Does your family/homeschool operate on a tight schedule or

[Nakia]

are you more laid back? We have always been pretty laid back, but now that my girls are busier and older (and so am I, lol), I think we need a better schedule. I've always done lessons plans and chore charts (which have been hit or miss), and that's about it. I'm thinking about putting together a more planned out schedule for each day so we can get more done. I think we waste a lot of time, and it's starting to make me nuts. I hate feeling, at the end of the day, like we've only accomplished a portion of what we needed to because of wasted time. And I HATE feeling rushed. It makes me have a bad attitude which rubs off on the girls. If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy, KWIM?

 

I never thought I would be someone who has the entire day scheduled down to the minute, and I don't want to be a slave to our schedule, but there has to be a happy medium, right? I need something that has room for adjustments and isn't so tight we can't move things around and rearrange.

 

So I'm thinking of starting by deciding on a set time for me to get up and a set time for the girls to get up. We've always just gotten up and gotten started whenever we felt like it. :blush: Then maybe schedule things in blocks throughout the day. Like 9-12 bible, math, spelling, writing, etc then lunch then another block in the afternoon. Does that make sense? Or maybe a tighter schedule would work better. Ugh. Either way, something's gotta change.

 

Anyone want to share ideas? Schedules? What works and doesn't work? I have to work in chores and animal care too.

 

Thanks for listening to my rambling and for any help you can offer!

[regentrude]

No schedule here.

I mandate a certain amount of time my kids must spend on school (4.5 hours for the 7th grader, 6 hours for the 10th grader), and a starting time of 8am. They choose what subject they want to work on and for how long. Only math has to happen daily.

So, we are fairly relaxed.

In order to get a lot done, for us the most important thing is to get started with school on time in the morning and not to leave too much for the afternoon when productivity and concentration decrease drastically. The important stuff has to get done in the morning before lunch.

 

Chores and extracurriculars happen in the afternoon, after school work is completed. We do not schedule any activities for the morning (one exception: hs playgroup once a week at 12 noon for DS; on that day, he only schools till noon.)

[Harriet Vane]

We have found that a loose schedule with lists works best for us.

 

Dh gets us all up in the morning and the kids have breakfast with him. I'm grouchy in the morning so I eat alone and read the paper, play on TWTM boards, etc.

 

We get started at 8 or more likely 8:30 with read-alouds. It's snuggly and wonderful. Then the grind begins. The kids have lists and we do our best to get through them. We eat sometime at 11ish or 12ish. The afternoon schedule is dictated by whatever outside commitments we've got. When we work, I try to make us work at least an hour and a half before taking a break, and I usually dictate that breaks are no more than 10-15 minutes. We do lose track of break time sometimes, though.

 

Every time I've tried to set more of a formal schedule we just fail and feel bad. For us, getting started in a timely way is key, and holding some discipline about our break times is key.

[Parrothead]

We have a loose schedule. I'm thinking seriously about tightening it up between Jan 1 and June 1.

[elegantlion]

We are pretty laid back, but we're still working to find a new normal. Dh is now working full time and is gone for 12 hours a day. So by the time he gets home, he's exhausted and wants food and sleep.

 

I'm ramping up expectations for school after break. I'm setting weekly goals, and going to work on making sure we stay on track each week. We travel a lot of rabbit trails, which I love, but we also need to finish some things before high school.

 

I'm also a big believer in free time for teens, to pursue whatever they wish. Ds is getting into drawing on paper and on the computer, and he has the best breakthroughs when I just let him be for a while.

 

After the last few years of chaos we've needed some time to just be still, kwim.

[shanvan]

I am thinking through a lot of the same issues currently. I seem to bounce back and forth b/t scheduled and laid back depending on what else is happening in life. I alternate b/t thinking it's fine to have this sort of approach and panicking that we aren't getting done all that I'd like. Then again, the list of what I'd like to get done is completely unrealistic.

 

Whenever I end up with a rigid schedule I start thinking that my Dc could have that kind of life if I sent them to school. Why would I want to replicate it at home? I mean, isn't the ability to customize education and make it different than public school one of the beauties of homeschooling? I'm still thinking through all these questions.

