imagine.more Posted July 1, 2017 Share Posted July 1, 2017 Looking ahead to next year I'd like to do a 4-day a week schedule...sort of. I have all of these classical education 'extras' that I really consider essential but don't make it into our daily routine when the rubber hits the road. My brain gets all fuzzy when I try to keep track of too many subjects at one time. So, has anyone else grouped all of these into one day? I was thinking something like a Circle Time/Poetry Tea Time hybrid extended for a few hours on Fridays when we wouldn't do any of our usual subjects. For example: Monday-Thursday: Math English Literature History Religion Friday: ​Read-Aloud (seasonally themed, geared towards my younger 3) Poetry Selection Hymn Study Memory Work (a group of us are planning to get together every other Friday as a recitation club + park day) Art Science My thought is we'd do the read-aloud through memory work in the morning (starting late-ish because that's how we roll) and then have lunch/go to the recitation club and in the afternoon (preferably during nap time) do art and science. This way the messy subjects happen just once a week and at the end of the day. Fridays are often pizza days so household-wise I'd be less stressed about cleaning up the kitchen from art projects since I wouldn't need to really cook. Has anyone done a schedule like this? How did it work? Any name ideas for the Friday subjects (so I can figure out where to put it all in my planner)? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angie in VA Posted July 1, 2017 Share Posted July 1, 2017 (edited) Monday-Thursday: Math English Literature History Religion Friday: ​Read-Aloud (seasonally themed, geared towards my younger 3) Poetry Selection Hymn Study Memory Work (a group of us are planning to get together every other Friday as a recitation club + park day) Art Science I would want the kids doing memory work daily, so that Friday is the just the recitation day. Make this as easy as possible by having them do it on their own (if possible), having Dad do this for minutes each day, and/or making audios of the memory work. Also, I think waiting a week to hear more from a read-aloud is too far apart. Perhaps you will read a short book, but I have warm, fuzzy memories of read alouds every day and/or night. Poetry, hymn study, and art are fine for once a week, perhaps religion too. I feel like science should be done more than once a week unless you're talking about doing labs that day, since you said messy stuff on Fridays. Not sure of the ages of your kids, though. Looping subjects, doing history and/or science through lit, or even doing a block of history and then a block for science are topics for a different thread. But I don't see ages and last I checked, I'm in expert in nothing. ;) Here's your grain of salt to take w/ this post! Edited July 1, 2017 by Angie in VA 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ms.Ivy Posted July 1, 2017 Share Posted July 1, 2017 I sort of do this. Memory work has to be done every day. But yeah, all the "core" stuff gets done only four days a week. The other day is for field trips, park days with other families, art, music lessons, poetry, computer science, math review games, etc. But to compensate I also stretch our school year out a bit more than the standard. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted July 1, 2017 Share Posted July 1, 2017 I also think a week is too long to wait for an ongoing read aloud. Also, that it's important to read aloud every day, though it may be you're doing that in other ways? I'm not sure. Otherwise, it seems okay. I do think that it's potentially bad to concentrate all the "fun" into one day. It can make the other days more boring and sometimes the fun stuff is more parent intensive, so that means more work for you on a single day. But I'm not clear if those things totally apply to this... like I'm not sure that, other than science, these are the "fun" things - just the once a week things. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tdbates78 Posted July 1, 2017 Share Posted July 1, 2017 I'm going to do a sort of "fun Friday" this upcoming school year. For us this will entail art, poetry tea, science experiments that coincide with the topics we are studying and maybe documentaries based on our history or science topics or field trips. We will do read-alouds, individual reading and math daily, including Fridays. But otherwise I hope to keep it on the lighter side. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2ndGenHomeschooler Posted July 1, 2017 Share Posted July 1, 2017 I'm thinking of doing something similar this year. This is what I'm thinking: M-TH (not all every day) Bible Math History Science reading Language Arts Memory Work Music Practice Read Aloud Spanish F (not all every week) Recite memory work Character/Habits Math Games Science experiments Fun history projects Poetry Art Artist/Composer/Hymn study Music theory Nature study Watch a tv show in Spanish Documentaries Library I'd like to make Friday the day all the "extras" happen instead of just skipping them like we usually do. I'd probably need figure out some sort of rotation so that we hit everything over the course of the year. