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School day planning?


School day schedule?  

96 members have voted

  1. 1. How do you schedule your middle school day?

    • We have specific time periods for each subject, i.e.: 45 min "classes". The assignments fit the schedule.
      11
    • We complete each subject assignment, no matter how long it takes, before moving on to next subject.
      29
    • We try to complete each assignment, sometimes stop early, and catch up on Fridays.
      25
    • We school like the wind... free to start and stop assignments at will.
      14
    • Other
      17


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With the increased workload for 7th grade, how do you schedule your student's schooldays?

 

Math takes longer, History takes longer due to supplemental reading, activity or notebooking, Science reading and experiments  take longer... everything takes longer!  

 

We do a modified 4-day schedule, with a catch-up Friday. However, at 3 weeks in, Friday is usually a regular school day. We did the 45-min classes last year, so he could see an end to subjects he doesn't like, but we were not able to complete everything. 

 

Wondering what has been successful for other middle-schoolers? 

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I give my 7th grader a list every morning with two columns: solo work and together work.  She works solo in the mornings while I work with her sister, and we work together in the afternoons.  

 

We usually get everything on the list done, but not always.  If something took longer, I'll let her know my priorities for what she needs to finish (math, and any online classes) and the other stuff will get pushed to the next day.

 

I have a sense of how long things will take her, but our plans are very flexible.  Some days a juicy discussion will take a lot longer than I thought, sometimes it will go quick.  Sometimes a writing assignment will take an hour, sometimes it will take 15 min.  I just adjust the future plans accordingly.  This is why I don't give her a weekly assignment list - if she gets through something quickly, I reserve the right to move on more quickly, and if something needs more time, I'm happy to give it more time.  

 

This works with my planning style, which is to know what I want to cover for the year, but not to have it scheduled out in a rigid daily way.  Subjects are rows in a spreadsheet, days are columns, and I have empty days at the end of the year.  So if what we're working on now takes extra time, the upcoming material gets pushed "to the right" into that empty space.  If things go more quickly, I can add more material - there's always more!  either to the current topic, or at the end of the year.

 

What took discipline was to not "fill up" the year at the beginning!  That way I'm comfortable following rabbit trails without feeling anxious that we're not going to get it all done.  I don't really worry about being on a specific schedule, we tend to finish things and start new things throughout the year.  It seems like we're often ready to move on to the next thing in March or April.  So we do!

 

Not sure how this loosy-goosy yet structured method will work for high school, but it's working well now!

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I adjust the workload to fit our day, rather than trying to fit our days to the workload. My son is a diligent kid. If I find that he's having trouble getting through it all, then I scale back, assuming that I've assigned more work than was reasonable.

 

He works pretty much from 9am or so until about 2 or 3pm, Monday through Thursday. He's out of the house all day on Fridays for co-op. I still schedule a little reading on Fridays. His passion is math, so he does that every day.  I give him a weekly grid of assignments in OneNote, but I don't care when he gets the work done as long as it gets done. Sometimes he'll do all of his work in a particular subject on one day. I also tend to choose programs that lend themselves well to a 4 day week, like Writing with Skill, so I'm not cramming a 5 day program into four days.

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In the past, I focused on mastery, enjoyed following rabbit trails, and did not have expectations of how much material we were going to cover in any particular time frame.  But I am expecting more from my daughter this year (8th grade) as preparation for high school, so my scheduling plans have changed a bit.  My plans for her subjects are in two parts: class time we'll spend together and work she'll do independently (math problems, lots of reading and some brief written responses).  My goal is for us to do our work together in the morning, and after lunch she'll work independently while I get some other work done.  I still want her to master certain material and we will drop extras if needed to accommodate that.  But for her main subjects, I know how much material I want to cover by the end of the year, and I have a general outline of how much we need to cover each week in order to stay on track.  

 

ETA: She may also find herself having homework on the weekends this year, if she is not diligent during the week.  How much I adjust homework will depend upon whether she's being diligent and I simply over-assigned too much homework, or whether she was not being diligent and I think I assigned a reasonable amount.