 

One of our biggest issues is opportunities (some would say interruptions) that happen b/c we are home and available. For example Dd's puppy's breeder is giving Dd and I free grooming and handling lessons and will help her get started as an AKC Junior Handler. It's not an opportunity that will come along again since we will not be getting another dog for years. But, it takes away from our academic time. Then again, it is teaching my Dd an awful lot of things she will not learn sitting around the kitchen table with books. It's teaching her to be more focused, patient, kind, determined, self controlled, poised, etc. Anyway, these are activities that build character and teach skills and I don't want to give them up, yet I am sometimes frustrated at the time taken from academics. Then again, Dd is gaining a unique education tailored to her, and the dog training is addressing some of Dd's most difficult issues--all of which carry over into academics.

 

Sorry, I went off on my own personal issue. Anyway, no great advice to give as I am still thinking through 'the schedule' for the new year, such as it may be. I really don't want to lose the uniqueness that homeschooling allows, so I don't know that I can ever follow a schedule that is too rigid. I think we need a happy medium. Something that is rigid when needed, but relaxed when necessary. That probably makes no sense. :D

 

I'll be watching this thread with interest as I prayerfully plan for the rest of our year..

[coffeegal]

We work best on a tight schedule.

 

9 ~ Latin / Greek

9:30 ~ Language Arts (Grammar, Spelling, penmanship, reading)

10:30 ~ Math

11:30 ~ Break (My highschooler often works on Latin & Greek during this time as well)

12:30 - 2 or 3 ~ TOG (MWF) or Science (TR)

[G5052]

I work with some school-time hours from home, so we have set times to get up, eat breakfast, and eat lunch. We do 30 minutes of chores after each meal and just before DH comes home. They are mostly independent at this point, so that helps.

 

Everything starts again Monday. Sigh...breaks go so quickly!

[Ellie]

I've never had a schedule, but I do have a routine, and the routine is not very flexible.

 

When dc were young and at home, the routine was this: Monday and Tuesday, Official School Days--no errands, no doctors' appointments, no field trips or other activities with hsers, until at least 3 in the afternoon; Wednesday, library; Thursday, field trip; Friday, clean house, once-a-month park day. Any deviation from that routine was disastrous.

 

Our household routine also included things like my showering at night (I wash my hair in the morning in the kitchen sink), getting dressed and making my bed before I left my room each morning, and keeping the kitchen clean at all times.

 

But an actual schedule of when we did what each day? No way. We usually started Official School Stuff by 9ish, and left the house for the library by 9 or 10; field trip days varied, but we were usually out of the house by 9 on those days, as well.

[Samiam]

I've definately lightened up over 8 years of HSing, from one DS to three DS.

 

I am by nature, a Type A, though, so it's never going to be a "free for all". Unschooling, while I get it and an even admire those that are capable of doing it, would never work for my brain.

 

So here is where we are: I don't schedule time, ie start at 8, math is at 8:30...no, that is way to rigid for me, my brain would go crazy if we got off schedule.

 

I do lesson plans, and plan out our week, what I want to get done each day.

 

We do use workboxes, so our day is scheduled in the fact that I've loaded the workboxes in the order I want subjects done.

 

So we are scheduled in that we know what needs to get done. We work each day until it's done. That might take 2 hours or 5 hours.

[*Lulu*]

I don't think of our schedule as tight, but I suppose it seems that way when written out.

 

The kids have activities or receive services 3days a week. Two of the days we have to be out of the house before lunch, so I have had to become extremely deliberate with our time. It is also the reason we school on six days a week.

 

7am- breakfast

8am- chores and piano practicing

8:45-read alouds, geo., SOTW, memory work, etc.

10am- M/W- group work (see sig), T- outside services, Th/F/S- ind. seat work

11:30- M- outside services

12pm- lunch

1pm- M/W- activity, T- HS support group, Th/F/S- quiet reading

2:30- M/T/W- free time/errand running, Th/F/S- wrap up work if needed

4pm- afternoon chores, start supper

[angela in ohio]

We're in the middle. We have certain things that are scheduled, and then things which must be done by a certain date/time but can be done at their own pace (this increases as they get older.) I like to think I';m replicating real life for them, teaching them to both follow someone else's timetable at times, but also to plan out work without a strict schedule and have it done by a deadline.

