I want to schedule, but feel like it's micro-managing (Circe, CM people)

[Guest]

ETA: Changed the title because I wasn't trying to announce I was changing my philosophy, I was just trying to catch the audience I'm referring to. :)

 

After reading a bunch of the Circe, CM, multum non multa threads - I think I am jumping on the bandwagon of "teaching from a state of rest". I'm still figuring out what this all means and am hesitant to "label" myself anything, but I see a different vision for our homeschool.

 

SO. I'm sitting here. I have everything we're going to use and am just not sure what to do next. A big part of me feels like I don't need to do anything, but I see the blogs of everyone planning, and I just want to make sure I'm not missing something. I have a loop list of things I want to cover in our Morning Time - am I missing the boat if I just pick a stack of "loop" books each week for a basket and read through them in our Morning Time? (i.e. a poetry book, a Shakespeare book, an artist/composer, etc. each week and work through them.) I don't really want to plan out our literature because I want to go through it as we go through it, leaving time to savor and discuss. (And, it may just be me, but I tend to pick books according to my mood, I don't want to be boxed into set books.) My history plan is to work through CHOW with rabbit trails as they arise. Science is going to be more of an interest-led throughout the year. Math and language arts do not need to be scheduled....so what do I need to plan? I like the idea of ending each morning time with some sort of "output", but I see that mostly being a picture or a narration. Nothing I need to schedule. I feel like, at this point, any kind of planning is more micro-managing than anything else. But, I've always been a super Type-A Scheduler.

 

If you take on this sort of philosophy in your schooling, what should I be planning and/or where do I go from here?!?

[Eagle]

I am planning history and science because I want to have materials ready for projects, and Grandma is helping with history so I want to give her things ahead of time so she can be prepared. I am not scheduling poetry and literature selections at all, or math. WWE, spelling and Latin we will just do the next thing. I am considering loosely scheduling art/music studies simply because those tend to get dropped if we run out of time; scheduling them by month (not day or week) will ensure they get covered.

[Mrs. Y]

This pretty much sums up the way I feel about it.

 

For instance, I love to page through SL, HOD, and MFW catalogs.  But when I page through the manuals for any of those, I instantly feel clausterphobic!   I feel exactly the same way looking at a blank planner.  I do great recording stuff *after* it happened, though.  (<----thanks to Mary Hood's Relaxed Recordkeeping.)

 

I tend to like to have a general idea where we're going (and a good feel for our booklist)....but if we somehow end up on a detour, I am ok with that, too.

 

We are a farm family, so there are plenty of things that come up beyond my control that completely derail *my* plans all.the.time. 

 

 

[Lang Syne Boardie]

For CHOW you might want to loosely frame out the section of time you want to cover, and divvy that up by the number of months you want to spend on it. Then, if your rabbit trails really start to go afield, so to speak, you'll know you should wrap it up within another week (or whatever) to move on to the next topic or period.

 

The same for the literature. The place between OCD and loosey-goosey is to figure out the list and order of the books you are SURE you'd like to cover, and then allow yourself a certain spread of time to get through it at your own pace. (1-3 weeks, perhaps) Then if you start to get the sense that you are straggling too far behind and losing the energy of it, you can look at what's next on your list and speed up a bit so you'll be sure to have time for what you've prioritized. If you allow very generous time for getting through the 8 or 9 books that you definitely want to do, you'll have ample time between them to pursue whatever's interesting you on the library bookshelf as you go.

 

You can have a framework, and your goals and objectives laid out, without daily or weekly schedules that you must slavishly box-check. Your less formal guide helps you to merely course-correct as needed as you travel at your own pace. In my opinion and experience you want to do this, because you probably don't want to find yourself doing this year's work next year due to failure to stay on track at all.

 

If you are working through math and English curric. that call for daily diligence of the "do the next lesson" variety, I agree, there's nothing to schedule.

 

At your dc's ages, your morning loop sounds fairly ideal to me. :)

 

 

[KeriJ]

Nothing.  You don't need to plan anything IMO.  That is what we did last year and loved it!  We started reading through CHOW (the middle ages chapters), and stopped to read related books from the library in between chapters.  But it wasn't a plan.  It was just a stack of books that I wanted to get through.  There was no rushing, we took time to enjoy them.  I didn't make sure everything fit perfectly.  We learned a lot!