 

We do our core work four days a week, and have one day a week where we go on field trips, play games or anything fun and different. 

 

ETA 2 - 9/9/14:  After a few days of school under our belt, I can report that the morning class time / afternoon independent work seems like it will work well for us.  Trying to do brief lessons in all of our main subjects every day was overwhelming, though.  So I switched to a block schedule and we'll do each of our 6 primary subjects every other day (so 3 on our A Day and 3 on our B Day).  I tried it today and it was so much better!  I also decided to hold off on the extra subjects for a week or two until we get our routine down with our primary subjects.  And the weekly field trip / activity day might not work out this year - we might need to change to every other week instead. 

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We try to finish the assignments, within reason.  If something is consistently taking more than an hour, then that's a sign I need to look at the amount of material we are trying to cover.  Generally speaking, DD13 finishes her work in one subject and then just moves on to the next. 

 

Most of her materials come with syllabi set out for 36 weeks of school (4 9-week quarters), so we try to stay on track with those.  When life intervenes (field trips, visits with friends, sickness), DD13 knows she might have "homework" to finish up on the weekend to stay on track.

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My dd#1 has a weekly checklist. Like Rose (Chrysalis Academy), I try very hard not to "fill up" her schedule at the beginning of the year. She has a "suggested amount of time" that I think each subject should take & I divvy the workload so she can get it done over the week if she doesn't goof around too much. If she doesn't have it done at the end of the week and we didn't have some unexpected bump (sickness, unscheduled day of activities), she is required to get it done over the weekend or she uses an 'off week' to catch up. 

 

It took us awhile to get it down and it always takes her awhile to get into the groove of working most of the day. The important thing is that she's learning new skills (study skills, time management, writing-in-order-to-think-better, learning how to argue effectively, using all those arithmetic skills in a new way, reading-for-content or learning-to-read-harder-material (like learning-through-textbooks), finding a passion, etc.) - not that she spent 45 minutes on History everyday and 90 minutes on math.

 

We do aim to finish whatever we set out to study, but if we end up covering something else in depth (like taking three months to study World War II instead of three weeks because she really wants to know more about the reasons behind it or the results from it) instead of my well-laid plans, I'm okay with that. You can't ever know everything. My point is to get her more independent in her tasks, keeping her interest in Learning (as a lifetime study), and move her further along in the above skills so she's better prepared for high school and eventually college-level independent studying.

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What we have done since middle school is to set out a list of lessons to be completed each day. The order they do them in is left up to them. They work until all the assigned work for that day is finished. I will adjust lessons if it seems like it is taking way too long. If they need a little extra time, I will give them the weekend to catch up. (In other words, they have to have all of that weeks work finished by Monday.).

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What we have done since middle school is to set out a list of lessons to be completed each day. The order they do them in is left up to them. They work until all the assigned work for that day is finished. I will adjust lessons if it seems like it is taking way too long. If they need a little extra time, I will give them the weekend to catch up. (In other words, they have to have all of that weeks work finished by Monday.).

 

I'm afraid I would have a mutiny if he had homework on the weekend!

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I'm afraid I would have a mutiny if he had homework on the weekend!

 

:laugh: Mine don't like it, at all.  But usually if they have work to do on the weekend it is a result of their own goofing off, so I consider it just punishment.  It rarely happens just because they hate it so much.  

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I have always planned out a certain number of lessons to be completed each day and then given the kids a weekly checklist to follow with the daily assignments listed.  Just this week, though, I've changed things up.  School seemed to be taking forever every day (much goofing off, lack of focus, etc.), and I got tired of cracking the whip until bedtime trying to get them through their work.  So now, I'm giving them the same weekly checklist but only a couple of things are designated as "must do every day."  Everything else is left up to them to decide when and how to get it all done.  We finish school around 4 pm now, which I like much better.  As to whether the work gets finished each week, time will tell.

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I write out a schedule a week at a time. It seems that we rarely complete all assignments or projects by week's end, i.e.: we rarely get to art or picture study, the extras I was hoping to fit in this year.  This also happened for older ds, and he was well-prepared for high school.  Younger ds is not as focussed as older ds.  I am aiming for the fine line of challenging, but not overwhelming. I seem to frequently be shaving off, which is becoming concerning.  I need to reset expectations of how fast/much reading he can do, etc. and relax a bit. 

