Another Loop Schedule Thread

[TheAttachedMama]

Hi Everyone,

 

Please forgive me if these questions have been answered in another thread.   However, I am attempting to use some loop schedules in my homeschool day.   Things have been going OK, but I still feel like I need to tweak my system.

 

My questions are...

1)  How do you keep track of where you are in the loop?  I just want some ideas and methods.   Maybe if you share how you do it, I will see an idea that might work for me.   I thought I would be able to just keep track of it in my head.  That is not working very well.

 

2)  Related to point 1, does anyone use homeschool planet to keep track of loop schedules?  Could you share how you make that work.

 

3)   Would anyone be willing to share their SPECIFIC loop?  Pretty please.  Especially if you have a 3rd grader.  ;)   Do you loop daily things like math or only electives? 

 

 

[Tawlas]

Not sure if this is really what you're looking for but I only loop morning time read alouds. And only some of those lol.

 

I have two baskets: Future Morning Time books and Current Morning Time books. In my Future MT basket, I keep any potential MT books I own as well as library books I plan to use in MT. They are loosely categorized into Character books, Diversity books, Math books, Classic (picture) books, Biographies and Poetry.

 

In my Current MT basket I keep our loop list and the books I'm using to cover each topic in the list. This is what the list looks like:

 

Daily: Character, Burgess Bird Book, Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare.

Loop: Diversity, Math, Classics (picture book), Biography, Poetry.

 

So I read the daily books first (which I keep in the front of the basket), then take the next book in the lineup. So if it was a diversity book (The Great Big Book of Families for example) I would read that one. When I'm done, it goes to the back of the loop line up in my basket. Say I'm really lucky and I have a few more minutes and the attention of my kids, I may also read a chapter from my math book (Mathematicians Are People Too). Then it goes behind the Great Big Book of Families.

 

The next day, I read the three daily books and next book waiting for me is a classic picture book (e.g. Blueberries for Sal), then a chapter from the biography book. They go to the back.

 

I need the physical reminder of the books lined up. I don't type in my loop items or categories specifically. The idea for me is that if we miss something one day, it's not a stressor. Having it typed in to do item 3 and 4 on the list somewhere would defeat the purpose for me, even if I could bump it to the next day fairly easy. I'd still have to do it! All I put in the schedule is MT Loop.

 

If I finish one of the books, I choose a replacement from my Future MT book basket when I'm tidying up at the end of the day. If one of my kids (ahem, toddler!) goes through my basket, I can line them all up again according to my list. I'd like to think I'd remember which one we last read that morning, but if not, meh. Kids won't die if we somehow skip Poetry on the list.

 

hth?

[KT7673]

I am excited to try loop scheduling. I will be trying it with a 2nd grader, 1st grader, and PKer.  I have a plan, but we will not start it till August.  I plan to print the loop on a piece of paper, put it in a page protector, and use a white board marker to mark what to do next.  First, the things we will not do in the loop are Morning Meeting (which includes memory work, calendar, poetry and Aesop's fable readings, devotions, hymn singing, prayer),  guitar practice, silent reading (this happens at quiet time daily), read aloud (this happens right before quiet time daily and right before bed), and bible (we do this with DH after supper). 

Here is our loop:

Little Hands to Heaven with my Preschooler

English Lessons Through Literature or Spelling (switching every other loop)

History

Math and Handwriting (I work with one boy on Math as the other does handwriting then we switch)

Phonics with 1st grader

DITHOR with 2nd grader

Science

Art/Music Appreciation/Phonogram or Math Game/Music (these will rotate so that we will do 1 each time we go through the loop)

 

[SereneHome]

OK, what IS the loop schedule?

[Porridge]

I just started using Scholaric and really like it so far. It allows me to schedule things on a recurring basis (i.e. TTh or MWF etc)

 

Our daily subjects:

Math

Piano

Chinese

Journal writing

Bible (We do this together as a family)

 

I haven't figured out the rest of the schedule exactly yet -- experimenting over the next few months, but it will look something like:

 

Grammar 2-3x/week (FLL)

Writing 2-3 days per week (1 composition per week, spread out over 2-3 days)

Literature Study 2 days / week (we read a longer novel together, discuss)

History 2-3 x/week

Science 1-2 x/week

Spelling / Vocab alternating 2 days / week (Not sure if this will actually happen. Haven't found a spelling program that doesn't feel like busy work)

Handwriting (???)

 

 I might end up doing a pseudo hybrid block / loop schedule where I do Literature Study for a month at a time (or however long it takes us to get through the book), alternating with spelling / vocab for 1 month?  Or alternating with Science for 1 month?

 

We school almost year round

 

Clearly I don't have it all figured out yet but I think Scholaric will be very helpful with planning and tracking.

 

I feel like homeschool = constant iterations to tweak and adjust....

[Porridge]

For my younger child who will be doing kinder, I will probably alternate AAR with Math (Right Start or Singapore) every other day.

 

Chinese and bible are the only daily subjects for my younger.

 

We do history and science as a family.  My younger loves history and picks up as much science as he is interested in.

 

Oh, I should add, we try to read books together every day -- so I guess read-a-loud is the last "daily" subject that we do all together

[Porridge]

Scholaric offers a 15 day free trial. I highly suggest you check it out. I haven't used homeschool planet so I can't compare...