 

We did math everyday.  We did grammar, spelling and handwriting every day.  Science was kind of interest-led rabbit trails.  

 

For output, we did notebookingpages.com.....just written narrations and sketching.  We listened to the Geography Songs cd and did some map drills on paper as well as Sheppard's Software.  

 

Morning time subjects were just like you described.....we just read through our stack.

 

It was one of our best years!  I'm hoping I can remember that when I am tempted to over-plan this year.

[Clear Creek]

If you have a list of things you want to cover in morning time, a list of books to choose from for Lit, and you have your ideas for covering science and history set, then you have already finished your planning. You don't have to write out exactly what you want to cover and when; some people do so they can follow a checklist, but you don't have to. As long as you know what to do on the first day of school, your planning is done. :001_smile:

[KeriJ]

double post

[Chelli]

I am a shceduler and a planner {hence the title of my blog series From Type A to Schole}, but I don't see planning and scheduling as the anti-thesis of CiRCE and schole, which is why I'm writing my blog series to show how to mesh the two. The next two posts are actually about how I do this when it comes to our Morning Meeting time and our content subjects. 

For example, I have planned out what poetry books, artists, composers, Shakespeare plays, Plutarch, Bible chapters, myths/tales that we will read for the entire year during Morning Meeting time. I HAVE to do this so that I will have time to pre-read and jot down notes in my notebook of connections that I want to point out or questions that I want to have my girls think about. Some of this discussion occurs naturally, but I like to have my own notes to help them learn to make connections. If I just went into it willy-nilly, then it wouldn't work for me. Some people can probably fly by the seat of their pants like that, but I cannot {type A all the way!}.

Same for content subjects. I have planned what topics I want to cover. I have resources lined up to do that. I have a goal of how far I want us to get in those content subjects each week. Again, I try to pre-read some of the books to help draw connections and model how to do that.

This is just a few of my thoughts on the subject, but I hope it helped.

 

 

[HS Mom in NC]

Where do you want to be at the end of your school year, whenever that is? Are there things you absolutely want to cover and things you'd like to if you have time?  How does that relate to what you want to accomplish by the time your children are done being homeschooled (long term goals) and ready for the next phase of their education?

 

If you want your children to take an ACT, SAT, PSAT test at the end of their high school years, what skill sets and content will they need to master in preparation for that?  How far away is that for each of them?

If you want your children to be able to apply to a selective college or the military or to learn a trade, what will they need to have done so you're not scrambling at the end? Do you have a good idea of what most of the selective colleges are looking for? Do you have an idea about how account for that in your studies your way and then record it in a transcript in a way that that a university can understand?

Are you covering a certain time period or school of thought with your studies this year?  I have a friend who does Circe influenced things and this year they're covering Christendom.  What are the things most important to you in what you're studying for this section?  How does that fit into what you want to cover later in the years you have with your children?  What are you going to require of them and what are they free to pursue on their own?  For how long? 

 

My guess (and it's just a guess) is you may need:

1. A skeleton of long term goals for each kid.

2. A skeleton of mid-range goals.

3. A skeleton of this year's goals.

4. A list of things you absolutely want to cover.

5. A list of things you'd like to get to if you have time.

 

If it were me and if I understand your situation, I think maybe scheduling the essentials and scheduling  time for non-essentials (which you wouldn't have to specify or decide on now) and rabbit trails might work. I don't know what time frames the scheduling would be in.  Weekly?  Every two weeks? Every month?  Every 6 weeks? Every two months?

[birchbark]

A list of goals, or books or projects you want to do might be all you need. I made lists of goals for my 7th-grader this past year every six weeks. I didn't schedule my 1st-grader at all, and it was fine! Although I wish I would have made a quick list of things I knew I wanted to do, because I did forget a few. Like the indoor Easter garden with real grass. Hunter often posts a Youtube with a quick, loose planning method made from a piece of paper folded into squares, and each square is for a month. (ETA:

it is.)

 

I should mention, since I try to teach to mastery, I do not plan out skill subjects (math, LA). We stay with a concept until it is fully grasped.

[Guest]

Thank you all for taking the time to answer. Some good food for thought here. I especially like these answers because I feel there are some that apply to me right now and some I can apply as the kids get older, which I hadn't really started thinking about yet.

 

 

This pretty much sums up the way I feel about it.