[*Lulu*]

I wanted to add that we do "school on the go" on the days we are out. There is always at least one kid waiting at every appointment/activity and, despite a few groans from my brood and strange looks from others, I redeem that time for schooling.

[melissel]

Nakia, you sound just like me. I'm :bigear: for ideas too.

[GoVanGogh]

I always wanted to be a laid back, relaxed homeschooler. But I found that once we hit a certain level, I felt a strong desire/need to keep a tighter schedule. I was feeling very guilty over it recently and a fellow homeschooler told me that - for her - running a tighter schedule actually allowed her more freedom, because then she had her time to be relaxed and she could truly relax and not be stressed during that time. Hearing her say that was very meaningful to me, because I was noticing that too, but still resisting the 'need' to run a tighter schedule.

I do run a tighter schedule during our school time - school starts at 8:30, we take lunch at noon, we grocery shop same day of the week every week, etc. We do school year-round and take off time as needed. Our time off school are truly 'off,' no worries about schedule.

[2_girls_mommy]

I have a tight schedule, down to the minute. Do we always follow it? No. Are we slaves to the schedule? No. But things go better and we get more in if we are loosely following it, best if we are tightly following it. It is good for my slightly OCD child too. She functions best on a tight ship and loves her watch to keep time.

 

If we sleep late, we get the basics done, move forward, adjust, and move on. But we have a daily schedule of this is the day for which extra subject and that always gets done. So we might skip a handwriting practice sheet if we are running behind, but we won't skip the core curric (math, english, writing) and the afternoon subject: history or science depending on the day.

 

Having that perfect day, broken down into time chunks on paper and hanging in our schoolroom is really a blessing though. It shows us what can be done if we work hard. It shows that we can get it all done in a day. And we have done so much better since I instituted it a year ago.

[Ester Maria]

I recommend organizing time by scheduling *concrete tasks* rather than *time* spent on each activity. This is a HUGE, HUGE time saver, especially if you have children that tend to dawdle away.

 

For example, if you schedule two hours of work - an hour of math and an hour of English - between 8 and 10 AM, you WILL get two hours of work, i.e. your children will be doing something in those two hours. But... they will also dawdle away, write slowly, think slowly, take bathroom breaks, etc., because they will not have any real motivation to finish earlier. It is a TIME that is set in stone, so a child thinks, wait, if I can get away with getting ten problems done rather than twenty, and with reading fifteen pages rather than thirty, really, why would I do more, unless it is a particular interest of mine? The time I have to spend on it is the same anyway, so who cares, if it does not really interest me, I can take my time.

 

BUT, if you schedule, for that same morning, "exercises 1-20 on the page 60 of the math book, pages 140-170 of the English book with written notes", they have a reason to be efficient and work promptly, yet carefully (because you will check it, of course), and they know that if they finish it in 90 minutes as opposed to 120, they will still be free, it is a system that works well both for you and for them: things get done, but you do not micromanage them, you split the material into smaller daily / weekly chunks and give it to them to do it in whatever time it takes them to do it (of course, you are still aware of their capacities, the reasonable amount of work for them, etc.).

 

I do recommend, regardless, having them start early. Your daughters are maybe too young to be given weekly assignments (I switched to that), but at least your oldest might cope well with daily assignments given to her in the morning that she can finish whenever she wants until a given deadline. So, if she wants to be efficient and be done by noon - she can; if she wants to laze around, dawdle, and ruin her afternoons - she can choose to do so as well. My experience has been that with time they "get" what is in their interest.

 

ETA: The things you do WITH them are scheduled, of course: discussions, etc. But the "get-it-done" kind of work, practice, drill, or textbook work - I delegate it all to them, because that is a lot more efficient for all.

Edited December 30, 2011 by Ester Maria

[2_girls_mommy]

To deal with the above problem of dawdling the time away we have instituted homework time. If the child doesn't finish the assignment in the given (reasonable) amount of time, it is put aside and we move on to the next topic. It actually helps, because if the child is dawdling indefinitely then the day drags on for everyone as I wait to start the next subject with them. So having the time assigned actually frees up my time. I am done by a certain time each day with my part of their studies. The explanations are done. They can finish their independent practice on their own time without me.

