How set is your daily schedual?

[mhaddon]

And what ages/grades do you have?

 

I wonder because I am trying to get into a grove. DS was in "first" and we will be revisiting first because he was a young first grader. I have three youngers that will be following along and doing stuff with them to make it easier. Before this wasn't an option, but my just turned 2 year old loves to "write" and color and do activities finally so that should make it easier for me. I'm making it a priority to not commit to morning appointments or classes where I had been doing so weekly before. It was wreaking havoc on our week and putting us behind, and when coop started it snowballed.

 

So how do you schedule your day and how well do you stick to it? Do you set timers for each subject and move on even if you aren't finished or must you finish a lesson each day? Do you do every subject every day or have a different day each day of the week?

 

Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.

[missmoe]

When I had kids that young, I had routines rather than schedules. That way when things happened that need your immediate attention, you aren't behind. Rather you can just jump into your routine.

 

Morning Routine.

Snuggle in bed and read books.

Change diapers, get dressed

Breakfast

Brush teeth

Clean up kitchen and wipe down bathroom (kids helped as able)

Scripture time and Memory time

 

Phonics with oldest 15-20 minutes while other kids play in same or next room

Some kind of hands-on activity such as puzzles or play dough(Once or twice a week this might be more of a guided art time or music time)

Get laundry started

Baby down for nap time

Reading time/ twice a week we read history books (SOTW or picture books)

Spend about 10-15 minutes with oldest working on narration when we did history---have 2 year old color her narration or map.

 

Free time for kids while I get lunch started

Baby up from nap

Change diapers

Switch laundry

 

Lunch

 

Clean up from lunch

Go outside to play/ work in yard

Come inside--baby goes down for nap, work with 2 year old on preschool skills for 20-30 minutes before nap, then while youngers nap

Work with oldest on math for 30 minutes and then anything else you have time/desire to work on

 

I really just plugged school into our day to day activities until around age 8 or 9. I also made sure to have my kids with me most of the day helping me with what we did while we talked, talked, and talked some more. I also read a ton as while as made sure to get out of the house to visit local children's museums. I ran errands one morning a week--that was part of our routine.

[Cassy]

My boys are 11, 7 and 5. We also have a 'routine', which I try to be fairly strict about, because otherwise too much falls by the wayside :tongue_smilie:.

 

We start our day with reading, beginning no later than 9 am. DS11 reads to himself in bed. I read to DS7 and DS5 for half an hour, then they each read to me for 10 to 20 minutes each. We then have breakfast sometime between 10 am and 10.30 am, followed immediately by math. From 11.30 to 12.00 we start writing. DS11 is fairly independent, DS7 and DS5 both needs me individually for about 15 minutes each.

 

After writing we have lunch and things are a bit more relaxed until about 3 pm. During that time DS11 does his piano and cornet practice, then walks the dog. At 3 pm we repeat the reading routine, then I start DS11 with French and Latin. I do French with DS7 and DS5. We then do either Science or History all together. By then it's time for me to prepare the evening meal. Yes, it's a bit of a slog.

 

A Friday is our easy day when we either finish off Science practicals or do Art and Crafts, finishing at around 1 pm for the weekend (the boys also have swimming lessons on Friday afternoons, so it's not a complete rest).

 

Cassy

[Ellie]

A daily routine, definitely NOT a schedule by subject. :)

Monday and Tuesday: Official School Days. Stay home. No outside activities, no doctors' appointments, no field trips, no errands, nothing (although there could have been something in the evening, after dinner). I put Official School Stuff on the kitchen table; children can do it or not. Since we're not doing anything else, they usually do. (This would also have been when I did Spalding with younger dd.)

 

Wednesday: Library. We usually arrived around 10, and we stayed until we were finished, an hour or more. Often we went to a library across town because it was larger than the one that was just down the hill. After lunch, we *might* have visited with friends, taken care of appointments, etc., but nothing regularly scheduled. We just usually came home and read our books, and goofed off until after dinner, when we went to church.

 

Thursday: Field trip. We left the house without fail every Thursday. Usually just us, sometimes with friends I invited to come with us. I didn't do field trips with my support group unless they were on Thursday or they had to be done with a large group and they were super-fantastic-not-to-be-missed (very, very rare).

 

Friday: Clean house, including all laundry; park day once a month.

 

Mostly we kept this schedule year-round, although it might have been lighter between Thanksgiving and Christmas ("lighter" being a relative word, lol).

[LillyMama]

I have a "scheduled routine" for my two first graders. I have some basic things I want done at specific times (lunch, quiet time) so I do have "ideal times" penciled in. For me, this just helps me with time management. I look at the clock and see that we are 30 minutes behind, then I can look over what else is on the schedule that I can shift. So if we take longer on phonics, for instance, then I can plan to make sure we try to make up spelling on another day. Or if they're going fast through spelling, we can take a bike trip to the park for lunch.

 

Here's what we do:

• 7am: breakfast- read to kids over breakfast. Then we clear the dishes and the kids do a narration. (We like to get the dreaded first writing assignment over and done with first.)
  