 

For instance, I love to page through SL, HOD, and MFW catalogs.  But when I page through the manuals for any of those, I instantly feel clausterphobic!   I feel exactly the same way looking at a blank planner.  I do great recording stuff *after* it happened, though.  (<----thanks to Mary Hood's Relaxed Recordkeeping.)

 

I tend to like to have a general idea where we're going (and a good feel for our booklist)....but if we somehow end up on a detour, I am ok with that, too.

 

We are a farm family, so there are plenty of things that come up beyond my control that completely derail *my* plans all.the.time. 

 

I realize that I am feeling the same way about the boxed currics. When I got my MFW guide this year, I couldn't open it without almost bursting into tears. I felt so overwhelmed. Recording after the fact may be a good idea. I resurrected my blog because I feel like I need somewhere to "record".

 

For CHOW you might want to loosely frame out the section of time you want to cover, and divvy that up by the number of months you want to spend on it. Then, if your rabbit trails really start to go afield, so to speak, you'll know you should wrap it up within another week (or whatever) to move on to the next topic or period.

 

The same for the literature. The place between OCD and loosey-goosey is to figure out the list and order of the books you are SURE you'd like to cover, and then allow yourself a certain spread of time to get through it at your own pace. (1-3 weeks, perhaps) Then if you start to get the sense that you are straggling too far behind and losing the energy of it, you can look at what's next on your list and speed up a bit so you'll be sure to have time for what you've prioritized. If you allow very generous time for getting through the 8 or 9 books that you definitely want to do, you'll have ample time between them to pursue whatever's interesting you on the library bookshelf as you go.

 

You can have a framework, and your goals and objectives laid out, without daily or weekly schedules that you must slavishly box-check. Your less formal guide helps you to merely course-correct as needed as you travel at your own pace. In my opinion and experience you want to do this, because you probably don't want to find yourself doing this year's work next year due to failure to stay on track at all.

 

If you are working through math and English curric. that call for daily diligence of the "do the next lesson" variety, I agree, there's nothing to schedule.

 

At your dc's ages, your morning loop sounds fairly ideal to me. :)

 

This was very helpful. I feel like I am definitely in a place between OCD and loosey-goosey -  just kind of as a homeschooling mom. Trying to figure out a new journey for us. What I've heard in a few of these posts is to make a booklist, though it doesn't need to be hard and fast. I have a ton of booklists floating around, but I think it probably would help to at least make a consolidated list of some books I want to make sure and hit.

 

Nothing.  You don't need to plan anything IMO.  That is what we did last year and loved it!  We started reading through CHOW (the middle ages chapters), and stopped to read related books from the library in between chapters.  But it wasn't a plan.  It was just a stack of books that I wanted to get through.  There was no rushing, we took time to enjoy them.  I didn't make sure everything fit perfectly.  We learned a lot!

 

We did math everyday.  We did grammar, spelling and handwriting every day.  Science was kind of interest-led rabbit trails.  

 

For output, we did notebookingpages.com.....just written narrations and sketching.  We listened to the Geography Songs cd and did some map drills on paper as well as Sheppard's Software.  

 

Morning time subjects were just like you described.....we just read through our stack.

 

It was one of our best years!  I'm hoping I can remember that when I am tempted to over-plan this year.

 

Well, it sounds like this is exactly what we're going to do! I think I will make a consolidated book list of things I'd like to make sure "not to miss", but I'm SOOO glad to hear that this went so well for you guys.

 

I am a shceduler and a planner {hence the title of my blog series From Type A to Schole}, but I don't see planning and scheduling as the anti-thesis of CiRCE and schole, which is why I'm writing my blog series to show how to mesh the two. The next two posts are actually about how I do this when it comes to our Morning Meeting time and our content subjects. 

For example, I have planned out what poetry books, artists, composers, Shakespeare plays, Plutarch, Bible chapters, myths/tales that we will read for the entire year during Morning Meeting time. I HAVE to do this so that I will have time to pre-read and jot down notes in my notebook of connections that I want to point out or questions that I want to have my girls think about. Some of this discussion occurs naturally, but I like to have my own notes to help them learn to make connections. If I just went into it willy-nilly, then it wouldn't work for me. Some people can probably fly by the seat of their pants like that, but I cannot {type A all the way!}.

Same for content subjects. I have planned what topics I want to cover. I have resources lined up to do that. I have a goal of how far I want us to get in those content subjects each week. Again, I try to pre-read some of the books to help draw connections and model how to do that.