[Guest kolmjhtyr]

 It allows me to schedule things on a recurring basis

[beka87]

SereneHome,

 

The loop schedule is a way of getting to things that one often does not get to, without feeling stressed about missing one subject vs another.  Instead of plugging subjects into days, one puts them in the loop.  First, you decide what your daily must-happens are.  Everything else (or not, up to you) can be looped.  Then decide how long, approximately, to spend on loop subjects each day.  Then decide on proportions.  For example,  if I wanted to do History three times for every one time I taught Science and Geography, but Art two times the loop would look like this:

 

History

Science

History

Art

History

Geography

Art

 

Then, on my daily schedule, instead of listing those content subjects I would just write Loop Time.  Then I do the next thing in the loop, whatever that may be.  It allows us to move forward in all of those subjects in proportions we can live with without feeling behind in any one thing.

 

I love loop scheduling because it really takes the mental pressure off.  Right now we have a morning loop (either geography or logic) and an afternoon loop (history or science).  This is a very simple way to do it.  I also loop some enrichment things and will probably have a morning time loop at some point, too.  I predict making good use of this approach as my children get older/I have more children.

 

Pam Barnhill at edsnapshots and Sarah MacKenzie at amongstlovelythings have lots to say about looping.  That's great info with lots of examples, if you want more.

[73349]

My questions are...

1)  How do you keep track of where you are in the loop?  I just want some ideas and methods.   Maybe if you share how you do it, I will see an idea that might work for me.   I thought I would be able to just keep track of it in my head.  That is not working very well.

 

I'm not using it, but I would have a laminated list (or something else, like a knotted ribbon or set of beads?) and use a clothespin on the day it is in the loop. Something like this.

[Caclcoca]

Sarah Mackenzie and Pam Barnhill did a loop scheduling webinar that had a lot of information and examples.  I can't get it to link right, but if you search loop scheduling at Amongst Lovely Things, the webinar replay is one of the choices.

[TheAttachedMama]

Caclcoca, I've been meaning to listen to that webinar.    Next time I get a spare hour sans kids, I will check it out.   (I will add it to my own "loop" of things to do.  ;) )

[Porridge]

 sounds like what I'm doing is not really loop scheduling. I may check out that webinar as well

SereneHome,

 

The loop schedule is a way of getting to things that one often does not get to, without feeling stressed about missing one subject vs another.  Instead of plugging subjects into days, one puts them in the loop.  First, you decide what your daily must-happens are.  Everything else (or not, up to you) can be looped.  Then decide how long, approximately, to spend on loop subjects each day.  Then decide on proportions.  For example,  if I wanted to do History three times for every one time I taught Science and Geography, but Art two times the loop would look like this:

 

History

Science

History

Art

History

Geography

Art

 

Then, on my daily schedule, instead of listing those content subjects I would just write Loop Time.  Then I do the next thing in the loop, whatever that may be.  It allows us to move forward in all of those subjects in proportions we can live with without feeling behind in any one thing.

 

I love loop scheduling because it really takes the mental pressure off.  Right now we have a morning loop (either geography or logic) and an afternoon loop (history or science).  This is a very simple way to do it.  I also loop some enrichment things and will probably have a morning time loop at some point, too.  I predict making good use of this approach as my children get older/I have more children.

 

Pam Barnhill at edsnapshots and Sarah MacKenzie at amongstlovelythings have lots to say about looping.  That's great info with lots of examples, if you want more.

 

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I recommend the webinar, it's great.  I'm looking forward to their block schedule webinar as well.  

 

We loop our morning time, which is when we get a lot of content work done.  We also have a writing loop.

 

Daily subjects (math, grammar, dictation, reading) don't get looped, though I may by making a "LA loop" for inside our daily LA slot.  

 

 

These are my loops for my rising 3rd grader:

 

Our writing loop is:

 

Narrative Writing Skill Work or Project (taken from lessons from TMWWLE)

Written narration from history

Written narration from Science

Narrative Writing Skill Work or Project (taken from lessons from TMWWLE)

*Full sentence responses to comprehension questions from a narrative text

*Note taking from a Creek Edge Press Task Card (physics)

 

*When we are on-task, the two asterisked items get done the same day, so this loop is an "ideal week."  But as the whole point of looping is to not have to worry overmuch about scheduling, we just pick off where we left it if we miss a day.  

 

Our morning time, done as a family:

 

Calendar

Memory Work Review

Content Loop and Activities*

New Memory Work

Cultural Literacy Reading Loop**

 

Content Loop and related activities:

SOTW    coloring page, oral narratiron

FIAR       map work for SOTW and FIAR

Art/Poetry     FIAR artwork study, SCM picture portfolio, drawing lesson

Science/Nature    BFSU lesson/read-aloud, nature walk, sketch

Literature      read-aloud, FIAR literary element lesson and add to lit element book

 

Activities can vary, and also some are done by both big kids, some by just one, etc.  If my descriptions are a bit cryptic, just let me know and I'll try to elaborate.

 

Cultural Literacy Loop:

50 Famous Stories Retold

50 Famous Men

Fairy Taless

Aesop

Shakespeare (Done as a month long block 2x/yr)

 

 

 

[beka87]

I love the idea of a cultural literacy loop... Now I have more planning options running around my head for next year. :)

 

[justme824]

My son is in 5th grade now, moving to 6th in the fall. We loop everything but math. Math is done first thing, then we move onto the loop. The loop schedule gets a refrest every 6-weeks (we school 6 on, 1 off). I try to keep 5 things in the loop. Two stay constant - Latin & writing. The other three fluctuate a bit over the course of a year - artist/composer studies, science topics, logic, geography, art, documentary series, projecs, etc.

 

We love it because no two days look the same. Our routine is the same, but it feels different all the time. 

[TheAttachedMama]

Hi Everyone,

 

After a ton of planning, I tried to implement our new loop.   It was still a rough day.  For one thing, my "loop" sort of removed the kids natural motivation to work hard and get their school work completed in a timely manner. 