• 7:30am: chores. My kids have five chores each, which includes dressing. When they are done, then they can play until
  
• 8:30am: calendar time. We do skip counting and memorization facts then.
  
• 9am: phonics / reading (ETC and sight word flash cards)
  
• 9:30am: writing (WWE) (We gather in my bed to read, then get up to do the narration or copywork)
  
• 10am: spelling (AAS)
  
• 10:30am: snack and recess
  
• 11am: math
  
• 12pm: lunch and recess
  
• 1pm: quiet time
  
• 2pm: History (TOG and SOTW on Mondays and Wednesdays) and Science (Tuesdays Thursdays)
  
• Sometime between 4 and 6, each kid sits and reads to me for 30 minutes (sometimes simultaneously, if we're reviewing old BOB books) and they practice the piano.
  
• Friday afternoons are "off" and we try to do field trips and play dates then.
  

All of that to say, if we deviate from that, I don't worry much. We school year-round, and often do things here and there on weekends, so we always end up getting plenty done. We have friends who like to come over on Wednesday afternoons, so sometimes History Wednesday gets shifted to Friday. Last week, we had play dates Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday- so we did some History projects on Saturday. I try to get the reading for History or Science done in the morning over breakfast, so the afternoon stuff is more interactive and project/craft-based. This makes it easier to shift it to another day, as it's usually stuff they want to do.

 

I think the best thing for you, with younger ones, is to pick non-negotiable times, like nap and feeding times for your young ones. Plan in blocks around those times and maybe try to get everything in each block to be on the same subject. This past year I had a friend's two toddlers twice a week and their nap and eating schedules had a big part in shaping our schedule. I don't watch them anymore, and won't next year, but I'm keeping the schedule pretty close to the same.

[BakersDozen]

And what ages/grades do you have?

Ages are in my signature. Grades are: Sophomore (3 oldest), 5th (11yo), 4th (9yo), 3rd (7yo), 2nd (5yo), PreK (3yo), tagging along (all the rest). :)

 

What we do now is far different that what I did when my older dc were my only dc. Back then I was far more relaxed (although my "relaxed" is another person's "structured", lol). Yet when my older ones got to 5th grade I realized I'd been a bit too relaxed and things changed...a lot.

 

We have a routine and it's very much followed. There are situations that warrant change yet for the most part it's our daily guide and it is very detailed. We do every subject every day because that is what works for us. Fridays are a lighter school day for finishing up work that may not have been completed during the week for whatever reason and for subjects that we can't fit in during the week (Art, for example).

 

We do use timers - older dc are responsible for their own time or they can pay me to be timekeeper. ;) Using timers freed me from being the drill sergeant and it helped my more "relaxed" dc stay on task and my more "determined" dc know when to call it a day and move on to the next subject.

 

Lessons are almost always finished every day yet I make sure to make lessons finishable (is that even a word?).

 

Structure works for us, it keeps the crowd manageable and Mama (mostly) sane. It gives us a definite start and end to daily activities, not just schoolwork. I've tried being a bit more loose in the routine yet with disastrous results.

 

I'm making it a priority to not commit to morning appointments or classes where I had been doing so weekly before. It was wreaking havoc on our week and putting us behind, and when coop started it snowballed.

 

This was a huge thing for me as well. Now I commit to absolutely nothing until school is over with rare exception. It helped a lot!

 

Monday and Tuesday: Official School Days. Stay home. No outside activities, no doctors' appointments, no field trips, no errands, nothing (although there could have been something in the evening, after dinner). I put Official School Stuff on the kitchen table; children can do it or not. Since we're not doing anything else, they usually do. (This would also have been when I did Spalding with younger dd.)

 

Wednesday: Library. We usually arrived around 10, and we stayed until we were finished, an hour or more. Often we went to a library across town because it was larger than the one that was just down the hill. After lunch, we *might* have visited with friends, taken care of appointments, etc., but nothing regularly scheduled. We just usually came home and read our books, and goofed off until after dinner, when we went to church.

 

Thursday: Field trip. We left the house without fail every Thursday. Usually just us, sometimes with friends I invited to come with us. I didn't do field trips with my support group unless they were on Thursday or they had to be done with a large group and they were super-fantastic-not-to-be-missed (very, very rare).

 

Friday: Clean house, including all laundry; park day once a month.

 

This schedule/routine sounds lovely yet unattainable for us, unfortunately. Maybe you could give me some pointers if there is a way you could see it working for my family? Edited May 15, 2012 by LuvnMySvn

[mhaddon]

Thanks for the input :) I know I have a lot to work on to get it all together.

[alisoncooks]

We're pretty unscheduled.

 

To be honest, right now we're just do reading instruction, about 30 minutes Mon-Thurs.

 

The only other consistent thing is story time at the library on Friday mornings. We've also been going to the zoo on Fridays.

 

Other than that, we play outside a lot, go to the playground in the afternoons, work in the garden. After a few more weeks of doing just reading, I will be adding in a more consistent Bible study time. After that, maybe math. :)