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"We try to complete each assignment, sometimes stop early, and catch up on Fridays"

 

This comes the closest, I think, but I try not to worry about "catching up." Partly because we are usually out of the house on Friday, and partly because the weekend is dd's time to connect with family and friends who are in school or at work during the week.

 

We have a basic morning routine for Monday-Thursday:

 

Math (this takes who knows how long because dd is using AOPS)

French, 20-30 minutes

break

ELA (dd has a fairly long list of ELA things to get done for the week, and she usually decides what to work on each day and for how long)

Music or Dance, 20-30 minutes

lunch

 

The afternoon is much more fluid, covering history and science, which is sometimes integrated since we are studying the industrial revolution right now. There are weekly reading assignments, which dd needs to have read by the time I review the topic with her.  I have an outline for the year mapped out, but I am very flexible about what a related assignment might be, or how long it will take. I try to tie the topic to museum visits and things like that.

 

We also do several outside academic activities during "after-school" time. There is a good chunk of time for literature in the evening.

 

I am trying to balance teaching the skills and habits dd will need when she is back in a school setting and at the same time really taking advantage of the fact that she is NOT in school right now, so we can do things she wouldn't get to do if she was in a regular classroom.

 

I am trying to let go of my wish to cover as many things in as much detail as I originally scheduled when I was planning over the summer.  I want to have our schedule more open to opportunities as they arise, without stressing out that we are getting behind schedule.  I realized that in order to go deep on some topics, I will have to let go of other topics, or cover them lightly.  But dd will come back to many of these topics in high school, and then again in college, so I think it will be okay. :)

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"We try to complete each assignment, sometimes stop early, and catch up on Fridays"

 

This comes the closest, I think, but I try not to worry about "catching up." Partly because we are usually out of the house on Friday, and partly because the weekend is dd's time to connect with family and friends who are in school or at work during the week.

 

We have a basic morning routine for Monday-Thursday:

 

Math (this takes who knows how long because dd is using AOPS)

French, 20-30 minutes

break

ELA (dd has a fairly long list of ELA things to get done for the week, and she usually decides what to work on each day and for how long)

Music or Dance, 20-30 minutes

lunch

 

The afternoon is much more fluid, covering history and science, which is sometimes integrated since we are studying the industrial revolution right now. There are weekly reading assignments, which dd needs to have read by the time I review the topic with her.  I have an outline for the year mapped out, but I am very flexible about what a related assignment might be, or how long it will take. I try to tie the topic to museum visits and things like that.

 

We also do several outside academic activities during "after-school" time. There is a good chunk of time for literature in the evening.

 

I am trying to balance teaching the skills and habits dd will need when she is back in a school setting and at the same time really taking advantage of the fact that she is NOT in school right now, so we can do things she wouldn't get to do if she was in a regular classroom.

 

I am trying to let go of my wish to cover as many things in as much detail as I originally scheduled when I was planning over the summer.  I want to have our schedule more open to opportunities as they arise, without stressing out that we are getting behind schedule.  I realized that in order to go deep on some topics, I will have to let go of other topics, or cover them lightly.  But dd will come back to many of these topics in high school, and then again in college, so I think it will be okay. :)

 

 

I think that I would like to be in your school. It sounds fun.  I think the difference might be that it looks like you may be doing "school" activities in the evenings? Ds reads for at least 1 hour after school, but that is all.  

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We complete everything planned each day, but not necessarily in one sitting. For example, right now we start our day with Psychology. It is the only class my kids are doing together. We do that until it is done or until there are just individual assignments left to work on. Then dd and I go work on Algebra 2. I teach and she starts the problem set. After an hour, she may choose to move on to another subject and finish the algebra at a later time or go ahead and finished Algebra before moving on. 

 

We are somewhat free form, but each subject is planned, they know what is supposed to get accomplished. They have a weekly schedule broken down by day. They have flexibility within that to shuffle things some as long as when it says "due" or "test" they are ready.