 

Maybe part of this is a learning experience for me.   I am TRYING so hard to become a more relaxed homeschool mom.   I don't mind looping subjects and being more relaxed with our time, as long as we are all still working diligently and doing our best. 

 

Normally, I give them a check list, and they have to work through that.  Once they are finished they can go out with their friends or watch TV.   So that keeps them moving along.   With the loop I found myself constantly having to get my son to sit in his sea, stop petting the cat, stop wandering around the room aimlessly, etc. etc.   There was no motivation to finish his work because he knew that 2PM would be quitting time today no matter where we were.  

[Mystie]

I have a post on how to keep track of looping with Evernote: http://www.simplyconvivial.com/2015/evernote-for-loop-schedules

 

 

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Hi Everyone,

 

After a ton of planning, I tried to implement our new loop.   It was still a rough day.  For one thing, my "loop" sort of removed the kids natural motivation to work hard and get their school work completed in a timely manner. 

 

Maybe part of this is a learning experience for me.   I am TRYING so hard to become a more relaxed homeschool mom.   I don't mind looping subjects and being more relaxed with our time, as long as we are all still working diligently and doing our best. 

 

Normally, I give them a check list, and they have to work through that.  Once they are finished they can go out with their friends or watch TV.   So that keeps them moving along.   With the loop I found myself constantly having to get my son to sit in his sea, stop petting the cat, stop wandering around the room aimlessly, etc. etc.   There was no motivation to finish his work because he knew that 2PM would be quitting time today no matter where we were.  

 

I'm curious why the loop caused such a problem.  They just decided to drag their feet, knowing that whatever didn't get done just lands back in the loop for the next day?  

 

Maybe keep the whole "loop" thing a secret, and just use it for your own planning of the day?  Require the full assignment to be completed, regardless of time taken?  Start with loop time first thing, and not move on to other subjects until it's done?  

 

Good luck!

[Mystie]

I only loop items that take MY teaching time, not items on the kids' checklist. 

[beka87]

I was thinking the same thing as Mystie.  I can't see the loop working very well for independent checklists.  I use it for things that require my time.  Daily checklists with end goals are daily checklists with end goals - good motivators for some kids and a good way to increase accountability.  AttachedMama, can you share more about your subjects/schedule/etc.?  Maybe someone could look with fresh eyes and offer advice.  If the daily checklist was working, why are you trying to loop?  Hope today is better for you.

[TheAttachedMama]

I only loop items that take MY teaching time, not items on the kids' checklist. 

 

I'm sort of in an odd position because my two older children are dyslexic....so nearly EVERYTHING takes my teaching time.  Reading and spelling remediation are high priority subjects this year.   Plus, we have a needy toddler who craves lots of direct mama-time.   So I am feeling pulled in many directions. 

 

BUT, I feel like I am VERY close to finding a working solution.  :) :)  

I just need to keep tweaking...or perhaps it is going to involve some habit training with my oldest to keep him from wandering around the room aimlessly.  hahaha

 

I am posting a link to the current loop for my 8.5 year old.   (My daughter, who is very close in age, does a very similar checklist except she does copywork instead of studied dictation.)    We are using blocks AND loops this year.   That way I am not looping through quite so many subjects. 

 

1)   I started my checklist with their basic morning tasks to do before school.  (We call those the 4-Bs.)  

Our goal is to get those completed by 8AM.   If they can do this, we end school by a set time each day.   If they are late getting this done, we just add time onto the end of our day.   (This is to solve the problem of dawdling during the morning with my oldest son.   He tends to do everything at a tortoise pace.  And I am trying to encourage him to get those things completed within an hour.  I feel like that is reasonable, right? ) 

 

2)  Then I gave them a checklist for their daily school items.  Most of these things require my direct instruction/supervision, but I still want to hit them everyday.   (For example, I really want them to get at least 30 minutes of reading out loud to me in per day.  That is so important for them right now---As are math and spelling.)  

I also list some things they can do independently like practice their math facts using xtra math.  Those are highlighted in blue on their checklist.   (This is to solve the problem of lots of time being wasted as they wait on me while I am bouncing back and forth helping siblings.   I want them to have something ready for them to do instead of allowing them to get off track.) 

 

3)  The pink checkboxes are for me.  I need to check their work before the day is complete. 

 

3)  The most stressful subjects for me to teach with the toddler are All About Spelling and dictation.  SO--We now have a "Drop Everything and Write" portion of our day.  AS SOON AS the toddler is napping, we stop what we are doing and work on spelling and dictation.   I previously had this slated for after lunch, but I found it works better just to do as soon as he is asleep. 

 

4)   After lunch, the plan was to do our loop.   Again, we are on a block schedule, so our specific loop may change throughout the year.   I kept our read aloud at lunch time because the kids like to listen to a story while they eat.  :) 

 

Anyway, here is a first draft of our loop.     I am open to any and all feedback / suggestions. 

 

Thanks in advance for all of your kindness, time, and suggestions! 

[Mystie]

Maybe if you removed the loop information from his checklist and replaced it with "Lessons"? If you're hands-on teaching during the loop, then you're there to keep him on track, right? How can he be wandering aimlessly around the room? Maybe you need a "stay at the table" rule? 

