Planning lovers: how would you organize these subjects?

[Emily ZL]

I've finished picking out what I want my 5th grader to use next year, and it's a lot of subjects. I hate making kids check the boxes on 9 or 10 subjects in a day. How would you organize all of this, whether in loops, or blocks, or alternating days or weeks? I appreciate any and all ideas! Oh and we only school 4 days per week.

1. Math: math mammoth 5
2. Latin: Latin for Children B
3. Writing: Writing & Rhetoric 2-3
4. Grammar: Rod and Staff 5 (I choose 36 lessons only)
5. Typing: online practice
6. Handwriting: NAC 1
7. Music: piano lessons/practice, Music Masters cds
8. Memory/recitation:  history timeline, Bible, Harp and Laurel wreath
9. Literature: mostly free reads. Choosing ONE classic book with lit guide from MP (perhaps Lassie or Narnia); ONE Shakespeare play; and ONE set of parallel lives from Plutarch, for the whole year. 
10. Religion: Bible, Catechism, saints stories. 
11. History: Middle Ages, using mostly D'Aulaires and library books. 
12. Science: Tiner history of medicine, Blood and Guts, dissections
13. Geography: Atlas and map skills books from modg (36 lessons). And Hungry Planet. 
14. Spelling: CHC speller (36 lessons total), and have him rewrite misspelled words 3 times.
15. Critical thinking/logic: Mindbenders level 4
16. Art appreciation: fraud detective

[Sherry in OH]

Wow, that is a lot to cover in one year.  How long are your school days?  The following would require 5 to 6 hours, not including breaks:

• Math: 45 minutes
• Language arts: 60 minute loop -
  • Writing, grammar, spelling, handwriting, written work for literature
• Special: 15 minute (1 daily)
  • Mindbenders, art appreciation, geography
• Literature/Religion: 60+ minutes  (reading time, written work is part of LA loop)
• History/Science: 30-60 minutes (alternate days or 1 semester of each)
• Latin: 30 minutes (4 days a week or 45 minutes 3 days a week)
• Piano lesson/practice: 30 minutes
• Other: 15-30 minutes (1 daily)
  • Typing, memory/recitation, unfinished work from skill subjects

Listen to music CDs at lunch, while driving, or at bedtime

Here is a slightly different schedule:

• Together time: 60 minutes
  • Religion, memory/recitation (3 days per week) or art appreciation (1 day per week) , literature (or history or science) read aloud and discussion
• Math: 45 minutes
• Language arts: 60 minutes
  • Writing and grammar  
• Special: 15 minutes
  • Mindbenders or handwriting (or typing)
• History OR Science OR Geography:  30 to 60 minutes (do each for 1/3 year)
• Latin: 30 minutes
• Piano lesson/ practice 30 minutes
• Silent reading done as homework

* Have student practice typing over summer.  Practice during school year by typing writing assignments.  Unless student is absolutely horrible at spelling, drop it as a subject.  

 

[2_girls_mommy]

I love all your choices! I know when I'm using multiple things for language arts (which we always do!) I sometimes do it by day- Monday the spelling work. Tuesday the grammar lesson. Wednesday read alouds, etc. 

[Emily ZL]

Thank you for the suggestions! I think that second schedule Sherry would be a good way to think of it with a bit of tweaking. I especially like grouping Mindbenders, handwriting, and typing in a loop.

Thanks!

[Lori D.]

Since you're doing just 4x/week, that lends itself well for doing short bursts and looping lessons. It does mean that to do everything, you either need to go slightly longer each day (like 5.5 hours, rather than maybe 4-4.5 hours), as you have one less day for scheduling some things for just 2-3x/week. Or... you could have shorter days by reducing time spent on everything, loop everything, and do longer school years (much shorter summer break). Also, you could decide to make most of the Literature as an evening activity and do it as "buddy reading" ("you read a page, I read a page") to make sure that the reading happens, but to also allow time for discussion together. Also, you can speed up some things by doing it orally rather than requiring him to write down *everything*. 😉 And, if he is "getting it", you can choose to just do selected problems rather than every single math problem or grammar exercise... 😉 

Without knowing how long your student really needs for each subject nor how long of a day he can handle (but remembering that my own DSs could not handle more per day than 20-25 minutes for Writing and 35-40 minutes for Math, AND they needed regular short breaks and needed to alternate materials that required writing with materials that required no writing or very little writing), here's just one of many possibilities -- a 5.5 hour day, including the built-in breaks (but excluding the 1 hour lunch):

