How often do you do what subjects?

[joysworld]

We've been doing all of subjects, everyday. History, bible, math, math cards, grammar, spelling, writing, reading, and handwriting. Know what this causes? Burn out. We've been doing it that way because we've had some hospital stays where no school was done. So in order to make up, we've been soon every subject everyday. We have two months left of school, and all of us is already done.

 

I was thinking maybe we are over doing it. We've been doing all subjects everyday since January. Took a week off for spring break, and a week off for my dads visit. I was thinking maybe if I stopped doing every subject everyday, we wouldn't be so burnt out.

 

So what are your subjects and how often do you do them?

[Ellie]

For a couple of years we did KONOS two days a week (Bible, history, geography, science, etc.) and English and math the other two days (we always take off Fridays).

[mmasc]

Well, I constantly feel like I don't do enough, and still feel burned out sometimes! With my third grader this year, our daily subjects that actually get done are math, spelling, and reading. History and science are about once a week. My kindergartner does handwriting and phonics daily.

[mama mills]

I didn't really feel like we did enough "school" each day this was just our first year( 1st grade)  so the only subjects we did were reading writing math( we did these everyday for 4 days a week) and history(which we only did for the second half of our school year)

 

I am so interested to see how others structure their school week.

[Gil]

Actually, I am in the process of reworking our schedule. We currently do the 3Rs daily and we do Spanish about 4 days a week but only as often as we can get to it but I want to prevent burn out. Both the weather and my schedule is changing also, so I want to make better use of our time and prevent burn out. Like, really, really, prevent burn out. For me and for them

 

I'm thinking of making a daily A and B schedule so that we vary the intensity of each subject we do. We are doing 4 basic subjects: Math, Reading (history via SOTW), Writing and Spanish. We are going to pull back from doing 7 day work weeks to 6 day weeks as I now work 16 hours on Wednesday and on that day If I can both feed and find my kids, I will consider myself a successful parent. The boys have to do a min of 1 hour of free reading everyday, 7 days a week. This is non-negotiable. I keep them in supply of fresh books, they read and log them. But I'm going to alternate what we do on the other days and cap them at 3hrs of table work because I want them outdoors more this summer.

 

A day: Math +  History centric Reading (SoTW) + Spanish

B day: Spanish, Writing and Topic-of-Choice Reading

C day: free day. Do their free reading and stay out of trouble.

 

Sun ----- Mon ----- Tue ----- Wed ----- Thu ----- Fri --- Sat

  A           B              A            C              B          A       B

 

Each week the boys have to produce a 1 page report/summary of something that they are learning in their Topic reading.

My hope is that I will find some sort of pattern to their current skills in writing, grammar, spelling and in the fall I'll be able to make some informed decision about what to get for them. The goal is NOT perfection, but to get a good idea of their level in this particular subject as writing is their weakness.

 

I may also alternate weeks so that Even weeks are 6 days and Odd weeks are 4, but I'm still playing with the ideas. I want to maximize our outdoor time and keep them active. We want to start running as a family and we like to go biking and swimming, the weather is now perfect for these activities.

 

[madteaparty]

For 5th, I will do science, history, geography once a week. This will assure they actually get done with some regularity.

[MotherOfBoys]

We block schedule 6 weeks on and 1 week off all year. There is three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas though.

 

I block history into 2 six week blocks.  Then the 3 week block was the 3 r's only, with games. Then we did Life Science in one 6 week block. The last two 6 week blocks have been us twiddling our thumbs and an increase in read alouds.

 

The 3 r's are everyday, 4 days a week. We will continue this next year because we like the accomplishment feeling at the end of the 6 weeks. I think that prevented burnout.

[Jerico]

4 days a week. The 3 r's daily. Adding in gentle latin this next year. Grammar 2 times a week.

 

Science twice a week.

History once a week.

Art once a week.

[joysworld]

For the three r's is that reading, writing, and math?

 

How does math, reading, handwriting everyday sound? And then writing and spelling, two times a weeks and grammar three times a week? Or should I only do grammar twice a week? History is easy because we just listen to jim weis's story of the world over lunch.