 

I would probably institute some consequences for not paying attention and doing the work. For us, "no screen or friends if you x" has worked pretty well after a week or two of testing to make sure I mean it. I've used that for the morning things: If you play or read or wander aimlessly between breakfast & chores & pulling out your checklist, you lose screen & friend privileges for the day. I did the same thing for a phase with my son and "If you cry over having to do work, you need more sleep and will go to bed early rather than play computer." (He wasn't crying when he hit a difficulty, he was crying before he began simply about the hardship of having to do school at all). This worked pretty well for us - gave them a motivation for self-regulation. It does require I be tough enough to calmly hold a hard and unpopular line and not budge - but having a posted (I wrote it out on the board) consequence also helped me not lose my own cool. 

[rebcoola]

I do a loop on homeschool planet,  I make a loop class than enter the assigment under the more options I choose the "My assignements have a recurring pattern and enter each,  in our case Art, Cooking, Documentary and Games.  If your are books or numbered lessons it will count those out too  i.e. If you enter Grammar 1, Spelling 1 etc it will count up for you

[TheAttachedMama]

Maybe if you removed the loop information from his checklist and replaced it with "Lessons"? If you're hands-on teaching during the loop, then you're there to keep him on track, right? How can he be wandering aimlessly around the room? Maybe you need a "stay at the table" rule? 

 

 

Right?!  I know!   You should hear his excuses.   (He just recently started going through this phase where he has an answer to everything.) 

 

A couple of times the tip of his pencil broke, so he got up to sharpen his pencil and "got lost".  I found him wandering aimlessly.  (The pencil sharpener is 2 feet from the dining room table btw.)    This seemed to happen a lot despite having a cup full of pencils right by him.  When I pointed this out he protested and said that those pencils weren't sharp enough for him to do good cursive handwriting.  The he asked, "Didn't I want him to have good cursive handwriting?"  :) 

 

Another time, he got up to switch books and started petting the cat and lost 10 minutes of time.  When I finally found him he said that he couldn't resist because "the cat was too cute, and looked like he wanted a pet."

 

Another time, he was supposed to be studying his dictation sentence and he just "had" to get up and snuggle his baby brother because "the baby is too cute and he couldn't resist."    (LOTS of things being 'too cute' this day.) 

 

Another time he was supposed to be alphabetizing the AAS tiles, and I found him fidgeting with some eraser staring off into space.  (I was changing the baby's diaper.)  

 

It was just lots of little things like that.   Whenever I turned my attention away from him, he seemed to find some distraction.   He is a highly distractable kid already.   (He probably would be on medication if he was in any other type of education environment!)  

[FairProspects]

Ok, I also have 2 dyslexics and I also loop LA. No littles though, so you beat me there. :D Here are my thoughts.

 

Do you have a morning basket time together? To me, that would be the time to do your read aloud, all your poetry/Shakespeare recitations, and possibly your math facts. I would probably even throw Sentence Family into the morning time to do together. Do not put these things in the afternoon or they will fall off the schedule and dawdling will ensue. Ask me how I know.

 

Geography, Dictation, AAS, Daily Language Review - those all go in the loop. You have a  *lot* of LA, even for a dyslexic. Especially with dyslexics and slow processors you need to maximize your time and get the most out of every resource because you CANNOT overload them. They just shut down or go into dyslexic brain hurting mode. Can we streamline the LA to maximize your time and get more benefit from your teacher intensive time? What is the purpose of the Daily Language Review? IMHO, those are fillers or busy work. Dyslexics do not need more language busy work - they need specific, targeted instruction. Unless you are intentionally using that resource and can articulate the reason, I would cut it. Even if there is a reason, I would consider whether there is another resource that could better accomplish your goals. AAS & Sentence Family are plenty for young dyslexics, IME. If you are using it for independent work while you work with another child, my recommendation would be do have him do Immersion Reading or Keyboarding without Tears/typing practice during that time instead. What do you think?

 

Just for comparison's sake, my 8 y.o. dyslexic's loop looks like this:

 

AAS Lesson

AAS Dictation (not studied)

Six Minute Solution (reading fluency practice & timing)

Rewards Intermediate (targeted phonics instruction)

 

Non looped items completed daily are:

 

30 minutes reading to/with Mom

Immersion Reading of current literature book*

Math

Math facts*

Copywork*

Winston Grammar (done together during Morning Meeting)

 

*completed independently or on computer independently

 

[FairProspects]

Also, my humble suggestion would be to reconsider how much the poetry & Shakespeare memorization is actually doing for you and maybe choose one or the other. My dyslexics, at least, have a fabulous ability to fake it and memorize things without any meaning attached whatsoever. Memorizing Shakespeare would be useless here. They would attach little to no meaning to it, struggle to memorize, and then not take away any vocabulary or concepts whatsoever because as my oldest says continually "It is all just words, words, words!". That pretty much means he has tuned out by word 3 and is getting nothing out of an exercise. Even my verbal dyslexic would not gain much from auditory memorization or hearing the language. It has to be connected to meaning. Just a thought.

[delaneyla]

Following and trying to understand. Coming back with more questions asap.

[Mystie]

Right?!  I know!   You should hear his excuses.   (He just recently started going through this phase where he has an answer to everything.) 

 

A couple of times the tip of his pencil broke, so he got up to sharpen his pencil and "got lost".  I found him wandering aimlessly.  (The pencil sharpener is 2 feet from the dining room table btw.)    This seemed to happen a lot despite having a cup full of pencils right by him.  When I pointed this out he protested and said that those pencils weren't sharp enough for him to do good cursive handwriting.  The he asked, "Didn't I want him to have good cursive handwriting?"  :)

 

Another time, he got up to switch books and started petting the cat and lost 10 minutes of time.  When I finally found him he said that he couldn't resist because "the cat was too cute, and looked like he wanted a pet."

 

Another time, he was supposed to be studying his dictation sentence and he just "had" to get up and snuggle his baby brother because "the baby is too cute and he couldn't resist."    (LOTS of things being 'too cute' this day.) 

