Another schedule… how does it look? Please. (long)

Hi, new to CM, SCM, everything. 😉 Well, not new to homeschooling.

In any case, I’ve been trying to figure out how to organize schedules, too. One thing I’ve noticed about the recommended schedules in SCM is that while they are fairly simple to set up, they don’t quite follow Charlotte Mason’s recommendations, which is to have daily variety so the children don’t get bored with the same routine. Here are some examples of a PNEU school’s schedule:

(Moderator’s Note: Unfortunately, we had to delete the link here to honor Ambleside Online’s terms. They request that links are posted only with their permission and only to their home page. You may be able to perform a search on their site for the schedule.)

I think Class 1 was ages 6-8, class II was 9-11, class III was 12-14, and class IV were the 14+, but I can’t guarantee that.

See how every day starts differently? Of course, I don’t think anybody I’ve encountered yet follows the 6-day week that the PNEU schools had, which is why they were able to end their school days so early. Mind you, with the first schedule shown above, you would only have to add in another 30 minutes a day to have the same number of hours a week.

What ages are you teaching? How many minutes are you giving per subject area listed?

I’m not sure if this is the schedule Dee is referring to, but on page 117 of the “planning your cm education” you will find Charlotte’s Timetables.  I would also recommend this SCM guide for helping plan your schedule – it goes into great detail about how to get it all done in an organized fashion, and feel confident with your plan.

After just a quick glance at your schedule, and not knowing the ages of your children, I would say that your day sounds too long based on the subjects you are covering.  The youngest children 1st – 3rd should only be spending 20 minutes per subject and things like scripture memory, copywork, poetry, geography (map drill) may even take as little as 5 minutes most days – certainly none of these subjects should take 20 minutes every time you do them. 

You have reading listed as a subject – does that mean phonics/learning to read?  Then on Fridays you have Am History listed as well as a separate subject for History – are you teaching two periods of history? Unless you’re teaching one history to one age student and a different period to another student I wouldn’t recommend teaching two time periods to the same student – perhaps there are others that have done this successfully and give you guidance, but imho that’s too much.

Ok, so that’s probably going to cause you to have more questions rather than clear things up, so if you want the best info and things cleared up I would HIGHLY recommend the all day CM seminar on DVD as that is SUPER helpful for instructing moms on how to do each subject and how long each should take.  It’s been a GREAT investment for me, and I got a few friends together to watch it, so we split the cost and I got to keep it for hosting the seminar in my home! 

hth,

Rebekah