This is just a few of my thoughts on the subject, but I hope it helped.

 

I sure didn't mean to make it sound like you can't school this way AND plan. No way, no how. In fact, I kind of posted this because YOU aren't posting your series fast enough!!! :toetap05: Totally saying that in a joking manner. I am totally LOVING your series. I'm trying to decide if my manner is still to be like this - Type A, OCD - or if I've possibly changed in the last few years. I know that personally I've gone through a lot and feel that my personality has changed a lot. I do feel like the Lord has led me to this point at this same time that a couple other people are wading through this to help ME!

 

Where do you want to be at the end of your school year, whenever that is? Are there things you absolutely want to cover and things you'd like to if you have time?  How does that relate to what you want to accomplish by the time your children are done being homeschooled (long term goals) and ready for the next phase of their education?

 

If you want your children to take an ACT, SAT, PSAT test at the end of their high school years, what skill sets and content will they need to master in preparation for that?  How far away is that for each of them?

If you want your children to be able to apply to a selective college or the military or to learn a trade, what will they need to have done so you're not scrambling at the end? Do you have a good idea of what most of the selective colleges are looking for? Do you have an idea about how account for that in your studies your way and then record it in a transcript in a way that that a university can understand?

Are you covering a certain time period or school of thought with your studies this year?  I have a friend who does Circe influenced things and this year they're covering Christendom.  What are the things most important to you in what you're studying for this section?  How does that fit into what you want to cover later in the years you have with your children?  What are you going to require of them and what are they free to pursue on their own?  For how long? 

 

My guess (and it's just a guess) is you may need:

1. A skeleton of long term goals for each kid.

2. A skeleton of mid-range goals.

3. A skeleton of this year's goals.

4. A list of things you absolutely want to cover.

5. A list of things you'd like to get to if you have time.

 

If it were me and if I understand your situation, I think maybe scheduling the essentials and scheduling  time for non-essentials (which you wouldn't have to specify or decide on now) and rabbit trails might work. I don't know what time frames the scheduling would be in.  Weekly?  Every two weeks? Every month?  Every 6 weeks? Every two months?

 

Well, I have definitely not started thinking about high school goals and beyond just yet...I want to make sure I can do this in the here and now at this point. That being said, as I read through this a second and third time, I think there are a lot of good questions that you pose that I am going to print out and keep for the future. I'll be honest that asking a lot of questions at this point overwhelms me. I don't know where I want to go. I don't know what my goals are at this point. I don't know that I can even teach this way. When I hear some people speak about educating their children, I pale in comparison. I want the kids to love to learn and love to read. I want them to grow up loving the Lord and able to understand and coherently defend their beliefs. As far as academics go, I don't know. I just don't know. And I think that's okay for 4th grade. That's where I just continue reading and gleaning from those of you who are blazing the trail before me.

[Guest]

A list of goals, or books or projects you want to do might be all you need. I made lists of goals for my 7th-grader this past year every six weeks. I didn't schedule my 1st-grader at all, and it was fine! Although I wish I would have made a quick list of things I knew I wanted to do, because I did forget a few. Like the indoor Easter garden with real grass. Hunter often posts a Youtube with a quick, loose planning method made from a piece of paper folded into squares, and each square is for a month. 

 

I should mention, since I try to teach to mastery, I do not plan out skill subjects (math, LA). We stay with a concept until it is fully grasped.

 

I love this idea. Over-arching goals are too much for me right now. I was thinking of doing a schedule of 6 weeks on/1 week off anyway, so re-evaluating goals and where we are at in small increments like this sounds very do-able.

 

It is exciting to me to hear how every family does things.  It makes me less apprehensive of failing....

[Mrs. Y]

Phoenix,

I do keep a "school blog" although I am hesitant to post it because it is such a "mess", loose-ended, and incomplete. 

 

I have a stack of composition books from when my olders were young.  I really do like going through those old comp books and reading them.  I've considered editing them and having them printed to share with others.  Maybe someday.

 

A blog is nice because you can add pictures, which I do from my phone. So, both ways have their pros and cons.

[Guest]

Thank you for sharing that, Colleen. I loved the post from back in April when your boys were sharing how much they learned about history without even doing a "history". A great snapshot of a real family doing real life.