 

Another time he was supposed to be alphabetizing the AAS tiles, and I found him fidgeting with some eraser staring off into space.  (I was changing the baby's diaper.)  

 

It was just lots of little things like that.   Whenever I turned my attention away from him, he seemed to find some distraction.   He is a highly distractable kid already.   (He probably would be on medication if he was in any other type of education environment!)  

 

Ah, yes, pencils. I moved to mechanical pencils last year to rid my boys of that excuse. I get it. :) Yours sounds extra creative. :)

 

I guess I'm just not picturing what you're trying to do during the loop time. Are you doing different things with different kids and that's how your attention is in different places and you're losing track of him for lengths of time? When we do our afternoon lesson time where I loop subjects, mine are doing the same thing and we're all together and I'm reading aloud or asking questions the whole time. If they're writing or filling out a map or something, I'm sitting there, supervising, watching. I'm being the teacher in the class - no phone, no email, no laundry. If someone gets up, I stop, look at them, get their explanation, and I wait for them to return ASAP because they're holding us up. It would drive me nuts if that's how the whole day was, but we do that for 2 hours twice a week and we get a lot done.

 

When we did "math" all in the same chunk of time but each person doing different work and I was hopping from student to student THAT'S when my kids got distracted and dawdled and wasted time. When I changed it to one-on-one at-elbow attention time, it eliminated dawdle time - and that helps lend itself to intense, focused work, too, which is a lot more effective.

[Sahamamama]

1. Decide what you want to loop. Type that up, putting a large check box next to each item.

2. Print out the list and attach it to a magnetic surface (whiteboard?).

3. Use a colored magnet in the check box to keep track of where you are.

[TheAttachedMama]

Do you have a morning basket time together? To me, that would be the time to do your read aloud, all your poetry/Shakespeare recitations, and possibly your math facts. I would probably even throw Sentence Family into the morning time to do together. Do not put these things in the afternoon or they will fall off the schedule and dawdling will ensue. Ask me how I know.

 

Geography, Dictation, AAS, Daily Language Review - those all go in the loop. You have a  *lot* of LA, even for a dyslexic. Especially with dyslexics and slow processors you need to maximize your time and get the most out of every resource because you CANNOT overload them. They just shut down or go into dyslexic brain hurting mode. Can we streamline the LA to maximize your time and get more benefit from your teacher intensive time? What is the purpose of the Daily Language Review? IMHO, those are fillers or busy work. Dyslexics do not need more language busy work - they need specific, targeted instruction. Unless you are intentionally using that resource and can articulate the reason, I would cut it. Even if there is a reason, I would consider whether there is another resource that could better accomplish your goals. AAS & Sentence Family are plenty for young dyslexics, IME. If you are using it for independent work while you work with another child, my recommendation would be do have him do Immersion Reading or Keyboarding without Tears/typing practice during that time instead. What do you think?

 

Just for comparison's sake, my 8 y.o. dyslexic's loop looks like this:

 

AAS Lesson

AAS Dictation (not studied)

Six Minute Solution (reading fluency practice & timing)

Rewards Intermediate (targeted phonics instruction)

 

Non looped items completed daily are:

 

30 minutes reading to/with Mom

Immersion Reading of current literature book*

Math

Math facts*

Copywork*

Winston Grammar (done together during Morning Meeting)

 

*completed independently or on computer independently

Thanks so much FairProspects for taking the time to give me such specific advice.   I am so incredibly grateful.

 

I know that "morning time" is all of the rage in the homeschool community, but I have found that we actually do much better when we get our highest priority subjects in first thing.  (For us that is reading, math, and spelling.)   Those require the most "brain power" and my kids do better when they can knock those out before lunch when they are fresh. 

 

We actually are very consistent with getting our "icing on the cake" subjects completed even though we don't have a "Morning Time".   I have a very different method to make sure I don't skip these.....I host a variety of "clubs" for our local homeschool community.  Those clubs keep me accountable.  :)   Our clubs meet in the afternoon after our core subjects are completed.   My kids are in a Shakespeare club, a Poetry club, a nature study club, a composer study club, an art appreciation club, and even a bird watching club.   (That sounds like a lot, but most of these clubs only meet one day per month.  Shakespeare and Poetry meet once every two months.)   So it works out to be a club or two per week in the afternoon.    We get together to study the subject matter as a group for about an hour, then the kids all play together.   It is a great way to build accountability into our schedule.   (I am less likely to skip our Shakespeare memorization if I know I am hosting a club at the end of the month with lots of other kids coming.)   And it is a great way to build lots and lots of socialization into our schedule.   My children are both extroverts and enjoy getting together with their homeschool friends.  

 

Also, my humble suggestion would be to reconsider how much the poetry & Shakespeare memorization is actually doing for you and maybe choose one or the other. My dyslexics, at least, have a fabulous ability to fake it and memorize things without any meaning attached whatsoever. Memorizing Shakespeare would be useless here. They would attach little to no meaning to it, struggle to memorize, and then not take away any vocabulary or concepts whatsoever because as my oldest says continually "It is all just words, words, words!". That pretty much means he has tuned out by word 3 and is getting nothing out of an exercise. Even my verbal dyslexic would not gain much from auditory memorization or hearing the language. It has to be connected to meaning. Just a thought.

I hear you!   Just to let you know, we are on a special "July" schedule right now.   This won't be our schedule once the fall starts.   We have a lot of poetry and Shakespeare on the schedule only because we have a poetry club meeting at the end of the month.  (Shakespeare is next month.)   They are planning to recite some poems (which have already been memorized), but they like to practice reciting them at home.  It helps with their public speaking skills.   My kids actually have a lot of fun with this subject.  We take turns standing up and 'hamming it up' during our recitations and clapping for each other.  

