so many subjects for one day

[UmMusa]

I'm still trying to plan how we'll fit in our subjects now that i"ll have 3 children to sit with during the day in 3 different grades. Fiddling around with the blocks of time needed for math, languages, history, and science I find myself at 2 or 3pm and still need another hour for our language/religion class and for Building Thinking Skills for DS10.

 

What's the deal?? How can one mom do it all?? I wanna cry. Maybe we just need to start and see where it can fit in, but I have a feeling I will feel frazzled from having to be 'on the job' for so many hours all day. Theoretically my first grader will have the time, but in her free time I'll be teaching someone else and cannot sit with her while she does her Arabic and Islamic Studies.

 

I know this is a popular subject these weeks since a lot of us are getting ready to go back to school. Has anyone cracked the code yet??

[Hedgehog]

I'm still trying to plan how we'll fit in our subjects now that i"ll have 3 children to sit with during the day in 3 different grades. Fiddling around with the blocks of time needed for math, languages, history, and science I find myself at 2 or 3pm and still need another hour for our language/religion class and for Building Thinking Skills for DS10.

 

What's the deal?? How can one mom do it all?? I wanna cry. Maybe we just need to start and see where it can fit in, but I have a feeling I will feel frazzled from having to be 'on the job' for so many hours all day. Theoretically my first grader will have the time, but in her free time I'll be teaching someone else and cannot sit with her while she does her Arabic and Islamic Studies.

 

I know this is a popular subject these weeks since a lot of us are getting ready to go back to school. Has anyone cracked the code yet??

 

 

How old are your dc? I've found that generally, as they get older, we just have to take more time doing our schoolwork. We do 4.5 days of school a week, and school 6 weeks on and 1 off (roughly). If I average out the times, this is what we have scheduled for each grade:

 

1st - 1.5hrs a day

5th - 5.25hrs a day + piano practices

7th - 5hrs a day + 2hrs homework at weekends + piano practices + 1hr teaching littles

 

With this we have enough time to finish what I've planned to do with some grace time for illness and unexpected, necessary interruptions. 3 days a week I go on quite a bit beyond 2pm, but we have two big breaks in the day to refresh everyone.

 

HTH!

[*Lulu*]

:grouphug:

 

Multiple kids can seem overwhelming at times. Even more so when they are really moving apart in academic needs. I don't know if this will help, but I'll post our schedule, and how I arrived at a place I could manage.

 

Breakfast

Breakfast Basket- includes Bible, all read alouds, memory work, etc.

Chores

Group Work- Science, History, Art, Art/Music Appreciation, Nature Study, Geography (I try to do each 2x/week) *

Break- everyone outside for 15min. of movement

Seat Work- These are the personalized subjects/areas- English, Math, Latin, Piano, Logic, Fine Motor (for the pre/k),

Lunch

Quiet Reading- everyone spends an hour in their bed. Readers read, non readers look at books or sleep, and Mom gets a glorious hour to herself.

Wrap-up- if there is any unfinished work this is when we finish it. (This hardly ever happens.)

 

During Seat Work I use a modified Workbox system to help with independence and to stagger the Mom intensive assignments. I also have a "waiting" area where I rotate baskets of logic puzzles, manipulatives, sensory tubs, and other interesting items. This is where the kids are to go if they need help but I am working with another child. I know if I look up and see them in the waiting area that they need me. It has cut down on a lot of the chaos during school time.

 

*I also do character development/study with the olders once a week during the littles library story hour.

 

 

I started with the part of our day that WAS working and built out from there. I would start a new schedule and stick with it for a few weeks to give it a chance, then I would adjust and try again. It took me several months, but I finally got us to a place that was sustainable and felt right. I found our groove. :)

 

I hope this helps, and I hope that you are able to find your family's groove soon! :grouphug:

[Mrs Mungo]

We don't do everything every day.

 

Many subjects do not take a half hour or hour. Building Thinking Skills is something you can do 10 minutes 3x/week.

 

Have you checked the suggested schedules in TWTM? Maybe that would help?

:grouphug:

[Coffeemama]

I spent many hours this summer coming up with what I thought was a very full but doable schedule (about 5 hours with of work for me rotating among three kids. We started this week and I found that many subjects did not take eithwr the full 30 minutes or hour that I had scheduled. The result was great! The younger kids got more breaks which they filled with playing with math toys or reading and my oldest got a LONG lunch hour in which she chose to write a story on the computer and I had time to get some laundry done and check these boards:D

 

Hopefully, you'll find that some subjects just don't take as long as you thought, and your kids will fill the time with fun homeschool extras!

 

By the way, we don't do every subject every day either.