 

Oh you were staring off into space and didn't finish your math sheet?? Well, you can shift subjects now and finish it during homework time later. So the less dawdling, the less homework (which is all of their time, none of me needed) and less playtime, T.V, or anything else is motivating. Sister may be going outside, but you have math to finish. So it actually works to motivate here.

[*********]

We don't have a schedule Nakia. Or really, even much of a routine.

 

It drive my husband BATTY, but it works for the boys and me.

 

I've tried explaining to dh that there's too many 'variables' for me to have a schedule. With two stepkids, and the fact that their scheulde changes CONSTANTLY, plus all their changing activities, there's no way.

 

Plus, (and before anyone says anything, YES I realize not everyone's marriage works this way) dh will ask me "honey, can you do such and such for me tomorrow", and that suchandsuch could be anything from making a phone call to five different chores/errands. And yes, I do my very best to make sure whatever he asks for gets done. And that can mean anywhere from five minutes to three hours of work I didn't have 'planned' in my day.

 

So, all that to say, a schedule doesn't work for us, right now. I can see how when the boys get older, it may. We do have a 'flow' to our lives, but not even anything as strict as a routine. For example, when the weather allows, we have park day every other week; usually on Tuesday or Thursday. We have rollerskating first Tuesday of the month. Stuff like that.

 

Everything's a season, you know? Hope you find a routine or schedule that works for your in this season. :)

[ErinE]

Never mind! I had the nice long reply ready to type up and then started reading the posts from people with far more experience than me.

 

What they said...

 

ETA: Changed my mind. I gave my ds9 a weekly planner by subject. When we started using it, I told him to look in his planner if he asked about the next subject. Now, he's better about finishing his independent tasks (spelling, grammar, etc.) while I'm working with his sister. The order doesn't matter so long as it gets done. I indicate on the planner which subjects he comes to me for instruction. I also check all work before he's free for the day. I fill out the planner on Sunday for the following week. At the beginning of the year, I tried to fill in multiple weeks, but he's completing some subjects ahead of schedule so I made filling out the planner a weekly chore for me.

Edited December 30, 2011 by ErinE

[Desert Rat]

We have a strict schedule now that I work in the afternoon.

My ds11 told me about 6 weeks into the new school year that he needed more time with me and agreed to wake up earlier to get it.

So, I get up at 5:30 and exercise for 40 minutes. I wake ds11 up at 6:15 or so. He showers and eats breakfast. I wake up ds8 at 7am and ds11 and I start working at the table. Ds8 eats and takes a shower.

8am we sit down to read aloud for 30 minutes or so.

8:30 Ds8 reads aloud to me, ds11 heads off to his room to read for fun or for school.

9:00 ds8 and I sit at the table for his work.

10:00 Both boys do history/science.

11:00 lunch

11:30 I drop the boys off at my parents and head to work. Both boys have some school to work on there.

3:00 I pick the kids up and we had home. The boys put their homework in the box to be graded. We work on something for school or the kids have down time.

4:30 I start dinner.

5:00 Eat

5:30 or 6:00 We had to taekwondo or soccer.

8:00 in bed. They can read for 30 minutes.

8:30 lights out. I grade papers and catch up on housework, etc.

I'm in bed around 10p

 

Working at the table with each boy, I basically stack the stuff that we need to cover and let them pick the order. I usually insist on starting with math with ds8. My oldest has a tutor that we see Monday afternoons (I squeeze it in before work). So, I go over his homework with him then.

I don't work on Fridays so we have afternoon activities then.

 

I've only been back to work for 2 years. I wish I had been more relaxed when I could have been. It's a teeny bit of a regret for me.

I tend to be very organized and like schedules as do my boys.

[Bang!Zoom!]

We are schedule people here. In just a few days we go back to it.

 

My day starts at 4 a.m. and stops at 9 p.m...it feels like boot camp. I couldn't get through it without a written schedule, no way.

 

If it's not written down, it doesn't get done.

[regentrude]

I recommend organizing time by scheduling *concrete tasks* rather than *time* spent on each activity. This is a HUGE, HUGE time saver, especially if you have children that tend to dawdle away.