 

My children, despite being dyslexic, have a real love for poetry.  It is a pleasure based subject for us.   They don't enjoy reading poetry, but they enjoy listening to it and reciting them.  We study a lot of poetry because my 7 year old daughter seems to be a natural-born-poet.  She started doing this when she was VERY little and didn't even know what a poem was.   I would read her mother goose, and she would turn around and make up her own verse for something---not even knowing she was 'writing a poem.'  She still does this today.  We will be doing something random (like a bike ride) and she gets very excited and will say,  "Mommy, I can't get this poem I made up out of my head.  Listen to this..." and spout out a poem.   You know how some people are song writers?  Well, she is a natural poet!  ;)  

 

NOW---my daughter sometimes struggles more with word recall and attaching meaning to language.  So if any of my children were going to struggle with understanding the poetry (or Shakespeare) it would be her.   She is not a bad reader, but she shows signs of dyslexia in her ability to listen and understand language.  She always struggles when it comes to articulating her thoughts or recalling the word for things.  So narration is a real challenge for her.   And her working memory is not good.  All that being said, I actually feel poetry memorization is VERY important for children who struggle with language because it gives them a database of "sophisticated language patterns" as Mr. Pudewa likes to say.   :)  Plus, it gives her enjoyable practice in building those skills and strengthening those weak points.   We use the poetry selections in IEW's poetry memorization program.  The beginning level poems are VERY easily understood.  They are not abstract in the least.  I know she understands because she acts out the poems as she recites them and sometimes will illustrate them.   Shakespeare, on the other hand, is a new subject for us.  So, if I see that she is struggling with understanding, I will modify her particular assignment.  She might just listen to the "picture book versions" of the play and memorize a single line.   I will adapt as needed for her.

 

My oldest son does not write poetry. :)   He is also my child who struggles with reading the most.  (He shows more classic signs of dyslexia, and would be much easier to identify than my daughter.)   HOWEVER, even though he struggles with reading, he has a real gift when it comes to verbal language and memorization.   He listens to audio and reading all of the time.  He can understand and discuss very complicated texts.  And his memory is scary good. 

(He already memorized one of Hamlet's soliloquies because he thought it was funny to act all dramatic.  We aren't even studying Hamlet!) 

 

SO--long story short, I will make sure they are not overloaded on either poetry or Shakespeare.  :)    We are doing a lot of that this month, but you will notice that we don't have science, history, music, or a number of other subjects on the schedule.   We are going to block schedule those other subjects. 

 

Ah, yes, pencils. I moved to mechanical pencils last year to rid my boys of that excuse. I get it. :) Yours sounds extra creative. :)

 

I guess I'm just not picturing what you're trying to do during the loop time. Are you doing different things with different kids and that's how your attention is in different places and you're losing track of him for lengths of time? When we do our afternoon lesson time where I loop subjects, mine are doing the same thing and we're all together and I'm reading aloud or asking questions the whole time. If they're writing or filling out a map or something, I'm sitting there, supervising, watching. I'm being the teacher in the class - no phone, no email, no laundry. If someone gets up, I stop, look at them, get their explanation, and I wait for them to return ASAP because they're holding us up. It would drive me nuts if that's how the whole day was, but we do that for 2 hours twice a week and we get a lot done.

 

When we did "math" all in the same chunk of time but each person doing different work and I was hopping from student to student THAT'S when my kids got distracted and dawdled and wasted time. When I changed it to one-on-one at-elbow attention time, it eliminated dawdle time - and that helps lend itself to intense, focused work, too, which is a lot more effective.

Sorry, I should have been more clear.   He was goofing off during his daily work, not his loop.   My mistake was explaining to him that we would have a 'hard stopping point' to our school day each day.   I meant that we would do our loop schedule last, and work until it was quitting time.   He took that to mean that he could mess around all day and then still quit at 2PM.

 

I JUST watched the loop scheduling webinar and I think I understand my mistake.  (Shame on me for not watching that until now, because it was REALLY helpful.)    I also just read your blog post (Mystie) where you have a flow chart schedule to our day.   That was REALLY helpful.  Actually your whole series on planning is REALLY helpful.   Thank you for writing those.

 

I think from now on, we are going to need more structure to our day.   We need structure to hang our various tasks on.   Loop time will begin and end at a certain time each day.   I'm not going to allow him to derail us by messing around with his daily work in the morning.   Whether he finishes or not, I will just start our loop lesson at a certain point and end at a certain point.   He will then have to finish up his daily stuff after school if he didn't get it finished in the morning.   I THINK this will fix our problem.  (I hope...)

--------------

OK.....with regard to what you wrote about math.....

I hope you don't mind, but can I please pick your brain for another moment?   I need some SERIOUS help when it comes to being more efficient because my toddler is making homeschooling very hard for me.   I know you have more children than me and you have older children with a heavier academic load, so I am curious how you handle things. 

 

Most of my daily stuff is structured the way you said you previously had math structured.   It feels really stressful for me because I am pulled in so many directions, and my son uses any distraction on my part as an excuse to goof off.   

So now that you do math individually with each child instead of 'together'---what do you other children do while you are doing math with their siblings?   If you are working in series with each child, how do you keep your day from taking forever?    How do you keep the 2 year old occupied and out of trouble?  

 

Right now our independent work (the stuff in blue) seems to be a point of major distraction for my son.   Independent work is something new for him this year, so maybe it will just take some time to form good habits.   My vision is that they would work through their list while I watched the toddler and sort of stayed near by to help when needed.  