[Chelli]

I sure didn't mean to make it sound like you can't school this way AND plan. No way, no how. In fact, I kind of posted this because YOU aren't posting your series fast enough!!! :toetap05: Totally saying that in a joking manner. I am totally LOVING your series. I'm trying to decide if my manner is still to be like this - Type A, OCD - or if I've possibly changed in the last few years. I know that personally I've gone through a lot and feel that my personality has changed a lot. I do feel like the Lord has led me to this point at this same time that a couple other people are wading through this to help ME!

 

LOL! Sorry about my slow posting schedule. I'll try to not sleep or eat for the next few days to finish it up.  ;) Actually we're getting ready to leave for church camp so I'm trying to get the next two posts written so they can post while I'm gone. Those two posts are the real nitty gritty of how I satisfy my type A personality with not being such a locked in and box checking mad woman.

 

Ultimately I think that the wake up call for myself was when I looked at our homeschool and realized that it was all rush, rush, rush. I would push and push the kids to hurry and finish. If they had questions I'd tell them to wait we didn't have time for that. One day I just stopped and thought, "Who am I?!? This is NOT what I want our homeschool to look like. If they can't ask and discuss here then where can they?" So to not feed my type A, I had to let go of box curriculum with schedules and boxes to check off. I had to change how I viewed education and stop worrying and being afraid I'd screw up and ruin their life.

 

Just doing these two things really helped me to tone down the negative parts of my type A personality, but, honestly, being type A is not all bad. So I kept the good things about being a planner. I know what things of truth, beauty, goodness, and wisdom I want to focus on. I know what history topics I want to cover. I know what books I want them to read. I don't need a curriculum to tell me that. I make my lists. I set up a schedule, but I don't let myself get out of control about the schedule or the plan. It's like free flow, but within structure, if that makes sense. 

 

And that was totally rambling, but maybe you understood what I was trying to say.  :tongue_smilie:

[Guest]

 

And that was totally rambling, but maybe you understood what I was trying to say.  :tongue_smilie:

 

I hear you and know EXACTLY what you are saying. I think I'm just a few weeks behind you, but I've been having all those same feelings and thoughts. I sat down last night with my husband to have "the talk" - the one where I tell him that I've really been questioning our homeschooling and who we are and what we're doing. He was surprisingly super open to everything I said and he's pretty excited about this new direction. You don't know how many times I have thought the last few days, gosh, I wish I had Chelli's phone number, because I need to call her and pick her brain. :)

[KeriJ]

And to add to my post above:  in the middle of the school year, I panicked a little thinking we weren't doing "enough".  I ordered 2 levels of HOD, and we started in January.  I soon became completely overwhelmed, and school became drudgery for us all.

 

When we went back to the way we had started the year, it went so much better and I feel we learned so much more!

[Chelli]

I hear you and know EXACTLY what you are saying. I think I'm just a few weeks behind you, but I've been having all those same feelings and thoughts. I sat down last night with my husband to have "the talk" - the one where I tell him that I've really been questioning our homeschooling and who we are and what we're doing. He was surprisingly super open to everything I said and he's pretty excited about this new direction. You don't know how many times I have thought the last few days, gosh, I wish I had Chelli's phone number, because I need to call her and pick her brain. :)

 

All you have to do is ask!  :thumbup:

 

I love hashing stuff out with people. It helps me more than it probably does them.

[birchbark]

Yes, Chelli's posts have been fabulous lately. :)

[PagesandFields]

I love this idea. Over-arching goals are too much for me right now. I was thinking of doing a schedule of 6 weeks on/1 week off anyway, so re-evaluating goals and where we are at in small increments like this sounds very do-able.

 

It is exciting to me to hear how every family does things.  It makes me less apprehensive of failing....

 

I just switched to 6 weeks on 1 week off and it completely made this kind of planning/non-planning easier for me.  I hope to plan some very efficient core stuff that's scheduled...  some math, LA, spirit stories, field trips/events... and everything else is just book lists that really only have to be organized so I have right materials.. so re-evaluating every 6 weeks just fits so much better.  I hope beyond some scheduled math and LA that I can mostly just work through lists of books and materials.  I really love the depth that you can get from a tangent, so I hope to fit those in.  

