lotsofpumpkins Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 Has anyone tried doing all of their content subjects first each day, and THEN doing the 3Rs? Our days haven't been running very smoothly lately, and I'm thinking it would help to do all of our group subjects first before everyone splits up to do their math/LA. Everyone takes such different amounts of time to do their individual work that I'm having trouble figuring out when to bring everyone back together again. I'm thinking doing history/science first could work out fine, as long as we don't let the math/LA slide. Any thoughts on this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5LittleMonkeys Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 We do this. This coming year our morning work will be Narnia study and Beautiful Feet Geography from 9 to 11 on Tuesday and Thursday, and Science and Am. History from 9 to 11 on Wednesday and Friday. Once that's done then everyone will work on math for 40 minutes, then vocab or penmanship for 20 minutes. Break for lunch then everyone will listen to a SOTW chapter on cd and do the mapwork together then they all move into their individual subjects while I rotate through working one on one with whoever needs it. This doesn't apply to dd16 or dd15 since they don't do subjects with the younger three. Once I'm finished with the younger 3, in the afternoon around 3, then I do any group subjects with the older two...usually it's only about 30 minutes of an enrichment type subject. I've found this schedule to work better for us. The kids are enthusiastic to get started in the morning with the content subjects, and are motivated to stay focused and get done with the core subjects in the afternoon. Having a lunch and rest break then audio book in between gives them a nice mental break too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coco_Clark Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 We do this. All together, then split for individual lessons. Although my DS6 has been getting up early and doing math before wven before breakfast. Not my favorite, I like a good hour of caffeine in my system before I have to teach math :/ We are going to toy this fall with meeting together at the end of the day as well and see how it works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IsabelC Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 I think your idea sounds great. With five students all at different stages of learning, it's not surprising they don't all get their individual work done in the same amount of time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MotherOfBoys Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 I never considered this...hmm...what do you do if the 3 r's don't get finished? Put them first the next day? I would feel like a bad teacher if I didn't get the 3 r's done but not if Sotw didn't get finished. How do you deal with this? Something is more apt to distract us towards noon then 8am. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coco_Clark Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 If we don't finish before lunch we do it after lunch, if we don't finish after lunch we finish at 3, if we don't finish at 3, we work on it before dinner, or after dinner, and so on. Although it doesn't happen often. The important point is that I find that I will do that with the three rs, when I'd be tempted to let, say, poetry fall off the schedule. Which is funny, really, because if I had to choose I think poetry is more important than phonics. For us that's part of the beauty of doing it first. :). It keeps is from gettimg distracted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5LittleMonkeys Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 I never considered this...hmm...what do you do if the 3 r's don't get finished? Put them first the next day? I would feel like a bad teacher if I didn't get the 3 r's done but not if Sotw didn't get finished. How do you deal with this? Something is more apt to distract us towards noon then 8am. Not finishing the 3 R's usually just isn't an issue for us. On the rare occasion that we don't due to illness, or some other unforseen circumstance we just pick up where we left off on the next day. I don't schedule the 3 R's by day ... meaning we don't do lesson X on Aug.5th, lesson Y on Aug. 6th and so on. Instead our 3 R's are just do the next lesson and we just keep plugging away until we complete the program. We kind of school year round so there isn't any pressure to complete a curriculum by a specific day of the year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hollyhock Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 We do this, too. It works out really well because then after they are done their 3R's and independent work, they are done for the day and don't have to wait around for anyone else to finish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs. A Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 Here we do content first because our days just flow that way. We say prayers and read the Bible and the other group things just fall into place somewhere after that. The flow of our day and the personalities of my kids don't really lend themselves to any independent work before we come together for prayers. Maybe eventually that will change, I don't know. But for now we do our together subjects in the morning and then when the 2 year old is napping I am able to work with the others individually in peace. It is not peaceful if we try to work it out in the morning. Not at all. I tried and tried to make it work, but now our days flow so smoothly that I wonder why it took me so long to accept the inevitable: nap time is a good time do get things done! OP, I see that the ages of your kids are pretty much past nap age, but if you have an afternoon quiet time regularly, that might lend itself well to working on individual subjects in the afternoon rather than morning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lotsofpumpkins Posted August 1, 2014 Author Share Posted August 1, 2014 Thanks for the replies! I think we'll try this and see how it goes. Mrs. A- no naps here. The 3yo gave them up a LONG time ago. He is usually content to play while we do schoolwork though. We've never had a quiet time in the afternoon either, since we are usually working on school still after lunch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MotherOfBoys Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 I'm thinking we will try this when we start next week. Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happypamama Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 I usually work on the one on one/skills stuff first because it needs the most mental focus. Often, I split it up; I have the kids start on their individual work, and at some point when they've accomplished quite a bit of that, we take a break for the together subjects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momto6inIN Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 We have our "morning meeting" at starting at 9ish and then flow right into current events & history, all of us together. After that we split up and the older 3 work on their independent work and I do 3Rs with the 1st grader. Then after lunch while the 2 year old naps I do whatever one on one stuff they each need, and when I'm done with that the 5th & 1st grader come together with me for science to finish our day with something fun. It's a good mix of together and independent work for us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scbusf Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 We do this, too. We do our together subjects first (Road Trip USA, SOTW, Read Aloud) and then split up to do everything else (Math, LA, silent reading). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black-eyed Suzan Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 We are going to try content subjects first this year. :) Crossing my fingers that it works! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lotsofpumpkins Posted August 2, 2014 Author Share Posted August 2, 2014 We tried it today and it went really well. The children seemed to like the change; they actually worked faster on math and LA than they usually do. Probably because they knew that all the group stuff was already finished, so they were in control of how much longer school took today. We'll keep trying the new routine next week to see for sure, but so far it's very promising. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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