Mornings = 3 hours
45 min = together time (Religion (25 min); Memory/recitation (10 min); Critical Thinking/Logic (10 min)
   5 min = break
25 min = LA #1 (Writing 25 min)
   5 min = break
40 min = Math
   5 min = break
35 min = LA #1 (Grammar 20 min) Spelling (10 min) Handwriting (5 min)
   5 min = break
15 min = Geography
   
Lunch = 1 hour

Afternoons = 2.5 hours
10 min = afternoon "ease back into school" = alternate days: Art Appreciation/Music Masters CDs
10 min = Typing
25 min = Latin
   5 min = break
45 min = alternating subject (History/Science)
   5 min = break
30 min = piano lesson/practice
   5 min = break
25 min = Literature (mostly free reads)

[Emily ZL]

Thanks! I am not too worried about the timing. His lessons are fairly short (15-30 minutes each) and he only has 5 core subjects per day this year, aside from memory work (5 minutes), free reading and piano. It takes him about 90 minutes to 2 hours to do his school. He's actually asked for more school because he gets bored. (Partly it is light because I like the unschooling idea, *after* the core work is done, since he fills his time with reading, building stuff etc.) I think adding a subject or two will work better than lengthening the lessons, but I don't know, we might need to do trial and error. Thanks y'all.

[Lori D.]

2 hours ago, Emily ZL said:

... His lessons are fairly short (15-30 minutes each) and he only has 5 core subjects per day this year, aside from memory work (5 minutes), free reading and piano. It takes him about 90 minutes to 2 hours to do his school. He's actually asked for more school because he gets bored. (Partly it is light because I like the unschooling idea, *after* the core work is done, since he fills his time with reading, building stuff etc.) I think adding a subject or two will work better than lengthening the lessons, but I don't know, we might need to do trial and error....

At 5th grade, it is a bit more typical to have 4 to 4.5-hours of academics (some people go with 1 hour per grade level, so 5 hours for 5th grade) -- and still have hours every afternoon for exploration, reading, building, extracurriculars, etc. And time in the evenings for family.  😄 

So if he's getting done in 1.5 to 2 hours (does that also include the latin and piano practice?!?), and he's saying that he's bored, you probably need to get some more challenging levels of work, or look into doing things that will go deeper. 😉 

Edited March 3, 2020 by Lori D.

[PeterPan]

Just a total opinion thing, but you want to facilitate him learning to solve his boredom, not solve it for him. Now I agree you're probably under challenging him on some areas. Does he read for pleasure? If he's reading 2+ hours a day on top of that 2 hours of work he does for you, he's fine. If he's not, what is he doing? What does he want to do? 

With my dd's schedules I usually sorted out her work by what was independent vs. together work. So then depending on the age she might be working with me for a couple hours and then having the afternoon free for choice or she might have scheduled checkpoints where we would meet and go over things. Just depends how he works as to how you put that.

I usually put some kind of choice menu for my dd at the bottom of her weekly list and I tried to have some longer projects that ran over a week or two to let her work on making/meeting mini deadlines. So this is a good age to be having some kind of cumulative project that he has to work on a bit each day using a project checklist and finish by Friday.

He's also at a good age to be pursuing some things to mastery. Unfortunately, my ds thinks learning speed runs on Zelda is something to do to mastery, haha. But you know see what fits the dc. At that age my dd was sewing. I also tried to connect my dd with people who would spend time with her and teach her skills.

The other thing I did when I was teaching only my dd was to plan afternoon field trips. We got local field guides and would walk each day identifying the new things that were blooming with spring. As she got older, we started landscaping together. 

[Emily ZL]

5 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Just a total opinion thing, but you want to facilitate him learning to solve his boredom, not solve it for him. Now I agree you're probably under challenging him on some areas. Does he read for pleasure? If he's reading 2+ hours a day on top of that 2 hours of work he does for you, he's fine. If he's not, what is he doing? What does he want to do? 

With my dd's schedules I usually sorted out her work by what was independent vs. together work. So then depending on the age she might be working with me for a couple hours and then having the afternoon free for choice or she might have scheduled checkpoints where we would meet and go over things. Just depends how he works as to how you put that.

I usually put some kind of choice menu for my dd at the bottom of her weekly list and I tried to have some longer projects that ran over a week or two to let her work on making/meeting mini deadlines. So this is a good age to be having some kind of cumulative project that he has to work on a bit each day using a project checklist and finish by Friday.