For example, if you schedule two hours of work - an hour of math and an hour of English - between 8 and 10 AM, you WILL get two hours of work, i.e. your children will be doing something in those two hours. But... they will also dawdle away, write slowly, think slowly, take bathroom breaks, etc., because they will not have any real motivation to finish earlier. It is a TIME that is set in stone, so a child thinks, wait, if I can get away with getting ten problems done rather than twenty, and with reading fifteen pages rather than thirty, really, why would I do more, unless it is a particular interest of mine? The time I have to spend on it is the same anyway, so who cares, if it does not really interest me, I can take my time.

 

BUT, if you schedule, for that same morning, "exercises 1-20 on the page 60 of the math book, pages 140-170 of the English book with written notes", they have a reason to be efficient and work promptly, yet carefully (because you will check it, of course), and they know that if they finish it in 90 minutes as opposed to 120, they will still be free, it is a system that works well both for you and for them: things get done, but you do not micromanage them, you split the material into smaller daily / weekly chunks and give it to them to do it in whatever time it takes them to do it (of course, you are still aware of their capacities, the reasonable amount of work for them, etc.).

 

I think it depends on the child and the style of your homeschool.

I know that my kids give me concentrated work time and do not dawdle. I also know that math concentration for DS starts to wane after about 45 minutes.

Stipulating TIME instead of problems to do turns out to be a huge time saver for planning - because, without working out every single math problem in advance, I have no way to anticipate how much can realistically get done in a certain amount of time. I may assign a problem which I *think* takes ten minutes, but it ends up taking one hour. Unless it is a subject I am extremely familiar with, I also can not anticipate where my kids will have difficulties with conceptual understanding and which topics are easy for them. Whenever I make a schedule, I find that we are off schedule by the end of the first week, because , even though I try to orient myself on posted syllabi, my student's progress is not necessarily the same as the pace of the class for which the schedule was drawn.

 

Lastly, I do think it actually is micromanaging if I give my children a detailed schedule. My kids do better when they can focus on certain subjects for large chunks of time, to the exclusion of others. We have phases where DD does 2.5 hours of math daily, and we have phases where she wants to spend 3 hours daily on history. Forcing her to work on all subjects at a relatively even pace robs her of the momentum that would otherwise drive these "binges".

 

There are pros and cons for your and for my approach, and different things may work for different families.

Edited December 30, 2011 by regentrude

[Chelli]

I have decided that I have to tighten up as well. Not so much set times for each subject but a set start time.

 

Since dd8 was in K (she's now in 2nd), I've just started school whenever she woke up, had eaten breakfast, and done a few chores. That meant some days we might start at 9 and other days not until 10:30. While this works for K and 1st, it's not working so well for 2nd. She does 2 teaching blocks with me that are an hour long each, and then she has 1 block for her independent work (the time she takes to do this depends on her!). We do looping so what subjects are done in the teaching blocks depend on that.

 

I've pretty much decided that when we start back next week, that I have to get up at a set time and get dd up at a set time as well. Our days are just stretching out too long and feel rushed. I think if I got up at 7 and then got dd up at 8, we could start school consistently by 9 and be done by lunch every day.

 

Anyway, that's the plan. We shall see...;)

[shanvan]

Just thought I'd mention these posts. They may be helpful as many of us are reconsidering schedules and routines.

 

http://www.hopeforhomeschool.blogspot.com/

[eternalknot]

If it were up to me, we'd be super laid back ... play every day by ear, roll with the punches ... alas. My son inherited his father's Type A gene and he loves a schedule. Our compromise for K-5 has been a loosely structured routine. One of the main appeals of homeschooling -to me- is being able to sleep in; I'm a late-riser.

 

I had planned to just send him to school for 6th grade + where he could get his schedule on, but he's asked to continue homeschooling through middle school; now I'm finding myself in the same situation - needing to figure out how to bring more structure to our day when it goes against every fiber of my being LOL.

 

Aside from starting now to look into middle school curricula, I'm just going to bury my head for the time being and wing it when the time comes. That's my general strategy in life. It's not perfect, but things usually fall into place. Eventually!

[MamaT]

We stick to a pretty set routine, not schedule. We have activities every afternoon, so we have a set time to get up, do chores, etc., and start school promptly at 8:00. We work really hard until we are done. The kids know free time doesn't start until schoolwork is done, and activities will be missed if school isn't done. They had to miss a few before they realized I meant it. The exception is 12yo, who has to be at gymnastics at 1:00, and finishes when she gets home at 5:00. She has missed gym before for not getting enough work done in the a.m. It only took once.