[Stacie Leigh]

I'm in the same position this year... The two biggest things I've done that I love are: 1. Not doing every subject every day. We do Bible, English, Math, and handwriting every single day. History, Science, Music, Art & Spanish are spread out and like a previous poster said, we have a breakfast board that includes some geography, Latin and Greek and such. For us, it's a quality over quantity decision. Instead of just trying to get everyone past one subject and running into the next and then speeding through Science, we do Science twice a week. The first day involves read aloud, discussion, etc... The second day is on the same subject but involves notebooking and experimentation. I've found it's MUCH more in depth and exciting for the kids than if we just work through a textbook and workbook everyday.

 

2. I had planned to put away the workbooks on Fridays and do a unit study, library visit, field trip or something instead and we finally tried it today. WOW. WHAT a breath of fresh air. The kids weren't competing for me and I felt like we learned more together than we had all week. Today we read aloud a lot, had a ton of discussion and then they did notebook pages. DD in K did copywork and an art project. DS in 1st did a mix of copywork and dictation and an art project, then I dictated to DS in 3rd while he wrote and he read aloud to me from a book that was over the heads of the other two. (He's an advanced reader so he read to me on a high school level and if he made any mistakes, I could correct him as he went.) The other two actually kind of casually listened while they were working on their notebooks.

 

We spread out on the floor and the couch the whole day and actually took a mid day drive to Starbucks an sat at an umbrella table outside to discuss one of our books.

 

I feel refreshed for pulling the workbooks back out on Monday and the kids felt they all got my attention, including the two year old who got to sit on my lap for a good bit of the time.

Edited August 20, 2011 by Stacie Leigh

[happypamama]

I alternate days for some subjects, and even for the subjects we do every day, I try to change it up a bit. One day a week, instead of doing the math from our regular books, we'll do a couple of math pages from a workbook (BrainQuest at our house). A different day, we'll do some social studies pages instead of our usual history work, and on yet another day, instead of copywork/handwriting, they'll have a couple of writing/grammar pages from the workbook. That covers different things in a subject, and it keeps things interesting.

 

Our math and history work can easily take 30 minutes each. I don't do math problems just for the sake of doing them; if I can tell that DD understands the concept and can do a few problems, that's enough for me. If she needs more practice, we do more problems. If she still has math practice problems, and we're ready to move on to history (which we do as a family), her practice problems get moved to be finished at the end. I don't think 3 hours is ridiculous to expect from her, at fourth grade; the first grader's work takes less than an hour.

[angela in ohio]

I don't teach everything every day. I teach two math lesson in one day, for example, and then they have to complete the assignment for one that day and the next the next day.

 

I streamline subjects. I finish phonics by 2nd grade and then don't start grammr until 3rd grade, for example, so that I have fewer subjects to teach.

 

I don't teach history or science much to anyone under 7th grade. And I only teach each of those one day a week.

 

I just make myself not get overwhelmed or tired. :001_smile: This is my full time job right now, so if I work 40 hours (or more) at schooling, then that's what I do.

[Monkey Island Academy]

:lurk5:

[kristinannie]

Could your bigger kids do some of the read alouds for your youngest to give you a break? It would help their speaking skills and be a great bonding experience. Also, I am a huge believer in combining for some subjects. Your oldest two could probably be independent on some subjects. I am worried about the same things. I have 3 kids so far so I feel your anxiety!

[Garga]

I've been having the same problem. Neither of my boys can do much independently yet. They still need me right there with them for much of the work. And I feel that I am rushing them through the work, because I know there is still so much to do. I'm always carping at them, "C'mom! Hurry up! We've still got Latin, logic, art, science, and literature to do!" And that's after doing the spelling, math, history, handwriting and typing.

 

Then I remembered something I heard about on here, and I don't know the correct terminology, but it's where you work for a set amount of hours and then stop. The next morning, you pick up where you left off.

 

So instead of doing (for a tiny example) math, reading, history, science, art, and latin all in one day, start at the beginning (math), and see how far you can get in x number of hours. Maybe you only get thru math, reading, history and science. That's ok. The next morning, you start with art, and do art, latin, then roll to math and reading. Then the 3rd morning, you start with history, and keep going from history until it's time to stop...etc.

 

I'll have to revamp my schedule a bit, but I'm thinking that this makes more sense to me. We'll still do all the subjects, but it'll roll around and around. My only concern is that we won't be done by June, because we won't be doing all the subject every day. Some will fall off each day and have to be picked up the next, only for different subjects to fall off...

 

Anyhoo, it's an idea. It might need tweaking, but...well, it's an idea.

Edited August 20, 2011 by Garga