He's also at a good age to be pursuing some things to mastery. Unfortunately, my ds thinks learning speed runs on Zelda is something to do to mastery, haha. But you know see what fits the dc. At that age my dd was sewing. I also tried to connect my dd with people who would spend time with her and teach her skills.

The other thing I did when I was teaching only my dd was to plan afternoon field trips. We got local field guides and would walk each day identifying the new things that were blooming with spring. As she got older, we started landscaping together. 

Yes, I'm not worried about his independent time, compared to my next oldest child. He reads at least 2+ hours per day, recently picked up an old illustrated set of Stephen Hawking's books for fun and has been annoying his friends and neighbors with tidbits. He draws and writes. But I do definitely need to give him more school. I guess up to now I've been worried about hitting the sweet spot, where he doesn't get overwhelmed and will be compliant and work independently. I just had a baby (#6) and it is super helpful that he is so good about doing school with minimal help. I'm afraid if I push him he will collapse into tears. Right now, the lesson length is a good one, and it's enough that he has finished his math book for the year and he is finishing his Latin and doing some Greek for the spring. So I was thinking we would do more lessons, at least a couple, and try to see if that goes ok. I don't want to baby him. Perhaps more written output.

[Lori D.]

2 hours ago, Emily ZL said:

Yes, I'm not worried about his independent time, compared to my next oldest child. He reads at least 2+ hours per day, recently picked up an old illustrated set of Stephen Hawking's books for fun and has been annoying his friends and neighbors with tidbits. He draws and writes. But I do definitely need to give him more school. I guess up to now I've been worried about hitting the sweet spot, where he doesn't get overwhelmed and will be compliant and work independently. I just had a baby (#6) and it is super helpful that he is so good about doing school with minimal help. I'm afraid if I push him he will collapse into tears. Right now, the lesson length is a good one, and it's enough that he has finished his math book for the year and he is finishing his Latin and doing some Greek for the spring. So I was thinking we would do more lessons, at least a couple, and try to see if that goes ok. I don't want to baby him. Perhaps more written output.

JMO, but I don't think you necessarily need more written output  -- JMO, but I see it as a matter of going for a bit more breadth and depth of studies. To your current 1.5 - 2 hours, I think you could safely add another 1.5 to 2 hours of more academic pursuits without tears or frustration, especially if it's helping him explore and dig into topics he's already studying or enjoying.

Totally understand that you have you hands full, and don't want to "rock the boat" 😉 , so since the lesson lengths of 15-30 minutes are working well for him, you could add the additional academics by doing a "second round" of relaxed, supplemental studies of some (not all) subjects each day. That ends up being a sort of hybrid of more formal core subjects, and independent pursuits -- or perhaps it could be phrased as "guided supplements to choose from", lol. Those could be like Peter Pan's "choice menu", which could help work towards eventually doing something like Peter Pan's "project toward mastery". I just think at this age (upper elementary/middle school grades), most students need quite a bit of gentle guidance or a checklist or mentoring to help them understand how to work independently, and how to even find resources to help them "go deeper".

Back to my thought of adding breadth and depth:

For example, you could add breadth to the Math, by adding in a resource that will present topics from a different perspective and help him deepen problem-solving skills, while still being an enjoyable supplement that does not have to be done every day -- things like Beast Academy, or Life of Fred: Kidneys or Liver or Mineshaft; or Singapore 5A & 5B, or Zacarro's Challenge Math, or Dragon Box, or...

You could add depth to the Science, History, and/or Geography by adding more materials to dig deeper into specific topics of interest. For example, for Science, include some science kits, educational videos/documentaries, and books that go deeper into specific topics; or work on a bigger Science Fair style project, or projects out of a Janice Van Cleave book. For History, have him pick a high-interest-to-him key figure or event or aspect of the Middle Ages (like, weapons and armor, or food, or...) and learn more about it through various resources. For Geography, pick a country from those he has studied and really get into it with nonfiction and fiction books about/set in that country; learn about the religion, history and culture of the country; do some hands-on (make foods, play the games of, make a traditional item, etc.); watch documentaries and feature films set in the country.