We do have certain "classes" at specific times. For subjects that I am specifically teaching (daily) I set a time for us to meet. I need that as much as they do. It is 10:00, time for... 

 

Our day doesn't work like a school day with moving every 45 minutes, but it does have some structure and a clear set of expectations.

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I think that I would like to be in your school. It sounds fun.  I think the difference might be that it looks like you may be doing "school" activities in the evenings? Ds reads for at least 1 hour after school, but that is all.  

 

This routine works for us because dd is a voracious reader.  We do about an hour of directed reading in the early afternoon, and most evenings she reads her assigned non-fiction and another 2+ hours of fiction, some assigned, some suggested, and much chosen by her.

 

I don't have her do any other "homework" once we finish school for the day, but her outside activities include dance and music lessons, math and science clubs, and art classes at an art museum.

 

Except for the art classes, all of these activities are after-school programs where she is the only homeschooled kid, as far as I know.  I do count this as school "equivalent" time when I file our education plan with the city, but sadly she didn't actually get to do any of that stuff during the school day when she was still in public school.

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We do a combination--some things determined by time, some by assignment--some by both in a sense.

I tell my kids in junior high to expect work to take 45 minutes to an hour--and that by highschool everything will be an hour.

 

Math--I tell them to do an assignment and that it should take 45 min. to an hour. If it takes slightly longer, that's okay. If it's going to take a lot longer, they should tell me (maybe we need to split it up). That rarely happened. But, as long as they are working diligently, if we need to split something up, or take 2 days to cover something, we can do it--mastery is more important.  I also told them that if they are done in 30 minutes to double up--we may need that day later (or, they can finish a day early in math if we never need that day). So...work at least 45 minutes.

 

Reading--I would say to read 30 minutes or a chapter--whichever took longer. 

 

Some things had regular breaks & were easy to make assignments (Apologia science is broken up by "On Your Own" questions usually). Other things it seemed easier to just assign time. As long as I felt they were working diligently, that was fine. If I felt they were dragging, then I'd reassess.

 

HTH!

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I have a general schedule of subjects to accomplish every day, and with rare exception, we get the subjects done every day, no matter how long they take. However, I sometimes will look at a subject and realize that the three chapters of a book that I had assigned are much longer than usual, or the history and writing both require essays on the same day, or whatever, and we adjust from there. Just goofing off -- tough luck, you can do the work on your time (which means evenings or weekends, and work not completed by the end of the day Friday means losing weekend privileges) -- but I'm open to legitimate discussion of something being simply too much work for one day. 6 hours is okay with me for seventh grade; if it's 7, she's likely either been dawdling, or is catching up from dawdling a different day, or several subjects happened to hit hard that day. Like, sometimes WWS is quick, and sometimes it isn't (and sometimes we split one day into two), and sometimes Latin is a new concept and takes a while (or she hits a groove and is rocking it even more than usual, so we keep going), and sometimes the chapters are long, etc., and if it all hits at once, we can push some things off.

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Thank you for your helpful replies with specific schedule descriptions. May I ask how many history books/texts you are currently using?  We are using MOH as a spine, then there are 3 other history  books scattered throughout the week with some overlapping, but not everyday, divided up into reading chapter/section each day.  I'm wondering if history is what is killing our schedule. Ds thinks it is, anyway.

 

Then there are 2 notebooking pages per week to outline and then write or type up. 

 

Reading is a corresponding historical fiction book.

 

ETA: forgot the notebooking part of history activities

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7th grader uses Kingfisher History Encyclopedia and Human Odyssey volume 2 for history, plus corresponding fiction. Right now, for instance, she is reading Oliver Twist for literature because she also needs it for her history lessons soon. A typical day of history might be a chapter from Human Odyssey or a two-page spread from Kingfisher, plus an analysis worksheet or a map or dates on a timeline, and another day she might do an outline in Kingfisher plus worksheet/summaries/map/timeline. So, three books at any one time, but not all get read every day.

