Those trying to combine a CM/Classical approach, I would love to see your schedules for 4th grade. Every time I think I have mine down, I realize it is still unrealistic- time wise. I'm using shorter lessons, but I think I am having trouble with the 4 day schedule I am trying to pull off. I would love to see how short or long others are spending on their subjects and how you are spreading all your subjects out for your 9/10 year olds.

My son is in 1st grade. Right now we are trying to do A LOT everyday. Our day is: Scripture study spelling phonics math writing (WWE) book report/story writing computers TTH memorization, grammar TTH history/science music- recorder practice We have a hard time fitting it all in, and we're often rushing through the fun stuff at the end of the day. I've been thinking of switching to a MWF/TTH schedule, something like math and LA on MWF and history, science, computers and art on TTH. BUT How can I get through a whole year's worth of math only doing three lessons a week? Saxon has 130-something lessons. If we only do three per week, taking three months off during the year (whenever those months happen to be) that would leave, at best, 40 weeks of school, which would get me 120 lessons of math IF I never missed a day (HA!). So, I know there are people who don't do math everyday, or phonics, or however you swap it, I know there are people who are not doing everything everyday. So what's the secret? Do you skip lessons? Do you do two in one day? Do you just not finish a grade level every year and not care about it? (NOTE: the latter is not an option for us. My son is in a state program that buys all our books in exchange for taking standardized tests four times a year and quarterly check ups with a teacher. Ick, I know, but, hey, free books of my choice!) How can I adjust our schedule so that the "fun" subjects get more time, but the "vital" subjects are still happening and getting done?

I am tweaking my SL IG and would love to create my own weekly pages that look like SL or Winter Promise with the days on top and the subjects/books on the left. Would anyone know of an existing template I can download that would allow me to do this? TIA!!

I need help and need to think out loud a bit here. We are moving into a different routine and rhythm here at our house, and I like it a lot. But I need to get on top of a system for planning out the days and the week better. I have two kids who are almost five years apart, so in most things, they are at different places. I want to be able to sit down at the beginning of the week and make a plan, but then also be able to alter or add to the plan as the week progresses. If we discover something we want to explore more for example, I want to make a note to remind myself. For example, go to XY website for more info on the cool history video we watched on Monday. And I want to be able to do the same for both kids, so I need to be able to make a plan that shows me both, but also is separate. Does that make sense? For example, if part of the plan is going to the zoo one day, that is the same for both of them. But then in other areas, they will be working on different things. Also, I want to be able to maybe use this as a record for what we've done each week, and maybe have a place where I can write something additional, that will be a good memory of something fun we did that week, or something one of the kids liked or said. I've never been good about keeping journals like that and I really want to just do it. Better late than never. I have tried various online and computer versions of planning and scheduling, but somehow, I always revert back to needing to make a list on real paper with a pen. I like the IDEA of something virtual, mainly because that way I can always find it and it's easily portable. But somehow I find myself always writing lists on paper, post-it notes, whatever. Maybe I need to just force myself to stick with the virtual options until they become habit, and then it will be a lot easier. OR maybe I need to go with my natural patterns and just use paper since that is what I fall back to. I'm thinking of just getting a plain old 2-page per week or even one page per day planner, and just using that. Draw a line down the middle of each day to make a section for each kid. Any thoughts, or anyone want to share how you plan and schedule what your kids will do for homeschooling from day to day or week by week? Thanks!

Hello all. This year my oldest is doing the Apologia Biology (2nd edition) anyways, I'm wondering what a good schedule , if anyone has one , would be to get this done in a timely manner. Its a HUGE book. :tongue_smilie: How did you schedule the modules? Trying to figure this out so she has a good experience with it. I wish they had a DVD like they do for their physics. Can't afford their online classes right now either. No coops in our area either.