For any of these "depth" studies, he could create a notebook or lap book of his findings, with illustrations; build a scale model of something, or salt-dough map; make a slide presentation on his research to present to the family... Most of that could be done solo by him, or be led by his interests... It doesn't just have to be written output. 😉 

ETA -- Also, all of my thoughts above may be completely unnecessary, because he may end up working longer than you are thinking he will for next year. Looking at your initial list, you have 16 items, and you mentioned that, currently, his lessons for each subject take 15-30 minutes. Mathematically, even if it only takes 15 minutes for each item on your list, that's a total of 4 hours, which is more than the current 90 minutes to 2 hours...

Edited March 3, 2020 by Lori D.

[happypamama]

On 3/1/2020 at 3:49 PM, Emily ZL said:

I've finished picking out what I want my 5th grader to use next year, and it's a lot of subjects. I hate making kids check the boxes on 9 or 10 subjects in a day. How would you organize all of this, whether in loops, or blocks, or alternating days or weeks? I appreciate any and all ideas! Oh and we only school 4 days per week.

1. Math: math mammoth 5
2. Latin: Latin for Children B
3. Writing: Writing & Rhetoric 2-3
4. Grammar: Rod and Staff 5 (I choose 36 lessons only)
5. Typing: online practice
6. Handwriting: NAC 1
7. Music: piano lessons/practice, Music Masters cds
8. Memory/recitation:  history timeline, Bible, Harp and Laurel wreath
9. Literature: mostly free reads. Choosing ONE classic book with lit guide from MP (perhaps Lassie or Narnia); ONE Shakespeare play; and ONE set of parallel lives from Plutarch, for the whole year. 
10. Religion: Bible, Catechism, saints stories. 
11. History: Middle Ages, using mostly D'Aulaires and library books. 
12. Science: Tiner history of medicine, Blood and Guts, dissections
13. Geography: Atlas and map skills books from modg (36 lessons). And Hungry Planet. 
14. Spelling: CHC speller (36 lessons total), and have him rewrite misspelled words 3 times.
15. Critical thinking/logic: Mindbenders level 4
16. Art appreciation: fraud detective

Depending on the grammar, writing, spelling, and handwriting, maybe only two or three of those a day.  I would maybe alternate Latin and logic too.

 

It's not necessarily set in stone, but I generally have a pile of books we are reading as a family that cover poetry, Bible, literature (separate from their own phonics/reading), group history, group science (both of those separate from maps and labs/projects), music, and art appreciation, and we hit several of those a day, depending on everyone's mood and how much time we have that day.  If I feel like we are setting a particular book aside a lot, I either reevaluate whether it's really working for us or whether I just need to prioritize it for a few days.

[Emily ZL]

On 3/4/2020 at 8:34 AM, square_25 said:

However, I think I would get overwhelmed with that list! My kiddo thrives on having some say into what she does, but I think she'd be pretty DONE after 5 different kinds of lessons. I prefer having a smaller number of topics to cover per day, but having decent amounts of time to chew on them :-). 

 

15 hours ago, happypamama said:

I generally have a pile of books we are reading as a family

These make sense to me, though I don't think it's as much as it looks like. The spelling and grammar and geography are only one 20 minute lesson per week, or three days per week for only 9 weeks. Others like art appreciation, music CDs, and mindbenders are more or less extras as time permits here and there. 

I have two girls only one year apart in school and I do try to keep them together for as many subjects as possible. But my son hates that so I let him work alone. I can see why combining ages is ideal for most big families. As my littles become school aged I'm sure our days will look really different.

[happypamama]

1 minute ago, Emily ZL said:

 

These make sense to me, though I don't think it's as much as it looks like. The spelling and grammar and geography are only one 20 minute lesson per week, or three days per week for only 9 weeks. Others like art appreciation, music CDs, and mindbenders are more or less extras as time permits here and there. 

I have two girls only one year apart in school and I do try to keep them together for as many subjects as possible. But my son hates that so I let him work alone. I can see why combining ages is ideal for most big families. As my littles become school aged I'm sure our days will look really different.

My kids are currently 18, 15, 11, 8, and 6 (and baby). I tried combining my older two for a lot, but they are very different learners, so that didn't really work for much. My middle three are all two grades apart, so for the past couple of years, I have been able to combine them for a lot, with their own skill subjects. But even with that, I've got my 11yo 5th grader doing his own history because I went through SOTW 1 with him four years ago. It just kind of varies a bit, and you'll find what works for you from year to year. If you find that you have so much that you aren't getting to things, then you see where you can combine and get more bang for the buck.