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We have a weekly schedule and aside from math (which is done daily) the girls are free to decide how to complete their work. I have planned enough to keep them busy fro about 4 hours a day, give or take. That allows us time for additional out of the house activities and lessons. I have an estimated amount of time that I think it will take them but that depends on their motivation. I meet with them each individually on Friday and we discuss the work and go over everything. At that point what ever is not complete is homework for the weekend. It must be done by Monday unless we had some sort of exception that came up. So far my 8th grader has been on task and my 7th grader has been playing catch up the past few weekends. She is more of a time waster and doesn't use her time efficiently. We tend to work from about 9 to 2 or 10 to 3 except on Fridays. I think they like having the control of seeing what has to be done and control of how they can plan their day. For the most part they choose to do each subject daily but they don't have to do it that way either. 

 

I love having a weekly schedule, there is much more leg room to move things around if things come up one day we can do more the next and catch back up and doesn't throw off our whole schedule. The girls have their weeks planned out in OneNote so it is very easy for them to set their own pace and know what needs to be done. When we meet on Friday if that week for each subject is complete I can take the whole week and move it to the bottom of the screen. That way I know that it was done, checked and recorded.  

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I answered:  We usually try to complete most things and catch up on Friday.

 

My 7th grader is much less structured than my 9th grader, and he's discovered that he's much more productive if he follows a block schedule.  He gets really scattered if he tries to fit in too many subjects in one day.  Math and grammar get done everyday M-Th (and history too since we do all of that together).  But he's organized the rest of his work into 4 blocks:  Mon is Vocab & Logic/Programming, Tu and Wed are both science, and Th is Literature.  He loves this schedule so much better!  Fridays are our catch up and fun stuff day ... math (not fun or catch up but just because I require it everyday :) ) & art & PE & whatever else didn't get done throughout the week.

 

He very rarely has catch up work to do on Fri.  Sometimes he goofs around and has to finish on Fridays, but if it's happening consistently, I'd maybe readjust my expectations.  We had to do that with Analytical Grammar just last week.  He was working hard at it for over an hour every day and still not getting done what I thought he'd get through.  He was learning the material and doing really well ... just slower than I thought he would.  So I slowed the assignments down and he's feeling much less stressed.

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I answered that we try to complete and then catch up on Friday (or just shift the schedule). We're pretty flexible/fluid and don't stress about finishing things. 

 

This year (we don't start until October) we're trying a new system of weekly assignments vs daily so that he has more choice over what he does when. I'm using Evernote to keep a check list. Many things need to be done daily (Hebrew, Latin, Math, Spelling) but history, literature, writing, science are all fluid and can be done whenever. 

 

We're also giving a timer schedule a try. So far it's working well (we're still on light summer schedule) but I'm not sure how it will translate to a full schedule. We'll have to just see if he has enough time during the week.  The plan is to do 15 minutes on, 10 minutes off, 30 minutes on, 15 minutes off - Repeat all day from 8-3. This seems like a LONG day to me but he's insistent on giving it a try. Since I want him to be involved and take control over his education, I'm always willing to give something a try. I am requiring at least one break in the morning and afternoon to be a 'movement' break of some sort. 

I will be giving him a set time that he can work with me (probably 9-12) and everything needs to be done by the end of the week. We typically do a 4-day week with co-op on Friday, but he might end up with more catch-up on Friday. If he's consistently having too much to do on Fridays then I'll re-evaluate what I expect and how much time he's actually working. 

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I've pretty much given up planning.  I divided up everything into 36 folders.  If we don't finish what's in the folder for that week, I just move it to the next week.  Today, she spent 1 hour on math, 30 min on science, 30 min on history, 1 hour on language arts, and 45 min on literature.  She had about 30 minutes worth of chores.  The rest of the day is hers to explore her own interests.  This was a light day.  Band starts this Friday, and we do Spanish most days.  She has cross country 3x a week, Girl Scouts 2x a month, 4H once a month, and Dancing Grits once a month.  I count all of that as part of her education.  We, also, school year round... 36 folders is  just convenient and gives the girls a visual goal.

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I voted other.

