Independent work & scheduling/planning

[Prairie~Phlox]

My daughter is doing more independent work, but she wants a schedule, what method do you use for your high schoolers? Do you write a lesson plan for each week? I've not had to do a lot of planning in the padt since I used MFW, but we're switching gears a littlw bit.

[goldberry]

DD14 gets a weekly schedule (ie. all the work for that week)  She divides it up herself how she wants.  We still have some bumps where she is not looking ahead and then something requires more time than she allowed for it. 

[lllll]

..

[Candid]

With me what they are told depends on the subject. So with math it is pretty nailed down: do two sections a week to finish the book. With history and lit there are readings and questions that must be done by the discussion day.

 

It maybe she is still struggling figuring out to schedule. I realized last year that my youngest had never real sat with me like his brother did and put down what to do when. We've been doing that this year (8th) and I hope that like his brother that doing this for a year or two with me slowly fading out will help him know how to schedule on his own. Last year his expectations about when things could be done were nuts. 

[Prairie~Phlox]

Thanks for the replies, I looked at the books and it's easy enough to do a weekly schedule for her, making us both happy.

[Pegasus]

I create a syllabus for each subject that covers the semester/year.  Sometimes it simply suggests the pacing (e.g. one chapter per week) and sometimes it breaks it down in more detail.  This way, my DDs know the total amount of material that is expected to be covered during that semester/year.

 

I also provide a weekly schedule but this does not specify the assignments. It just indicates the frequency for each subject.

 

So, if the syllabus indicates that 3 chapters of history should be read each week and the weekly schedule shows that history should be done 3 days a week, it shows my expectation that they should read 1 chapter of history each day that subject is assigned.  However, they have the flexibility to read all 3 chapters on Monday and take the rest of the week "off" for history.  I have one DD, especially, that likes to front load her week and coast by the end of the week.

 

Similarly, if they work faster than the syllabus indicates and they finish the expected material early in the semester/year, they are done with that subject until the next semester/year.  This provides incentive to work diligently and not slack off.   

 

 

[PeterPan]

I have a syllabus for almost every subject, yes, but I make the weekly schedule for her myself.  I just reformatted it, per her requests, and we really like it so far.  If I weren't so lazy, I'd figure out how to upload and attach.  I took a screen shot and it was too big to upload, oops.  Anyways, I do have a section that's more vague (get this section done by the end of the week).  I don't think you want to spoonfeed all of high school, but I don't need her to function like she's in college (making all her plans from a semester syllabus all by herself) either.  We can get there with time.  :)

[PeterPan]

Ok, I'll try to paste it here.  See if it works.  It's a good schedule for us so far and very different from other types we've done.  Took some finagling with the columns to get it like I wanted.  There are columns separating all the check boxes, to get it exactly like I want. Anyways!   :)

 

http://clickclick.smugmug.com/photos/i-Q7tmpL2/0/X3/i-Q7tmpL2-X3.png

 

Hey, cool beans!  Looks like if you click that link, it actually works!  So now y'all can laugh at our schedule not being as rigorous or whatever as someone else's.  Fine.  The format though is nice for us. We did it a different way for a couple years, and while that was fine, we're really liking this so far.  The trick with a printed schedule is to make it easy to refill each week.  If you put the text in the same columns as your checkboxes, you can't do that.  The art was just clipart I scavenged on google image.

 

Extra tip.  The column on the right has things bolded she can do by herself and things regular that I do with her.  That way she never has to wonder what she can do next.  

[Pegasus]

So now y'all can laugh at our schedule not being as rigorous or whatever as someone else's.  Fine. 

 

Three math programs simultaneously? *gulp* :laugh: 

 

Nice schedule format!  Thank you for sharing.

 

[PeterPan]

Three math programs simultaneously? *gulp* :laugh:

 

Nice schedule format!  Thank you for sharing.

 

Oh it's not as brilliant as all that, lol.  TT takes her 30-40 min.  (If it takes less, I tell her to do more till she hits that amount.)  Then we spend max/goal 20 min. doing the BJU stuff together.  We don't necessarily hit everything every day.  TT always, always gets done, which is why it's in there.  The BJU we can be really efficient with, because she has already gotten through the brunt of it with TT.  I will say though she's enjoying the BJU geometry, which I didn't anticipate.  That has sort of upped her tolerance, because she's enjoying it so much.  Even then though, we're talking short sessions.  We're not doing 3 hours of math or anything.   :)