 

 

 

[RoundAbout]

I do a very simplistic version of loop scheduling via a checklist app on my phone.  Except for the basics of math and writing which get done everyday, I just look at what hasn't been done yet on the list. Once everything has been checked off I reset the list.  We don't necessarily do things in the same order, but we are getting a lot more variety of subjects and deliberate content, which was my main goal.

[speedmom4]

I'm not familiar with loop scheduling but am planning on watching the webinar soon. 

 

Does anyone do loop scheduling with high schoolers? It seems like many do it with elementary to middle school. 

 

Thanks,

Elise in NC

[Mystie]

 

Sorry, I should have been more clear.   He was goofing off during his daily work, not his loop.   My mistake was explaining to him that we would have a 'hard stopping point' to our school day each day.   I meant that we would do our loop schedule last, and work until it was quitting time.   He took that to mean that he could mess around all day and then still quit at 2PM.

 

I JUST watched the loop scheduling webinar and I think I understand my mistake.  (Shame on me for not watching that until now, because it was REALLY helpful.)    I also just read your blog post (Mystie) where you have a flow chart schedule to our day.   That was REALLY helpful.  Actually your whole series on planning is REALLY helpful.   Thank you for writing those.

 

I think from now on, we are going to need more structure to our day.   We need structure to hang our various tasks on.   Loop time will begin and end at a certain time each day.   I'm not going to allow him to derail us by messing around with his daily work in the morning.   Whether he finishes or not, I will just start our loop lesson at a certain point and end at a certain point.   He will then have to finish up his daily stuff after school if he didn't get it finished in the morning.   I THINK this will fix our problem.  (I hope...)

 

 

Yes! I have made that same mistake before (telling the student there's a quitting time). What you have in your paragraph above is what I ended up doing and it did work after several weeks of tears and arguing and losing privileges and my having to hold the line through thick and thin. :) It was exhausting, but it finally clicked (seriously, I think it took 2-3 months) and now (a year later) this morning he started his work before breakfast so he could make sure to get the free time he wants. 

 

I'm glad my blog posts were helpful! Thanks! It helps me to have to put all my thoughts together coherently before I tackle the plan, too. :)

 

The clubs for accountability is a great tactic!

 

 

 

--------------

OK.....with regard to what you wrote about math.....

I hope you don't mind, but can I please pick your brain for another moment?   I need some SERIOUS help when it comes to being more efficient because my toddler is making homeschooling very hard for me.   I know you have more children than me and you have older children with a heavier academic load, so I am curious how you handle things. 

 

Most of my daily stuff is structured the way you said you previously had math structured.   It feels really stressful for me because I am pulled in so many directions, and my son uses any distraction on my part as an excuse to goof off.   

So now that you do math individually with each child instead of 'together'---what do you other children do while you are doing math with their siblings?   If you are working in series with each child, how do you keep your day from taking forever?    How do you keep the 2 year old occupied and out of trouble?  

 

Right now our independent work (the stuff in blue) seems to be a point of major distraction for my son.   Independent work is something new for him this year, so maybe it will just take some time to form good habits.   My vision is that they would work through their list while I watched the toddler and sort of stayed near by to help when needed.  

 

Yeah, I think independent work takes quite a bit of time to get used to - they have to make all the mistakes about time and task management and learn from them and that takes both time and consistency. The good news is that it's better to learn these lessons at his age now (how old is he?) than when he's 20! It's life skill practice. :)

 

Having to go back and finish his work after school is "supposed to" be over will probably rattle him into figuring it out. My son went through a fighting it phase, then a despair phase about how unfair life is, and he did emerge from it so now I am only with him about 10% of his school work time. He's almost 12.  SWB's audio talk on independent work was really helpful for me.

 

So, our school day flow goes everyone all together for a Morning Time, then the older two start on their checklists, I work with the 7 & 5 yo together for 30-45 minutes, then they are done. The programs I've picked are conducive to very short, very concentrated work, so we do phonics (about 5 minutes), reading & narrating (about 15-20 minutes), spelling (about 10 minutes), and handwriting (about 2-3 minutes). Right now neither of them has been needing math help. I give them their page and they're able to do it. When I have to sit with them for their math (either helping or just being a presence to make sure it happens), that's another 10ish minutes - my 7yo is in MUS Alpha - just basic, simple addition and subtraction. 

 

After I'm done with them, my 10yo has had enough time to get some work done and I tell him it's time for his tutoring time. He shows me what he did and he gets to ask for help with whatever was giving him trouble. So, he's supposed to have tried to start his math and actually have a question for me rather than "I don't know what this means at all." If he doesn't know what it means at all, he can go watch the video again; that's one of the reasons I picked MUS in the first place. When I sit with him, I'll walk him past any bump in math, do 3-5 minutes handwriting, listen to a narration, and that's it. At some point soon after I pull him and my oldest to the table and we all work on Latin together. They're in different books and doing different things, but one is on either side of me so I can make sure they're on track and I'm available if they have questions. Then after that I check my oldest's work. We also have a discussion time and writing workshop time reserved weekly. Both my older two are natural visual spellers, so I don't do spelling with them. 

 

We don't have any learning disabilities or difficulties, which does change the scene significantly.

 

During that time, my two year old is wandering around the house making messes. Or she's on my lap, interrupting. Or she's getting herself hurt and requiring attention. Such is life with a toddler. Snacks are a good tactic, but all the other toddler tricks I've seen and tried over the years seem to depend upon the personality of the toddler. My #3 was easy to occupy, my #4 was impossible, and now #5 I've just given up trying (but she's not as loud & energetic as my #4 was, so by comparison it seems fine). :) My #4 is 5 now and he's still the harder one to manage, but putting him in charge of playing with the 2yo works often enough to be useful.

