How do I set up more variable reading schedules?

Hi,

Unfortunately, the kind of flexiblity you are looking for is not currently in the Organizer.

I did use AO while using the organizer, and did a couple of different things (at different times.)

If I was trying to keep the AO schedule fairly firmly – I admit to having another paper.  I had the books scheduled for which day, and then my over-all grid schedule (forget which Yahoo group I found it on) that gave me a very graphical view of what was to be read each week of a term for each book.  So for Tuesday, for example, In the organizer it might say to read from the Blue Fairy Book and to read from Just So Stories – and I’d look at my chart to see which one to do.  The organizer was great for letting me know which days I was going to do things, keeping track of where we actually were in the books, and for record keeping.   Oh, things like Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare that occured only once or twice a term, I would schedule in a start-date for each chapter.

At some point, I went a bit more flexible, and not keep too tightly the weekly AO schedule, and have more of a term goal.  For a subject (ie, history, or literature, etc) I’d figure out the number of readings in the term from all the books, and then figure out the number of times we would have to do that subject in a week.  Then I’d assign the books in for the various days.  Some books would kind of have a partner (alternate weeks) but I didn’t worry too much about that.   I’d get the daily plan from the organizer, and we would do the readings.  for books “partnered up” I’d pick one… I usually had a good idea which one we probably needed to read.     I would setup myself as a student with “assignments” scheduled at the 6 week and 10 week point of each term so I could evaluate where we were…  sometimes we would be a bit ahead on something, and a bit behind on something else… so I would adjust how often the things were scheduled.  

But yes, the organizer isn’t quite designed for keeping a schedule that is like AO.  It can work ok with it WITH the over-all guide handy…. but it is more work than the more relaxed methods it was designed for, where you plan to read this book, then start that book.

hope this helps some.

It’s been a long time since I did the trial for the organizer, so I don’t remember the details, but I wonder if you could just input blank chapters for the weeks that book won’t be read, so it still comes up on the schedule, but just with a ‘no reading this week’ as the chapter title.  It might take a while to set up, referencing the AO weekly schedules, but then should run smoothly from there.

I personally just use paper and pencil, but I only have to plan for one child in year 1, plus one preschooler learning to read.  Once I have multiple children, I may switch to the organizer.

Joanne