 

I pick up my dd's friend from the local elementary, and so I like to be done with "school" by then so that she can play. In addition, my #2 and #3 dc are in the local public high school and they are in band. They have band practice at different times each day, so some days I am making multiple trips to the school. Also, because of their weird rehearsal schedule, I need to cook dinner around 3:30 each day or it may not happen.

 

SO, my 6th grade homeschooler's work is scheduled with specific time periods for each subject. If she doesn't finish an assignment in the alotted time, she does it for homework when her older siblings do theirs.

 

 

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Last year I only had my DD12 in 7th grade here at home and I split our year in to 4ths, then split her work into 4ths and tried to finish every quarter doing the sectioned work for that period.  It created a race mentality no matter what I tried, and there was just box checking it seemed.  I had to tweak out stuff since her curr was very rigorous, in order for us to finish. My first year back to homeschooling..I didn't like this method for her. 

 

That taught me that this year, I wanted a 'next thing' approach and time to sit in the knowledge and retain more.  DD is now almost 14, and DS11 came home to school this year and have both decided to try block scheduling. Because, as mentioned, they feel like they get more done in each subject when they don't have sift through so many different subjects a day. So...

 

Math is daily and first thing in the morning.  Both seem to take right at 1.5 hours to work through a lesson of Saxon (7th grader..end of Pre-A, 8th grader, Alg 1). 

 

After math:

Monday is language arts 3-4 hours.

Tuesday is a shorter day so we do Vocabulary/Spelling and left over LA from the day before if there are loose ends to tie up.

Wednesday is 3 hours of Elemental Science (they are doing this together).

Thursday is 3 hours History/Social Studies.  We also do an hour of art at the end of this school day.

Friday is supposed to be only supplemental and for now that is coding/programming or Snap Circuit lessons (from included curriculum in the big 750 kit).  We aim to end by 10 or 11 am and then we get with friends.

 

To make sure we are on track overall, I let their LA lessons 'lead' them because it is, by far, the most rigorous (MBTP).  MBTP units are supposed to take 15 school days to complete (there are 10 units in the year).  I give them 20 to 22 days to complete each unit and their history and SS is tied in directly to those specific units, so if they can get ea unit of LA done in that amt of time, their history/ss will be also..math is 'next thing' day to day/year to year.  Science ....  there is no time frame.  They enjoy it so much that they I have no concern they will get it all done this year.  Vocab is 'next thing' too and we will be doing it for the next few years in some form so I'm not concerned about this pace either.

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Last year I only had my DD12 in 7th grade here at home and I split our year in to 4ths, then split her work into 4ths and tried to finish every quarter doing the sectioned work for that period.  It created a race mentality no matter what I tried, and there was just box checking it seemed.  I had to tweak out stuff since her curr was very rigorous, in order for us to finish. My first year back to homeschooling..I didn't like this method for her. 

 

That taught me that this year, I wanted a 'next thing' approach and time to sit in the knowledge and retain more.  DD is now almost 14, and DS11 came home to school this year and have both decided to try block scheduling. Because, as mentioned, they feel like they get more done in each subject when they don't have sift through so many different subjects a day. So...

 

Math is daily and first thing in the morning.  Both seem to take right at 1.5 hours to work through a lesson of Saxon (7th grader..end of Pre-A, 8th grader, Alg 1). 

 

After math:

Monday is language arts 3-4 hours.

Tuesday is a shorter day so we do Vocabulary/Spelling and left over LA from the day before if there are loose ends to tie up.

Wednesday is 3 hours of Elemental Science (they are doing this together).

Thursday is 3 hours History/Social Studies.  We also do an hour of art at the end of this school day.

Friday is supposed to be only supplemental and for now that is coding/programming or Snap Circuit lessons (from included curriculum in the big 750 kit).  We aim to end by 10 or 11 am and then we get with friends.

 

To make sure we are on track overall, I let their LA lessons 'lead' them because it is, by far, the most rigorous (MBTP).  MBTP units are supposed to take 15 school days to complete (there are 10 units in the year).  I give them 20 to 22 days to complete each unit and their history and SS is tied in directly to those specific units, so if they can get ea unit of LA done in that amt of time, their history/ss will be also..math is 'next thing' day to day/year to year.  Science ....  there is no time frame.  They enjoy it so much that they I have no concern they will get it all done this year.  Vocab is 'next thing' too and we will be doing it for the next few years in some form so I'm not concerned about this pace either.