 

HTH

[TheAttachedMama]

Hahaha!   I am cracking up at....   "and now #5 I've just given up trying".    I can relate to that feeling.   But it feels good to be at the point in my life where I can accept and embrace the chaos.  It makes me enjoy parenting a toddler much more.  

 

To answer your question, my oldest son is 8.5.   He is gong into 3rd grade.   He seems to be struggling the most with staying on track with his independent work.  My daughter is 7.5.   She is doing much better, but I think that is typical with girls.  I agree with you about learning time management skills at this age.  That is one of our main goals this year.   Like you said, I would rather them learn those skills now than when they are in high school, college, or at a job some day!  

 

My "take away" from what you wrote above is that you instruct your older kids to hold their questions until their "one-on-one tutoring time" comes.   At that point you go through and check all of their work.   So if they don't understand something, you have them go onto the next thing and keep moving down their list instead.   Then, once you meet with them, you can help with whatever they were stuck on and check their work.   I think this might be my answer!! 

 

I think I am also going to try some different things on their independent list too.   Like, "listen to 1 chapter of audio book". 

[scoutingmom]

I do a loop on homeschool planet,  I make a loop class than enter the assigment under the more options I choose the "My assignements have a recurring pattern and enter each,  in our case Art, Cooking, Documentary and Games.  If your are books or numbered lessons it will count those out too  i.e. If you enter Grammar 1, Spelling 1 etc it will count up for you

 

Could you give me more information on how you are doing that?  Are you doing a loop that is only done 1 item a day or does your loop have you do a few things on the loop a day depending on time.....

 

I'm hoping to have a loop for me for the subjects that my kids need to do with me.... for example....

 

Math

- child 1

- child 2

- child 3

- child 4

Spelling

- child 1

- child 2

- child 3

Writing Instruction

- child 4

 

etc.

 

So I'd start the day and do math with the first child (the rest would do independent work.)  Then math with the next, and so on through the day.    Lets say that through the day, on the example above... I get as far as completing spelling with child 2.    I'd then start the next day with Spelling with Child 3, do writing instruction with child 4, then back to math with child 1.

 

So, I could schedule it with the recurring pattern and enter the entire loop..... so I guess I'd say that I want to do 8 assignments a day (using the above example.)   So during the day I'd mark things off - and we got as far as the spelling with child 2....   So when I got the message that we hadn't completed some assignments (ok - I'm on the free-trial and haven't actually done any non-planning stuff - but that is my understanding?) I'd say to push the assignments.... will they continue in the same order continuing where we left off?

 

I guess I could try it out and see.....

[scoutingmom]

Nevermind - I see the Recurring Pattern option only allows you to enter 1 assignment per day....  Sigh

[scoutingmom]

Ok, for those that are interested - I think I've figured out the Loop Schedule on Homeschool Planet when you are doing an undetermined number of subjects in the loop each day....

 

Note that I do this on my schedule, not the kids.  On the kids I have scheduled these subjects for everyday with the lesson numbers that I'm hoping we would do.  Ideally we would do the entire loop each day, but reality tells me otherwise.

 

I created a 'Loop Schedule' subject and created a class for me.  Then I used the 'I have a specific number of assignments, but no specific end date' and created a terms worth of loops (so 60 - 12x5.  I will redo this each term.)  To create the first item on the loop to be on every weekday.  I left the assignment numbers to increment from 1 (if I do something totally out of order, I can still make sure everyone is getting their fair share of time....), but edited the rest of the description.... so it would look like  Math - Child 1  1.   I then created each item on my loop in order, using the same date range.  They show up next on the day.   I did this for all the items, and now I have a nice little loop. (Ok, it is a pretty big loop.)

 

I tried this out using a simple loop.... when things don't get done I can use the reschedule wizard.... and say to move the items not done to the next day but leave the rest of the schedule the same.  It gives me on the next day the things I didn't get done first, and the entire loop still there.  I figure at some point there would be enough on it that I'd say to move items not done to the next day and adjust the schedule to move things a day.

 

I plan to use the 'my assignments have a recurring pattern' for another loop course with the stuff like picture study, drawing, music study - where I only really plan to do it 1x a day.

 

Thanks for giving me the basic idea on doing that on homeschool planet, as it let me think through other ways!

 

 

[scoutingmom]

Just discovered that you CAN have more than one assignment per day on the 'my assignments have a recurring pattern' - if while you are setting up the pattern you drag an assignment up to the same day (similar to on the overall schedule.)   That will make doing it even easier next term....

[rebcoola]

Sorry I didn't see your post earlier seems like you figured it out.

[scoutingmom]

Thanks!   I also figured out how to schedule a list of stuff to be done for the week  (great for my AO lists!)

 

Schedule the subjects for each day, and put the weekly list on Monday.  I also have a 'subject' for saying what to do from the list.   So for my AO year 5 student each day there is a subject with the tasks....

 

- read from the history list (or other if done)

- read from the literature list (or other if done)

- read from other

 

Then below, on Monday, there is the History subject with all the readings for the week.  a Literature subject with the readings.  and then the other subjects with their lists....

 

On Monday, they would do a history, a lit, an other (and mark those on the daily list) - and mark the readings they actually did.  Afterwards, the weekly lists get automatically moved to Tuesday.  Oh Joy - this is so easy! 

 

As I'm playing more, I'm really starting to love this program!   (I'm driving my husband crazy though as I'm spending time working this all out....)