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imagine.more Posted July 1, 2017 Author Share Posted July 1, 2017 I would want the kids doing memory work daily, so that Friday is the just the recitation day. Make this as easy as possible by having them do it on their own (if possible), having Dad do this for minutes each day, and/or making audios of the memory work. Also, I think waiting a week to hear more from a read-aloud is too far apart. Perhaps you will read a short book, but I have warm, fuzzy memories of read alouds every day and/or night. Poetry, hymn study, and art are fine for once a week, perhaps religion too. I feel like science should be done more than once a week unless you're talking about doing labs that day, since you said messy stuff on Fridays. Not sure of the ages of your kids, though. Looping subjects, doing history and/or science through lit, or even doing a block of history and then a block for science are topics for a different thread. But I don't see ages and last I checked, I'm in expert in nothing. ;) Here's your grain of salt to take w/ this post! You're right, I was thinking they'd need to practice their memory work daily and recite on Fridays. We could do a practice recitation on 'off' days from the co-op group. The read-alouds are picture books, definitely not ongoing, lol! My kids are 9, 6, 4, and 2. The read-aloud will be geared towards the younger ones, a seasonal or liturgical picture book. We do for-fun read-alouds in the evening before bed but those are just whatever novel the kids want. Any books for school the two older boys read themselves. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted July 1, 2017 Share Posted July 1, 2017 Try it and see if it works for you. Some things we did to make it work some years: alternate history and science days. do "units" of special subjects like poetry, hymn study, art, composer studies etc... We would spend 6 or 9 weeks on a unit. do "poetry tea time" instead of our usual language arts one day per week do read-alouds before bedtime to make the regular school day seem shorter. school 4.5 days per week (Friday mornings were just the basics--Bible, math, reading, handwriting--and the afternoons were field trips or park days or friend days) 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Another Lynn Posted July 1, 2017 Share Posted July 1, 2017 Simply Charlotte Mason has some sample schedules - one of which is a "fine arts day schedule," a "Shakespeare day schedule," etc. https://simplycharlottemason.com/planning/sample-schedules/ I think it's a great idea! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted July 1, 2017 Share Posted July 1, 2017 The way I was able to fit in more extras was to spread the work out over 6 days instead of 5. But we only worked 5 days a week. So, instead of thinking of doing 36 weeks of school each year, we did 30 "cycles." I created a schedule of 6 days: A, B, C, D, E, and F day. On Monday, we'd do A day. Tuesday is B...all the way to Friday being an E day. (Here's the important part). When the next Monday rolled around, we wouldn't be back on A day. We'd be on F day. Then Tuesday would be A day...and so forth. It worked beautifully. I was able to get the core work done each day, but I had 6 days to add in the extras at the end of the day. For some extras, like art, I'd do them only once a cycle. But other things, you could do them 2 or 3 times a cycle. I could fit in 7 subjects a day, so there was plenty of room for everything. The one negative: Instead of doing art 36 times a year (36 weeks), we'd do art only 30 times a year....but at least we had time to do it at all! 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAtoVA Posted July 1, 2017 Share Posted July 1, 2017 (edited) Garga, I'm curious, what would a schedule day typically look like? What subjects would you do on an "A" day, a "B" day, an "F" day, etc.? This is an intriguing idea! Edited July 1, 2017 by chiefcookandbottlewasher 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExcitedMama Posted July 1, 2017 Share Posted July 1, 2017 My kids are little so we've always done the seat work M-F and it doesn't take long, but it's been necessary for consistency and continual progress in things like writing. Plus it's great for days we decided to take off because we have something going on or someone is sick. There are things I consider mandatory and things we get to only if we have the time and they're up to it that day. I spread out history, science and art in the afternoons. I like to have something fun going on everyday. I don't have a set schedule so things aren't scheduled for a certain day and that way there is no disappointment about something not happening. They are excited everyday to see what it is I'm going to decide to do. It works out because I can choose depending on what I'm up to doing and