 

For myself I need some stuff planned, but for the kind of environment I want to give I really need a sense of freedom.  Mine are still really young and hardly even in schooling, but I have a background in education so I have the long range plans already in my head.  So I don't have too much practical advice to give.  But... I can relate so I wanted to comment.  I made up a HS planner for myself that I can use to plan a week ahead but I can record daily or weekly what we ACTUALLY did so that I can regroup every 6 weeks.  If it would be helpful to you I'm happy to share it.  I'm trying to put a lot of stuff I've put together on a website so I can share them if they're useful, but I haven't figured out every aspect of it.  I can check to see if the planner download is working and share it if you want. :)

[Chelli]

Yes, Chelli's posts have been fabulous lately. :)

 

You are too kind and you KNOW how much I've agonized over this entire process. I sound a lot more confident in these posts then I was about 3 months ago, but I've already seen some amazing fruit so I feel 1,000 times more sure of myself than I did.

[pehp]

I don't know if this is helpful, but I am definitely a scheduler/planner/Type A but I don't think this detracts from my teaching from a state of rest (and confidence!).  

 

The way I work this out is that I plan in detail in the summer months.  I plan out which artist or composer we'll be studying and when (we follow an AO-ish schedule of 3 terms), I create a chart of staggering our readings for history/literature, etc.  I am a chart-lover.  The more I do in the summer, the better I feel later in the year--because I don't feel overwhelmed w/ planning AND teaching. I plan first, and then teach.  Not co-teach-plan, not really.  Not that there's a lot to plan--in reality. I think most of this is psychological for me. 

 

I don't plan out the pace of our math or phonics, because my goal is to do a bit each day (20 minute or less of each) and just keep working sequentially.  This could easily apply to everything else, like literature, history etc. I don't plan out spelling/grammar (new for us this year) but rather plan to do a tiny bit on certain days, and just work through the books that way.  

 

I do assign reading assignments for each week (again using the AO charts as a framework, but changing them significantly to fit my own needs), but I know we will probably fall behind in some of them, and that doesn't bother me. It's not really a race to the finish in my mind.  For me, having a somewhat detailed plan is a balm to my spirit and makes me feel assured, and then during the year I use it as a guide.... with confidence that rearranging or delaying is just fine. I guess that's where the state of rest comes into play. 

 

Frankly I think your current plan sounds just fine! You will do fine looping through subjects in the morning.  Taking literature as it comes is wise.  (I basically do this in practice, but to soothe my OCD spirit I plan it out in advance. As I get older perhaps this will cease!!) It sounds great!  

[Critterfixer]

With morning time, instead of trying to take on a loop of things, I have just started with two things: a read-aloud and a quick Civics lesson. I'll add more stuff in as it comes up, because stuff just seems to keep coming up. I am finding that it will be useful for me to have a notebook to jot things down so that I can look up things or find a resource or remember to come back to it and things like that.

That's kind of my morning time structure for now. 

 

The rest of my day for school has structure. It must, or I would not be at rest. I try to follow the pattern discussed in Kern's lectures: Have a plan, do the work for the day, assess and move one. When we are done, we are done. If it isn't done correctly, and there is time, we get it right that day. If there isn't time, or attitudes are bad (today for example, there is so much noise in the house that everyone is on edge) we can hit that tomorrow or another day entirely. So I don't really have anything for a schedule beyond knowing what books I am drawing from, and what times of the day work best for certain studies.

 

For history and science this year, I plan to be covering a lot of the same literature, time periods and content at a different level than the boys. They will be reading adaptations of some stuff that I'll be reading from translations. They will be going through Ancient History-so will I. I plan to let that sort of percolate into their studies when I identify some things that we can research together or discuss together. When it comes to output, I tend to prefer the input have time to sit around and soak for a while. So far, the output of morning time discussion has been pretty productive in generating thinking and in dredging up new and interesting things to read and talk about, which is pretty much all I want to require for now.

[craftyerin]

Thank you for this thread! I have been having EXACTLY the same thoughts. I have a daily list of subjects, materials chosen for my morning time loop, for my 3Rs, for my read aloud loop, for history, for science, etc.  But I was planning on mostly "doing the next thing" in each loop/subject, without any more detailed planning than I have right now.  I keep reading all the blog posts and discussions about CM-ish homeschools needing more scheduled days and struggling with whether or not I was doing enough of that.  I think I'm OK! I know how long each lesson should take, and I'm committed to obeying the clock, not the amount of material we cover, so that we're keeping within CM's time frames for lessons at my kids' age/stage.  I just don't see how I need more of a schedule than that!  Anyway, you're not alone, I'm right there with you, and I think we'll both be fine. ;)