Tell me About Your Afternoon Schedules / Routines

[veggiegal]

I've gotten our Mon-Thurs morning schedule worked out, covering LA, math, logic and physical activity / gym. One afternoon is set with a drama class outside the home, but I am trying to figure out the rest. What do your afternoons look like? Or your Fridays, if you keep them separate from the rest of your weekday routine?

 

How do you schedule science? Social studies (history / geography)? Typing? Art? Music? Learning games? DVDs? Second languages? Errands? Playdates? Arrrrggghhhh.....:confused:

[mamamoon]

:lurk5:

[Samiam]

Our afternoons are our free time, well, somewhat free time.

 

If it is day where we have no where to be, then after school work is done, and two chores are done, my boys have their free time. This can start anywhere from 12p-2pish, just depending on how their mornings went.

 

During this free time, they can take turns playing video games, playing outside, playing with toys, etc.

 

Now that being said, once activities start back up, we don't normally have alot of "no where to be" days. Tuesday afternoons, we will have Spanish/PE to be at. Fridays are all day at Co-ops. Throw in a park day, field trip, appointment, or life errands on any given day. Then fall sports start back up, Football is 4 nights a week for DS13, and DS8 and DS5 will both have soccer. DS8 will have Cub Scouts. So many afternoons we are eating dinner at 4p-ish to ensure they have something in their bellies before we leave the house around 5p . Get home between 7p-9p, depending on the activity, get cleaned up and get them to bed.

 

So like I said, the few days that we have here and there with no where to be, once schoolwork and chores are done, I pretty much let them do what they want, within reason.

 

Science, History,etc, that is all part of our schedule school day. I don't plan one special day for experiments, as I found on that past that what happens is something gets scheduled for that day, and then we don't get our science day. I have to keep everything on our schedule and in a workbox if I want it to get done. Same with all of the other subjects you listed. But in the younger years, as two of mine are, I simply don't do all of that stuff, there just isn't enough time or interest for all of those things. Plus our curriculum of choice, MFW is very history based, so that is not an optional subject, but considered a CORE subject for us.

[Mrs Twain]

We have a schedule for our whole school day. I find that is the only way I can get things done consistently. We have school from 8:00 a.m. to about 2:00 or 2:30 p.m. with multiple breaks throughout the day.

 

For the morning, we cover math, grammar, spelling, and writing.

 

After an early lunch, we do one hour where the kids rotate with one reading aloud to me and the others working on workbooks (reading comprehension or critical thinking, handwriting, and vocabulary).

 

After this on Mon, Wed, and Fri, I have the older ones do 15 minutes typing, then 15 minutes of a language program on the computer, and then a break.

 

After the break, we follow this:

15 minutes for memory work or timeline or Abeka's Oral Lanuage exercises,

then 30 minutes or so of me reading to them history and a brief bit about the lapbook activity we are doing, and maybe a little bit of one of the "What Your __-Grader Needs to Know" books.

 

After that we end with something different each day:

Monday--Music/Music appreciation + lapbook acitivity

Tuesday--Science

Wednesday--Geography/Map reading/Map drawing +lapbook activity

Thursday--(Government or Civics or State history or Economics) +lapbook activity

Friday--Art/Art history

 

This is a lot to cram in, so we may have to simplify it somewhat. I find that if I don't plan a lot, though, we run out of things to do by the end of the year.

 

After 2:30, we have time for other activites which often include something like sports practices, the kids playing outside, planning playdates, or just free time for the kids.

[rafiki]

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[Lily_Grace]

Our afternoons are usually a finishing of morning projects and Spelling. DS usually will spend the time reading or finishing a history/language arts project before quitting for the day.

 

How do you schedule science? Social studies (history / geography)? Typing? Art? Music? Learning games? DVDs? Second languages? Errands? Playdates?

 

Science is scheduled just like any other subject, everything ready to go so he can pull it out and do it. We do try to get experiments to coincide with the baby's naptime but if not, I toggle between the two.

 

History the same. Typing - we scheduled those lessons every other day until he was through with them. We alternated with art. Music is once a week at our co-op. We live in a foreign country so language learning is done every day, at least 15 minutes study.

 

Learning games...those are scheduled as we have time for. The other day The Kid decided to turbo through 3 weeks worth of math lessons and that left us a big blank spot in the morning. Great - time for Scattagories! DVDs are done on the weekend or while working on a project of the same subject.

 

We schedule errands after dh gets home or on weekends or on the way to/from activities. There's a rest period here in the afternoon that's taken by most businesses so it doesn't do us any good to go out then. And in the morning the baby is sleeping, so we don't go out then, either. It's a little frustrating some days. Field trips are easy, errands are not. And we don't schedule playdates at all. There's a once a week meet-up for P.E./social time through our hs group and there's enough kids in the neighborhood to play with in the evenings. I'm not scheduling anything else!