how much time I've decided we have. So if I'm cooking something more intensive and we have less time it might be quicker or if it's leftovers and we have more time than it might be more involved. Fun Fridays sound great though so if it works for you go for it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted July 1, 2017 Share Posted July 1, 2017 (edited) Garga, I'm curious, what would a schedule day typically look like? What subjects would you do on an "A" day, a "B" day, an "F" day, etc.? This is an intriguing idea! Every single day we did: Language arts which includes spelling, vocabulary, reading, writing, grammar. We wouldn't hit all of those every day, but we hit most of them every day. Bible Math Health Then the schedule would fluctuate. We had 4 days of science and 4 days of history every cycle (120 lessons in each for the year) and we still had time for 1 lesson in civics, 2 lessons in logic, 1 lesson in art/music, and 1 lesson in etiquette. A: Science Civics B: History Logic C: Science History D: Science History E: Science Logic F: History Etiquette Art/Music Edited July 1, 2017 by Garga 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilyGF Posted July 2, 2017 Share Posted July 2, 2017 We did that two years ago and it was OK - at least we did them! This year we did something similar - all the extras were introduced on one day, but we spent half an hour (10:00 to 10:30) every day doing a bit, maybe some singing one day, some poetry one day, recite all your memory work another, read about an artist, review all your art prints, etc. The heavy lifting was done on one special day but we no longer "only had spice in our food" once a week. Also, we included the preschooler in this and that gave him something to look forward to. Then, at 10:30 we moved on regardless of where we were. This would give you each "special" subject twice a week. I really liked the main day + half an hour daily a lot better. Emily Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrunchyGirl Posted July 2, 2017 Share Posted July 2, 2017 Here's what's working for us: Everyday: Math Language Arts: --LegoMan: Latin, Writing, Assigned Reading --ArtsyGirl: Writing, Spelling, Assigned Reading + Read Aloud Practice (Latin to be added this fall) Spanish via Skype lessons Piano practice Literature (read aloud and discuss for an hour in the evening) Fridays: BFSU And then everything else is on a loop schedule. I shoot for 2-3 twenty minute sessions a day and we just go to the next thing on the list. This has taken the stress out because some days we do great and sometimes we miss a session or two and it's fine, we just pick up where we left off. I'm striving for a more Charlotte Mason style (short lessons, narration, etc.) for this part so our list looks very long. It's easier than it looks as I just grab the next book off the shelf and go. --American history living book --American historical figure bio --World history living book --Natural science living book --Scientist bio --Artist or composer study --Poetry study --Geography: Map study --Geography: Living book --Shakespeare study --Plutarch study **Geography, Shakespeare, and Plutarch will be added this fall Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2_girls_mommy Posted July 3, 2017 Share Posted July 3, 2017 We have a similar situation in that we do a co-op once a week. Art and music instruction in general come at co-op. Sometimes we have elaborated and studied subject fine arts deeper at home, but the guaranteed art/music instruction are going to come at co-op, lol. Science experiments happen at co-op. (Yes, as my kids have gotten older, they have more science work to do throughout the week at home, including labs they have to watch and moniter on their own throughout the week, but I am out of it at this point. They do all of that on their own.) Read alouds, we do throughout the week though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coastalfam Posted July 3, 2017 Share Posted July 3, 2017 We do: Monday & Wednesday: Math, English, Geography, Enrichment courses at our charter school, literary read alouds. Tuesday: Math, English, History, and Geography or Composer read alouds Thursday: Math, English, Science, Geography or Composer read alouds Friday: Math games, "Buddy Reading" (reading aloud to siblings), field trips, art, and music. I formed this schedule initially due to our charter school involvement. We go there more often than I would normally have planned, because one of my sons receives a lot of therapy and tutoring, so my other kids have lots of opportunity for enrichment courses. I was worried that covering science, history, art, and music just once a week (though in one big, very in depth chunk of time) would not be enough, but it actually has been very effective to sort of immerse ourselves in the subject once a week, rather than little bits on several days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeking Squirrels Posted July 3, 2017 Share Posted July 3, 2017 I'm setting aside one day for the extras that I