[joysworld]

Oh, and what do you mean by block schedule?

[joysworld]

Oh, and what do you mean by block schedule?

[In2why]

Everyday we do Math and independent reading.

Almost everyday we have history in some form through reading, writing a biography, outlining, or even a video.

Writing, grammar and spelling every other day as a formal subject but it usually comes up some way every day.

Science once a week.  

We are more relaxed than when we started out.  Actual schooling takes about 4 hours a day, but we follow rabbit trails around the clock.  He has self taught himself so many things that I don't worry nearly as much as I used to.  I plan on teaching a more in depth science course and literary elements next year in 5th grade.  But we will do a less formal grammar program since his writing will still cover grammar but I don't think he needs a separate grammar program anymore.

[Jess4879]

We've been toying with our schedule a bit this year.  It's still not working. 

 

Daily we do math, reading, phonics, writing, copywork (sometimes this takes the place of any additional writing), spelling (skipping the occassional day), bible and my oldest does grammar. 

 

We were doing music, health & art one day a week, and then science was mon/wed/fri, and social was tues/thurs, but it never seemed to get done so we tried block scheduling and focusing for a month on one thing.  This wasn't a success here at all.  It seemed to get done even less for some reason. 

 

I have no idea what I am doing next year.  I am thinking about science for the first semester and social for the second, but I'm still undecided. 

[julie4]

Math, literature, bible, music 5x week

Writing, latin, poetry, art 4x week

Science, handwriting 3x week

History, grammar 2-3 x week

[boscopup]

I do math, reading, and some form of writing (though it might be part of history or science) each day. I do history a few days a week and intend to do science twice a week, though that really never happens. :lol: My 4th grader also does Latin every day.

[MinivanMom]

For 1st-3rd:

Daily - math, writing, French, literature read-aloud, silent reading

2x per week - history, science, spelling, journal writing

1x per week - art

 

For 4th and up:

Daily - math, grammar, writing, French, silent reading

2x per week - history, science

1x per week - art

[amyc78]

Well we are on the verge of burnout (maybe its just that time of year??) but I'm trying to muscle through so we can finish up by June. Right now we do:

 

Everyday: Bible, Literature readaloud, Memory work; DS7 does Cursive, Copywork, Grammar workbook and Math; DD4 does preK pages, AAR and learning games

 

2-3x a week- Spelling, History, Science, Geography

 

1x a week- Art, Dance, Tennis and Gymnastics

[MotherOfBoys]

By block schedule I mean we submerge ourselves everyday in all things (insert subject). Example, the first 2 six week blocks we discuss, read, do projects, write, and watch all things sotw2 for two hours a day (total) five to six days a week. Then history was done for the year, then though they wanted the next book.

 

Then we switch to science for six weeks. Going as deep into any subatomic they want during that time. When the six weeks is up we move to the next subject. This year I only did those two, history and science, because I never thought we'd get through more. Next year we will add a six weeks of art then another six weeks of piano. 

[happypamama]

4 days a week -- math, literature, Bible memory work, history, writing

 

2 days a week -- Latin, other foreign language (these alternate)

 

1 day a week -- picture study, art, music study, geography

 

Daily, in theory -- typing, music practice, science

 

Whenever we can get to them -- sometimes at breakfast, sometimes lunch, sometimes at bedtime, sometimes in the car -- readalouds

[pehp]

I think it depends on the ages of your children--I couldn't tell what your ages are. My student is in first grade (ish).

 

For us we do the 3 Rs (which include my son reading aloud to me) 4 days per week.  I usually read his history selection on Mondays (he does a picture narration of the chapter), he narrates Aesop's Fables on Mon and Tues, we read some geography-related books on Wednesdays, he takes art (that is outsourced!) on Tuesdays, and IF we do science, we do it later in the week.  I like to do a nature study/journal thing one day as well. 

 

Reading Bible, poems, and our favorite read-alouds (right now, Pippi Longstocking) occurs most days.  We don't do spelling, grammar or a foreign language.