[boscopup]

The way I've been doing it:

 

Morning - Math, Grammar, Reading, Spanish (if we get to it), Writing

Afternoon - Put 2 year old to bed, then do History/Science (alternate days), and supposedly do art, but that's only happened once in the first 6 weeks. :tongue_smilie:

 

I just revamped my schedule yesterday, so we're going to try this:

 

M-W:

Morning - Math, Spanish, Cursive, morning break/pick-up toys, Grammar, Writing, History, Reading, Lunch

Afternoon - Put 2 year old to bed, 1-hour cleaning slot - rest of the time is free time for everyone

 

Th:

Morning - Math, Spanish, Cursive, morning break/pick-up toys, Spelling, Reading, story time at library, grocery store, Lunch

Afternoon - Put 2 year old to bed, Art, Science, 1-hour cleaning slot

 

F:

Morning - Math, Spanish, Cursive, morning break/pick-up toys, Spelling, Reading, Science

Afternoon - Put 2 year old to bed, Art, 1-hour cleaning slot

 

So basically, I moved things around. I previously had history MWF and science T/Th, so T/Th were our light days. I like that in this schedule, we're completely done by lunch on M/T/W. :) We'll see how it works in practice though! If we need to go anywhere on Monday (which sometimes we'll go to Sam's that day), I'll need to move things to the afternoon, but there's plenty of time to do that. I also just remembered that DS2 will have speech therapy starting up next month sometime, but I don't know when that will be yet. It used to be Tuesday mornings. So we'd just need to move some things around or even do some things in the van (we have to wait 30 minutes in the parking lot). So Tuesdays we'll probably have some things to finish up after lunch, but it shouldn't be too much.

 

Note that I'm only schooling one 7 year old, so an older child would likely require a longer day, and multiple children would require a longer day as well.

[Joyofsixreboot]

We cover all our core subjects in the morning. History and science are daily. We start fairly early at 8 so have about 4 hours until lunch. We do take a morning break for about 20 minutes after LA and Math are done.

 

Generally we take an hour for lunch/play. I put the 3yo down for "quiet play time" and the older kids finish anything (typing, Latin, independent reading). When they are done with that they have free time. No video or computer games until 2:30 (when 3yo gets released, LOL). On Monday we have Spanish, on Thursday we have PE. At 3:40 they go to our local Boys and Girls Club to play until 5pm. That is mostly socializing/free play so if they have to do more work some days I'm comfortable they still get to have 'time off.' I usually leave them with assignments if I have to go do errands rather than drag them along. One of the advantages of finally having older kids.

Edited July 31, 2011 by joyofsix

[veggiegal]

Thanks for all the ideas! I really like how some of you have your afternoons--structured, but with some lighter / fun stuff, and you don't need to do everything every day (or even twice a week!). You've given me lots to think about. This is our first year where I am creating a fairly structured schedule (we were pretty 'relaxed eclectic' in the first few years, and our structure came from the many classes we did outside the home).

 

Now, to figure out where to fit 'me time' (I think that's gotta be my exercise time first thing in the morning); time for my work (I'm starting back to work P/T this year); time to help hubby with our business (we're self-employed).... But if you ladies with more kids than I can do this and stay sane, so can I! :tongue_smilie:

[Raising Little Shoots]

great ideas here.

 

We school 'till 1-ish, then our afternoons are as follows:

 

Mon - meet with friends or free play or crafts

 

Tues - as above

 

Wed - grocery shopping

 

Thurs - Afternoon tea / listen to classics for kids / drawing

 

Fri - meet with our H/S knitting club

[ChristusG]

We're pretty lax on our schedule. I'm not one of those who can follow a time schedule down to the minute.

 

I'd love to begin schooling by 8:30 but that's just not feasible for us. My kids sleep late and I try to do a few chores in the morning. So we try to begin by 10.

 

I pull DD7 aside to begin her schooling at 10....we do reading, writing, and math together.

 

Then it's usually a break...it's usually about 11:15 or 11:30 by that time. The kids play, I fix lunch, they eat, I do a few chores, I eat while surfing the net (and they play), and then we begin schooling again by about 1.

 

At 1, I bring both kids together and we do Bible, Grammar, Map Skills, and whatever our other subject for the day is (I rotate history, science, sign language, art, and health).

 

After those subjects, time for another break....kids play, I do chores, or research things for school.

 

Right now, that's about where our day ends...it's usually about 2:30 or 3, depending on what we did for our rotating subject that day.

 

Soon though, I'll let the kids have a break, then I'll pull aside my 4 year old for about 30 minutes and go over some preschool things with her.

 

We don't really have any outside activities right now. But DD7 wants to take ballet, so we'll be signing her up for that.

[RainbowSprinkles]

We usually spend afternoons at home because my ds2 still takes naps.

 

When school is done for the day (usually around noon-ish), we eat lunch, toddler takes his nap and the older dc have free play time.

 

I decided to wait for outside lessons until the new year. We have a baby due in Oct and then all the holidays coming up, I just thought it would make more sense to wait until Jan/Feb for activities outside the home.

[PeacefulChaos]

So far (but we are still early in the year, and I have a feeling the lessons will take a little longer the further we go), we have been able to get everything done in the morning (with a break for 'recess' as the boys like to call our free time, and snack) with the exception of Bible and our reading. Sometimes we may have to go out in the morning for something else, obviously, which puts us a little behind - but in general we are done by 1:15/1:30 each day. I do occasionally put off art until the afternoon if it's especially messy, so that the 2yo will be in bed and won't add to the mess. :)

Once we're done for the day, they can either play quietly in their room or watch a movie quietly in mine. They usually do about half and half.

[2_girls_mommy]

We school at home 4 days a week and do out of the house learning on Fridays. Each day before lunch (I actually have it broken down to a very detailed time line as well..) we do:

 

memorywork/copywork/handwriting (these are often the same project)

 

math, spelling, writing for 4th grader, assigned reading, latin 3 days a week, music 1 day a week.

 

lunch at noon. I read aloud while they finish eating at 12:30. After that they play outside for 30 min.

 

Then 4th grader does english (we just can't squeeze it into the morning) and 2nd grader will finish any workbook work. Then they have 15 min. each of piano practice. Then they have silent reading/rest time in their room for 45 min to an hour.

 

Then the afternoon subjects from 3:00-4:00 are sheduled like this:

Mon: Art

Tues/Thurs: History/geography

Wed: Science