usually have a hard time getting to but I think are important. My plan for this year: M - co-op day 30 weeks. A no co-op monday will look like T-Th. DD9 will do math and/or reading in the car on the way to/from. They will work with me on LA in the hall if they have a block with no class. T-Th - Math, LA, Science, memory work, read-alouds (including lit, science, history, poetry, and world religions. not all each day), piano practice F- Art, piano lesson, and either sewing, cooking, or baking. One friday a month will be a field trip or a long hike/nature explore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knitgrl Posted August 10, 2017 Share Posted August 10, 2017 The way I was able to fit in more extras was to spread the work out over 6 days instead of 5. But we only worked 5 days a week. So, instead of thinking of doing 36 weeks of school each year, we did 30 "cycles." I created a schedule of 6 days: A, B, C, D, E, and F day. On Monday, we'd do A day. Tuesday is B...all the way to Friday being an E day. (Here's the important part). When the next Monday rolled around, we wouldn't be back on A day. We'd be on F day. Then Tuesday would be A day...and so forth. It worked beautifully. I was able to get the core work done each day, but I had 6 days to add in the extras at the end of the day. For some extras, like art, I'd do them only once a cycle. But other things, you could do them 2 or 3 times a cycle. I could fit in 7 subjects a day, so there was plenty of room for everything. The one negative: Instead of doing art 36 times a year (36 weeks), we'd do art only 30 times a year....but at least we had time to do it at all! This idea is so brilliant! I am now planning our first 6th day, and nature study will get the first priority because it never, ever happened last year. I am so excited to have a planned day where I can focus mostly on fun stuff, and not worry that core subjects aren't happening. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petrichor Posted August 11, 2017 Share Posted August 11, 2017 I also think you probably need more than one day for science. We do English and Math Mon-Thurs, with our once per week classes on friday. History, Science, and Arabic each get 3 days, something like: Mon: Eng, Math, Sci, Hist [other stuff] Tues: Eng, Math, Hist, Arabic [other stuff] Wed: Eng, Math, Sci, Hist [other stuff] Thurs: Eng, Math, Arabic, Field trip day but we still get eng and math done on field trip days Fri: Sci, Arabic [once per week subjects] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
historically accurate Posted August 11, 2017 Share Posted August 11, 2017 The way I was able to fit in more extras was to spread the work out over 6 days instead of 5. But we only worked 5 days a week. So, instead of thinking of doing 36 weeks of school each year, we did 30 "cycles." I created a schedule of 6 days: A, B, C, D, E, and F day. On Monday, we'd do A day. Tuesday is B...all the way to Friday being an E day. (Here's the important part). When the next Monday rolled around, we wouldn't be back on A day. We'd be on F day. Then Tuesday would be A day...and so forth. It worked beautifully. I was able to get the core work done each day, but I had 6 days to add in the extras at the end of the day. For some extras, like art, I'd do them only once a cycle. But other things, you could do them 2 or 3 times a cycle. I could fit in 7 subjects a day, so there was plenty of room for everything. The one negative: Instead of doing art 36 times a year (36 weeks), we'd do art only 30 times a year....but at least we had time to do it at all! That is similar to how my high school was designed. We had A, B, C, D, E & X (for exploration days). A, B, C had all classes. English & History would be both D & E as well. Electives were usually only 4x per week, so either D or E. Science would be a 2-3 hour lab day on either D or E days. X days had science or math lectures on special topics which went only to noonish. The afternoon was ours for scientific research, homework, or whatever. It was a boarding school, so we were "at school" anyway. Now (25 years later) the school has M, T, Th, & F with only lab classes on Wednesday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LauraBeth475 Posted August 12, 2017 Share Posted August 12, 2017 I'm thinking of making a loop this year for once a week subjects like art, poetry, geography, character. