. It was nice. When I get her started on her literature, we will probably try to do this for her time to read the book she has for literature. Or maybe split it up and have her read her literature book for half of the time and then use the remaining half for a book of her choice. We'll see.

    I'm just curious - would others share how early they start their school time and how long they spend on school work on average in a given day.

    Hoping everyone has a great start to their school year!
    Karen

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  4. Thanks for sharing your schedules with the rest of us. It's always interesting to hear what other people are doing in their homes.

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