[Nakia]

Ok, I guess what we really need is a better, more consistent routine. I don't think we need an hourly schedule.

 

Thank you all!!

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

I have a second grader and a kindergartener (plus two littles). This is our current schedule:

 

6:30: get up, eat breakfast, clean-up, brush teeth, get dressed, shower, start laundry

 

8 or 8:30ish (whenever the previous set of things is done): second grade dd's morning work (math, WWE, and Prima Latina)

 

9:30: snack time

 

Kindergarten ds's read-alouds

 

11: naptime for toddler ds

 

kindergarten work for ds: handwriting, math, and word building/reading games

 

second grade work: spelling or grammar

 

Outside time until ds wakes up from his nap

 

1ish: lunch time, clean-up

 

2: Quiet time for 3yo and 5yo

 

Afternoon work for dd: anything we didn't get to in the morning

religion

history or science

4: Quiet time is over. The kids clean up their rooms and have snack. I start making dinner as needed.

 

5:30ish: dinner

 

This has evolved over time. We started out with less subjects, then rearranged and added in subjects as we were able. We're about to add some more subjects and a little bit of work for preschool dd next month. I work so much better knowing what I should be doing ahead of time. Otherwise I tend to get distracted with other things and the things that should have been done aren't accomplished.

[Bloggermom]

We have a daily to-do list that must be done before relaxing/playing. They can take as little or as much time as they want/need to get it all done.

[Ester Maria]

I have no way to anticipate how much can realistically get done in a certain amount of time. I may assign a problem which I *think* takes ten minutes, but it ends up taking one hour. Unless it is a subject I am extremely familiar with, I also can not anticipate where my kids will have difficulties with conceptual understanding and which topics are easy for them.

For us, it is a matter of approximation and it does take a certain flexibility of everyone involved. If they genuinely cannot do it all, they do less or mark the things they are stuck at for us to go over together. If I really underestimate them and assign too little, they often take on some of the work from the next week too. Over the time, however, you learn to approximate fairly well (or so was my experience), so these exceptions are rare. It also makes it easier if you work with *weekly*, rather than *daily* expectations (though I am not sure how realistic it is for OP's kids, having their ages in mind, to coordinate all of their weekly work), since that allows them for some flexibility too (they do not have to do all of the subjects every day, for example).

Lastly, I do think it actually is micromanaging if I give my children a detailed schedule. My kids do better when they can focus on certain subjects for large chunks of time, to the exclusion of others. We have phases where DD does 2.5 hours of math daily, and we have phases where she wants to spend 3 hours daily on history. Forcing her to work on all subjects at a relatively even pace robs her of the momentum that would otherwise drive these "binges".

I view it this way: I give deadlines. Sometimes the deadline is tomorrow, sometimes it is next week, sometimes it is even further down the road, sometimes it is a more flexible deadline, sometimes a fixed one. How they actually organize their time is their own business. If they have to hand in 30 lines of a translation on Friday (for example), it says nothing about the next 30 lines - they are free to do them. They are even free to attach them with the first 30 lines. If they know they are going to be the next assignment, they can do them both at once. So, lots of options for them to work on what they want to work on, as long as they demonstrate the work I require of them to do. Then we have scheduled sessions in which we go over things and discuss them.

 

For my kids, switching on an assignment-based ed, rather than time-based ed, turned out to be such a blessing for everyone involved. I sometimes wonder WHEN do they manage to do all of their assignments since it seems like all the day they are busy with their interests. :lol: Sometimes I ask them "Don't you have, uhm, work to do??" if it seems to me like they are not doing all of school, to which they remind me that the deadline is in two days, and then in two days when we sit down they really know it cold, whatever it is that they had to do meanwhile. I think they invest significantly less time than they did before, because I am so hands off about when and for how long they are doing school. So we are all happy - I am happy because my expectations are being duly met, and they are happy because I leave them alone the rest of the time. So, *for us*, it really works beautifully.

There are pros and cons for your and for my approach, and different things may work for different families.

Sure. :001_smile:

[HiddenJewel]

We don't use a time schedule but more a flow schedule. Math occurs followed by Composition followed by Literature, etc. So there is still structure and focus for the day but they aren't tied to the clock.