We have yet to ever just have some kind of normal in our home. New jobs, moves, unexpected babies, military service, deployments, going back to college as adult students, special needs children, solo parenting, depression. This years whopper was my dh moving out of state. We have no plans about what comes next. I will keep homeschooling. But, yet again i failed at keeping a schedule of any sorts. No one finished their books. Our biggie for the year. My delayed 9yo has finally started reading and his speech is improving along with his reading skills!!!!! We have been on a wee break. Tomorrow is Monday and I am going to have everyone pile up their books and make a schedule to get it all finished. I am going to write it on paper. I will not be spending hours on the computer trying to make the perfect schedule or plans. Mainly because cause my printer broke. Which I would replace except I need that money to fix my van:tongue_smilie:

I just posted on the K-8 board but then thought it might be useful to post here as well :) Just sharing the schedules that we've been using pretty successfully. I've posted the actual schedules of how the day goes for each of the kids, as well as how their weekly schoolwork schedule is put together. DS5 http://jellybeanclubhouse.blogspot.com/p/hug-bugs-schedule.html DD8 http://jellybeanclubhouse.blogspot.com/p/miss-muffetts-schedule.html DS10 http://jellybeanclubhouse.blogspot.com/p/mr-rs-schedule.html I am having trouble posting the files to my blog so that they can be downloaded.....if you would like the Word/Excel files to try this for yourself, feel free to PM me with your email and I am happy to send them to you. Hope it can help someone out.

OK here are the schedules for DD8 (grade 3): http://jellybeanclubhouse.blogspot.com/p/miss-muffetts-schedule.html and DS10 (grade 5): http://jellybeanclubhouse.blogspot.com/p/mr-rs-schedule.html If you are keen to try the same "system", PM me with your email address and I can send you the Word & Excel files that I have put together. (I'm having trouble posting them into my blog)

My biggest problem with homeschooling has been wanting to study everything; I know I'm not the only one out there who finds the freedom of being able to teach my children whatever I want to teach a bit overwhelming. I've been wrestling with this issue for a long time, and the biggest sticking point for me was languages: I come from something of an international family, I have siblings and cousins who speak German, Swedish, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Ukrainian, and Romanian, in addition to the Spanish, French, and Japanese I speak (all this comes from living overseas, not studying in school). I really want my children to feel comfortable with people from all over the world, and to have at least a taste of the vast richness of the world's languages and cultures. But obviously I can't teach all that, nor would my students have time to study it all! Here's what I finally settled on: Our "core" subjects to study daily will be math, music (yes, this is core to me), and our primary languages, Spanish and French (I'm thinking Spanish on MWF, French on TTh). English skills will also be practiced daily, through copywork and literature. History and Science can alternate days. This gives me 5 subjects a day, and lessons need not be long. Everything else I get excited about, including all those other languages I would like to expose my kids to, will be integrated into memory work. For example, I found an audio version of the Bible in Mandarin, and from that we have memorized John 1:1. We have also memorized songs for the Greek and Hebrew alphabets. I'm planning to start map drawing, also as part of our memory time. It's not a way to study a subject in depth, but together with wide-ranging reading outside of school time it satisfies my desire to provide an education with both depth and breadth, without driving myself or my kids crazy with schedules that have to fit everything in.

Is this even possible to do, especially at the D & R levels? Can someone please shed some light on how they do it? Thanks!!!!

Would this fall under "advertising"? I just don't know, so I'll give it a shot. I've been getting a lot of hits on my blog recently, and all of them seem to be going to my schedules. (Which is fabulous given that is the whole reason I put them up there.) They are free and available for your use as you see fit. I do get a number of questions regarding them though, so I thought I would answer them here (most of my hits originate from this forum). They are formatted similar to SL's instructor guides. (No, I don't use SL, but I did try them once.) They are in MS Word format and easily edited. Why the detail? We were military when I started creating them, and moving frequently. I was getting sick and tired of having to re-create a system for each state we moved in, so I finally grabbed rules and regulations for each of the 50 states regarding homeschooling and found the strictest of those to use as my standard. (That was about 10 years ago, so things may have changed.) Yes, unless noted otherwise, I did create each schedule myself. (Yes, my husband groans about it; and rolls his eyes. . .) No, I did not copy the SOTW guides for the encyclopedia correlations. Yes, I did own the SOTW guides; however, my kids (and I) were getting irked with being directed to the same encyclopedia entries multiple times, and not getting to others at all. (I have no plan to update this particular piece, as I own all the "old" books.) Yes, I do take 3rd parties’ schedules that are offered and post them on my blog. I started sharing my schedules to spare other homeschool moms the grief of making them (“do unto others. . .â€); thus, it only makes sense to me to allow others to do the same. I do “vet†the schedules I receive, because I need to keep my space “cleanâ€, (it is limited after all). Therefore, I won’t post a copy of a schedule that only has minor differences. I think that covers the majority of the questions I receive. I hope all of you have a fabulous upcoming year.