 

What is MBTP?

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We have set times, but adjust it as needed. I used to go with the wind, when they were younger. And we've tried just letting them finish. But, for mine, at least, they will take up as much time as they are given. If I have a light day, in hopes of doing something else, they will still take just as long to do it. They have a great capacity for dawdling ;) So, we have a schedule and structure, but are flexible when warranted. 

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For my 7th grader, it depends on the subject.  For Math, it's a time slot.  For science and history, I gave her an assignment notebook with what I expect her to do that day, estimating it would take x amount of time for her to finish.  With spelling, grammar, etc., it's do the next thing.  Some days take longer than others.  She does have lighter days and she knows on those days, she's expected to do her art/music appreciation assignments or do some extra work for that she didn't have time for other days.  My kids don't have homework after school hours like most of their schooled peers, so I don't feel too sorry for them.  They know what is required to finish their subjects in a timely manner, during a school year, according to state laws, and I keep them to it.  If they are sick or the work gets complicated (they need extra help or it's taking longer to understand), then fine, I'm flexible and will work with them.  But I expect them to be diligent, especially my 7th grader, and she's really into a rhythm now that's working. 

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We have a start time and a general routine. No stop time, though sports practices for the olders put a cap on the afternoon. They often need to go back to studies in the evening though. The older two boys are fairly independent this year, so I'm less involved in the order or time they spend on school. They have deadlines that they work with. 

 

Lisa

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This year the kids work on math until I have breakfast ready, and then we eat.  They then resume math and go to typing until I'm ready for "class time".  When I call them to the table they leave off where they are and come.  In "class time" we take care of the subjects that require my involvement.  We start with the state-required topics usually first, so we can always show that we are covering them routinely (not that anyone ever asks for proof).  As we go through each topic we discuss and I teach/lecture, but I also then tell them what their assigned work for that subject is for the next day or week (some courses we don't do every day).  I write down what we do each day in my weekly planner, and I write up a sticky note of the "homework" (basically the work they can do independently).

 

Some days "class time" is over by lunch.  Others we will still be working on history or science, sometimes something else, after lunch.  If I need to step away from the table for anything (laundry, person at the door, etc.) the kids just pick up something to keep working on until I can come back.  Sometimes I'll give them a break to work on something until X time (I sometimes need breaks, too, especially if I have been talking a lot).  When I've felt poorly (sinus infection) I wrote up independent work lists and they took care of it themselves, and we simply postponed anything that needed more than I could do until another day.

 

My kids like this approach, since they don't have to wait on others much of the time, and my eldest gets to start her day a bit slower now (she is NOT a morning person!).  They usually get their work done by 3 or 4 PM, too, and so they still feel they have things easier than their b&m school cousins (and my kids are studying more topics). 

 

Allowing them to work more on their own has made this much more enjoyable for all 3 of us.  This surprised me, since eldest is not a self-starter.  However, give her a list and let her choose the order, and she's good to go about it quite happily.

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 If she has too much to do or there are other things going on we drop things and come back to them later on.

 

 

What happens with us, is that we do not have free time to go back to them later on.

 

I am now becoming more involved, in that, we are doing as much verbally as we can, adding in verbal answers for Spelling exercises, not just in grammar.  I cut back on History reading and we are more frequently getting to ALL subjects daily. However, I miss reading aloud as that has not happened for a few weeks. Some of this, of course, is because I work, which means I leave in early afternoons.  I may need to just supervise more. Older ds was very independent by this time, maybe 2nd ds is just not.

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We have a start time and a general routine. No stop time, though sports practices for the olders put a cap on the afternoon. They often need to go back to studies in the evening though. The older two boys are fairly independent this year, so I'm less involved in the order or time they spend on school. They have deadlines that they work with. 

 

Lisa

 

 

Do your dc cheerfully accept homework in the evening? I think that mine would dearly complain, mostly because it is not an established routine. 

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