 

HTH!

[IsabelC]

Well, I am still working on deschooling my son who is behind and lacking in confidence, so we are not on a heavy schedule. 

 

We do intensive math and language skills and read alouds every day Monday to Friday, then I set a different subject for each day. Right now it's one day each of swimming, music composition & sound engineering, chemistry, arts crafts & technology, and geography. Everything else is unschooly.

 

You probably want to be more rigorous than me (for a start, I am not doing any history apart from history-related read alouds and interest led stuff, which isn't much as this kid isn't keen on history, plus we don't do Bible except when it comes up naturally, eg we read the Easter story at that time of the year). But it should still be possible to cut back slightly. For example, what about alternating grammar and spelling? Do you really need history every single school day? I think math and handwriting should be done fairly often, writing because doing a heap at once is tiring for kids, and math just because it's good to get in the habit. But you could maybe do a little less, or do math Mon-Thu and the cards instead on Friday. You didn't mention what kind of Bible study you are doing? If it's more of a devotional, perhaps you could do it before breakfast or before bed, so it's separate from the rest of 'school'. If you are working through a curriculum, it's unlikely to need doing every day, so could potentially be alternated with history or other literature.

 

If you are feeling burnt out, you do need to change something. Better to have a less ambitious schedule than end up sick, or sick of home schooling. (If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!)

[Tanikit]

We do reading at least 6 days per week, writing is done daily - however, writing counts as anything where pencil hits the paper so on very bad days Maths can counting as writing and then I just make sure she writes neatly and possibly has a sentence answer for word problems that gets written down. Spelling can count as writing and occassionally I'll read history to her, get her to narrate and then that is writing (along with history), a science worksheet could also count as writing.

 

Maths we do daily.

 

Then history is 2-3 times a week at most (some weeks we do none), Science also 2-3 times a week (and again on busy weeks we will do none), geography about once a week.

 

Spelling gets done anything from 2-5 times a week depending how busy I am, grammar not more than once a week, read alouds happen daily (7x/week), Bible gets done either with the toddler or as an evening devotional. Art only gets done on weeks when I have nothing else going on (I work part time - very irregularly, and even if I am only working one day a week, I find it best to limit things those weeks).

[nwmama]

history, geography  - 2 days a week

language arts - 2 days a week

math, reading - 6 days a week

 

Science is a living subject for now so there's no specific day or time for it. I have been planning to assign days for DS's sake because he likes to know what to expect but since our life has been in upheaval from our cross-country move I've just been proud of us getting math and reading in, much less the days we've caught up on the other subjects! 

[greyseal]

My DD is in 1st grade, first year homeschooling:

 

Math: 4x/week in Rightstart, with supplementation 1x/week, more only if needed for a particular topic

 

Language Arts: LOE 4x/week (phonics/spelling/reading), ELTL 2-3x week, depending on how fast we're getting through the assigned read-aloud

 

Science: We're just starting this, so right now only 1-2x/week

 

History: SOTW (no activity guide, but I'll probably add in at some point) w/CHOLL read-alouds 3x/week

 

Music: piano practice daily

 

Memory Work: daily review of the week's assignment, usually just a few minutes of recitation or listening to chants/songs in the car

 

Scripture: we try to do a devotion of some kind each day, but sometimes it's just working on our scripture memory work and not an entire separate topic

 

That's us! Next year we're adding in latin 2x/week, geography 1x/week lesson + daily memory review, and we will try to ramp science up to 2x/week consistently.

[Desert Strawberry]

We do core subjects-reading, math, art-every day. 

 

I have a breakdown of LA each week-grammar, vocab, copywork, writing workshop, nature journal, etc, so that something different is covered each day. 

The other stuff we cover in depth for one month at a time, every 3 months or so. Science, creative writing, history, music, artist/composer/poet study, foreign language. Some of it combines. for example, last month we studied Japanese language, Japanese art techniques, Japanese folk tales. 

 

I like this schedule so much better then doing it all or doing it all on alternating days. We really sink our teeth into the material, and just when it starts to get dry, we switch it up.