Block scheduling

[Janeway]

I am wondering if anyone does this to any extent? I was following the Charlotte Mason idea of shorter lesson times, so all subjects covered in a day basically. Now I wonder if I should go with more of a block type schedule. I read Waldorf endorses the more block type schedule, but cannot find any sort of information on it.

[rebcoola]

We are blocking Art and Science this year I think it works well because those messy projects really lend themselves to longer chunks.  We do short lessons all morning and do the chunks after lunch.

 

IMHO content subjects work well this way because you can immerse yourself more but skill subjects need the consistency of everyday.

[silver]

I block science and history. I do three weeks of history (daily) and then three weeks of (daily) science. It works well for us because trying to fit both subjects in every week (every other day) would wind up with some days of neither getting done followed by a day with both packed in to catch up. That was to much changing of focus for us.

[Mom22ns]

We did semester blocks in late middle school and high school. We did 2 hours/day for each subject for a semester, rather than 1 hour/day for a year. My kids did much better with fewer transitions. Doing blocks allowed us to do 4-5 subjects/day instead of 7-8. It wasn't half because we did math and foreign language for the full year.

[wendyroo]

We do history and science as blocks.  A full year of history in the first semester and a full year of science in the second semester.  It reduces daily transitions, cuts down on my prep time and helps my kids' retention.

 

Wendy

[My3girls]

We do 6 subjects a day.  DD10 &11 do about 45 min per subject. 

 

DD14's schedule is a little more complicated.

 

Math, and German are 45min to an hour a day.

English 1.5 hours a day including reading, vocab, grammar, and writing.

Science  and History are 1.5 hours 2 days and 45 min 2 days alternating.

Flute is 30-45 min a day practice Sun- Thurs. and 4ish hours on Friday at music co-op.

[....]

I am wondering if anyone does this to any extent? I was following the Charlotte Mason idea of shorter lesson times, so all subjects covered in a day basically. Now I wonder if I should go with more of a block type schedule. I read Waldorf endorses the more block type schedule, but cannot find any sort of information on it.

 

My oldest two kids are using Ambleside Online Year 7 (so, yeah, that crazy CM schedule).  I posted our schedule on the high school board.  We were schooling 7 days a week trying to cover all those little pieces of everything.   :glare:   I knew we would burn out.  Sure enough, last week (week 4 - *insert scary music*), I wanted to grab all of it in one pile and throw it out the window just thinking about our schedule for the upcoming week.

 

I ended up doing what you're thinking of doing - moving to a block schedule.  In fact, next year, I think we are going to do daily work and then one subject at a time.  This week was SO much easier.  We were actually able to have conversations about what we were reading!   :tongue_smilie: My kids just retain things so much better when they're focused on a smaller number of tasks.  So, I'm not trying the CM schedule again with those two!  We're CM Schedule Failures.

 

Every day, we are doing:

 

Math

Foreign Language

Spelling (my oldest still needs spelling - long story)

Literature

 

Here's our blocks.  We work on one block and continue with that block until we completely finish everything in the block.  So, our first block will probably take us about 4 weeks or so.  When we finish, I'm going to move onto the next one.  We may finish one block in one month or one block in 3 months.

 

Block 1:

Grammar

Government

Logic

 

Block 2:

Art/Music appreciation

History

 

Block 3:

Bible

Geography

 

Block 4:

Science 

[eternallytired]

I wasn't even trying to fit in all of CM's elements--I aspired to include them all, but I knew it wouldn't happen.  Even the things that I tried to include daily or weekly, though, seemed to require a lot of planning and a lot of rushing from thing to thing.  I ended up doing something similar to PP.  Our daily work includes math and language arts (though some LA resources are daily and others I use for a week at a time, rotating through them).  Then we choose two subjects on which to focus for roughly six weeks.  (Though I'm becoming looser on the timing, realizing that some topics just take longer than others.)  We are able to then spend more time on each subject per day, while still cycling through a wide variety of subjects each year.

[Tohru]

Thank you!!

I love the philosophy of Charlotte Mason, but I too am a failure at CM scheduling. I try to do it all, but then nothing gets done. I've heard of Waldorf block schedules, but just couldn't figure it out. I like the idea of just focusing on one thing for a bit, then doing something else.

[vaquitita]

I started out with AO, so lots of short lessons. This had gotten harder and harder over the years as I have more kids, so more and more has gotten dropped. :( I really struggle with having so many transitions in our day.

 

This year for the first time I'm trying block scheduling for our content subjects. I too was inspired by Waldorf main lesson blocks. :) (And their main lesson books! Still working on how to do those) Skill subjects will still be daily, nature study will still be weekly. Here's my plan:

 

September to November: science

December: Shakespeare and composer

January: home geography and drawing

February to May: history