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monica_in_Switzerland Posted August 12, 2017 Share Posted August 12, 2017 I'm going to try to do this as well this year. Our Friday will hopefully look like: Math (daily, don't want to give that up) Patty Paper Geometry Art project Board games/card games Book Club (deeper discussion about whatever book we're reading or picture book) Poetry Tea and recitations Fill in our timeline from dates collected from reading over the week (I plan on hanging a paper in the school area where we can accumulate dates for the timeline) plus possibly Timeline Game Science or history or art documentary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soror Posted August 12, 2017 Share Posted August 12, 2017 (edited) I do the opposite one extra a day. Monday - Art Tuesday -Poetry Wednesdays -History Thurs. - Science/Nature Study Fri- visit with friends (pe at the park), shopping, and library day (subsequent binge on reading library books once you get home) The kids do extra History and Science on their own. If I tried to do all the fun stuff one day it ends up being all dropped if we have a bad day, which is easy to do b/c I think of it as the extra stuff, doing it this way ensures it gets done. PE/Family walks/bike rides etc are daily. Read aloud is supposed to be daily but I've not been hitting the mark lately (getting back in the groove of a wonky schedule). I have some music appreciation slated to go with poetry time but we've not added it in yet. Edited August 12, 2017 by soror 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
................... Posted August 12, 2017 Share Posted August 12, 2017 We tried that one year when my kids were 3rd and 5th and it did not work for us. They dreaded the no-fun-stuff days and then felt like we had to rush through some of the fun stuff instead of digging in :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
................... Posted August 12, 2017 Share Posted August 12, 2017 Also as Soror said, We were very likely to skip the fun stuff day if we were Behind, or sick or whatever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plagefille Posted August 12, 2017 Share Posted August 12, 2017 We do a fun day. We do it on Wednesday. Art, read aloud, memory work, devotional, computers, etc. We have been doing it his way for many years and it works out fine. A lot of these were subjects I was never getting to, so I had to schedule them. Reading aloud once a week has worked out fine for us. I dislike reading aloud more often. They all started reading so young that I stopped reading to them and this is the only way that has worked. We do picture books and chapter books. Memory work once a week has been fine too. You have to do what works best for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smarson Posted August 12, 2017 Share Posted August 12, 2017 Every single day we did: Language arts which includes spelling, vocabulary, reading, writing, grammar. We wouldn't hit all of those every day, but we hit most of them every day. Bible Math Health Then the schedule would fluctuate. We had 4 days of science and 4 days of history every cycle (120 lessons in each for the year) and we still had time for 1 lesson in civics, 2 lessons in logic, 1 lesson in art/music, and 1 lesson in etiquette. A: Science Civics B: History Logic C: Science History D: Science History E: Science Logic F: History Etiquette Art/Music I am really liking this schedule! I tweaked it a bit to fit our needs but I think it will work. It looks REALLY complicated on paper (how I mapped it all out) but I think once we get the hang of it, it will be a breeze and will be nice to have something to follow. I default to getting those must-have subjects done (math & LA) but then I just decide we're done for the day since I don't have an exact plan in place for what to do next. I've been feeling the pressure to do more with them, you know, things like history, science, etc., so hopefully this will provide me just the road map I'll need to keep my act together. :) Now to figure out how to start slow so that we don't burn out on day ONE! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted August 12, 2017 Share Posted August 12, 2017 I am really liking this schedule! I tweaked it a bit to fit our needs but I think it will work. It looks REALLY complicated on paper (how I mapped it all out) but I think once we get the hang of it, it will be a breeze and will be nice to have something to follow. I default to getting those must-have subjects done (math & LA) but then I just decide we're done for the day since I don't have an exact plan in place for what to do next. I've been feeling the pressure to do more with them, you know, things like history, science, etc., so hopefully this will provide me just the road map I'll need to keep my act together. :) Now to figure out how to start slow so that we don't burn out on day ONE! Mine always looks super complicated as well, but it's easy to implement. I create a chart in excel or word and just follow it. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrystalAnne Posted August 12, 2017 Share Posted August 12, 2017 Haven't had a chance to read through the whole thread yet, but this year I'm scheduling more of those extras around mealtimes. For example, poetry and map memorization right after breakfast is cleaned up but before we begin table work. And nature studies and outside time at 11 so I can prep lunch when they devolve into playing. Read aloud happen when they're eating lunch or dinner and one of us adults is done eating quickly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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