After going round and round about what to do when my third wheel (aka my wonderful son) rolls into our homeschool this fall, discovering that no packaged programs pleased me in their entirety or fit my budget, I am revisiting my original position, which was to follow The Well Trained Mind, but perhaps even more closely than we have been. I'll have a K'er, 2nd grader, 4th grader. I'm considering using all Peace Hill Press curriculum - SOTW 4, FLL 2 & 4, WWE 2 & 4, along with CLE Math and chem/physics curriculum TBA (we have to combine that year to stay on cycle). Maybe the new Olive Branch Bible curriculum from Peace Hill, too. ...So if you use TWTM approach (including most of their materials and recommendations) with multiple children in the grammar stage, what is your schedule like? I'm planning to combine your suggestions with the SOTW/literature schedule that's free on House of Classical Learning (thanks to a previous brainstorming thread I started where someone suggested that!).

Do you so the same subjects each day with your children or not? I am considering switching things up a bit as I try to move to a more CM-friendly plan for the girls. I found the schedules at SCM and also searched the archives here and found this thread but thought I'd poll y'all to see what you do. I like the idea of doing the exact same thing in the exact same order each day. DD#1 and I both have pretty severe attention issues (both diagnosed ADHD - I'm medicated, she's not :tongue_smilie:) I find that we are lucky to get the 3Rs in each day. I feel that that way we at least get in the basics. I will also admit that I need more discipline to keep us on track. It's easy for me to start working on something myself - and get totally lost in my own world - while she is doing her work (instead of staying right there and gently reminding her to keep on track). DD#1, however, would like to switch things up. She loves history and science and we truly never do these any more. She'd love to do art as well. Maybe if we do core subjects before lunch, letting her choose the order, and family work after lunch? Or, possibly switching between core and family work throughout the day so that more of the subjects she likes get "face time"? So, what works well for your family?

I've been thinking about this a lot this past year. I know we are not doing enough and I will have to change that. It is actually changing that is so hard sometimes. I read how many of you moms and dads accomplish so much with your children. A "rigorous" education for us will require a lot more hours and this is the part we need to improve. I think I struggle with this because I want the girls to have social times and dh likes school and social times to be done around dinner time so that we can eat as a family and practice piano, take baths, etc. and so that he can spend time with us. He also likes to have some private family time over the weekends (not the entire weekend). We both also come from large families and family events are at least monthly and during the holidays and summer it is more often. There just seems to be sooo much to balance. I guess my question is this: For you moms who require your students to work/study at least 5 hours a day how do you balance this with all the rest? Do you simply have to accept that errands, social get-togethers must not get in the way of this? After 5 hours of school with occasional spurts of household chores in between I'm not sure I even want to try to run the girls around to social events between the hours of 3:30-5. Also, it seems so many of our local homeschooling families do not want or plan social events in this time span. I'm starting to think that this may be part of the price we must pay to obtain an excellent education. Dh and I want to give this to the girls but I have realized that this will take effort and maybe even sacrifice on all our parts. I know I can do this. I want to give this to them. I must work harder myself. I promise I will repeat this often!:D

If you have not given Chorebuster a try, you must, you simply must. It is highly exalted in this house. You go to the site, enter the people in your family capable of helping and how difficult their jobs should be, how much of the load they should get. Enter the chores that need to be done, how often they should be done, who is NOT able to do each one, and how difficult they are considered to be. For a donation, you can enter other info, like whether you will pay a reward for the chore. The site generates a fair list of chores and emails it to you each week. You can print out the schedule and also email people's chores to them every day. I am in LOVE, I tell you!

People have been asking about schedules, so I thought I'd post one of ours... hopefully it will work! Didn't work...

I am looking for advice on how to organize my homsechool schedule. I have basically done it by hand, printing out calendars and filling them in. I see those of you who have your lovely spreadsheets, etc. I would like to be more organized and efficient. If anyone would like to add their suggestions, I think it could help others to be more organized with their schedules. So if you have a favorite way, a favorite program, a favorite book on organization, scheduling ,please let me know!