Best way to schedule for the mind?

Hey Misty,

I too would love the answer to your first question. I took my best guess when making our schedule.

As far as your 12 year old, he is probably old enough to set up his schedule with supervision. For my 12 and 13 year olds, I gave them a time sheet with the time required for each subject and had them place them in. So once you have the list of subjects that shouldn’t go together, you could tell him which he can’t have next to each other and then let him fill out his sheet. That has worked well with my oldest two.

HTH, Rebecca

Think about what “mind activity” or “body activity” is being used. For example, listening or reading, narrating, looking, large motor muscles (walking), small motor muscles (like handwriting), hands-on (manipulatives or experiments). Here are some examples of the order in which Charlotte scheduled her subjects.

Grades 1-3 on Mondays one term

• Old Testament (listening and narrating)
• Printing (small motor muscles)
• Repetition: Poem (memorizing and reciting)
• French (listening to another language)
• Number (manipulatives; math concepts)
• Drill or Dancing (large motor muscles; PE)
• Reading (looking; decoding skills)
• Natural History (listening and narrating; possibly hands-on science)

Grades 4-6 on Mondays one term

• Old Testament
• Arithmetic
• Dictation
• Drill (Swedish Drill, PE)
• Repetition: Poem
• Geography
• Writing
• French

Grades 7-9 on Mondays one term

• Old Testament
• Arithmetic
• Dictation
• Drill
• Repetition: Poem
• Geography
• Arithmetic (Mental work this time)
• French
• Botany

Yes, a twelve-year-old can start making schedule decisions. Be sure to share with him the principle of varying the order of subjects so as not to overtax any one part of the brain and body. If he starts to struggle with paying full attention, he should go do something totally opposite, then come back with “fresh wits.” It’s a valuable principle to equip him for adulthood.

I needed to be reminded of that, too! This year ds is having to write his numbers in math instead of using stickers that I would make for him. We would read or do a language activity, then on to penmanship. More days than not he didn’t want to write. Apparently the break wasn’t long enough to rest his hand! So beginning Friday (we’ll be out of the house all morning tomorrow), we’ll try penmanship mid-morning, after we’ve had the listening and play time. Maybe a good incentive to do his writing will be to follow it with a language or math game or Bible verse puzzle (he can’t play the game until he does the writing). Penmanship 3x a week should be plenty at this stage anyway from what I’m seeing from other posts.

Karen

I too have felt the need to move a few things around.  I didn’t know there was an opinion / method for this.  It was just my gut instinct that was telling me that I needed to take a look at my schedule for next year.  I have followed the WTM, but am open for all styles of learning.  I’d like someone to take a peek and see if you could tell me how you might move things around.  Someone who is familiar with what Miss Mason suggests.

No school before lunch.  Play together, projects, baking, dinner prep. HOME LIFE!

Lunch at 11am

Snuggles and Stories with Little Sis

Electiv(-es (while I am getting the little one down) Rosetta Stone Spanish (may change to Usborne’s First 1000 Words) 30 shared min. (Tues. Thurs. (Fri. I observe)

Electives Typing Instructor (Mon. Wed.) 15 min. each

Handwriting / Copywork (Tues. Thurs.) 10-15 min.

Spelling (Mon. – Thurs.) Dictation with Spelling on Tues. Thurs. Memory Work….. Spelling Rules 30 min.

Reading (shared) Classical Literature List  (Son reads right page, daughter left, I read next two pages to model fluency) (Mon. – Fri. 30 min.)

Grammar and Writing (Mon. – Thurs.) (60 min allowed, usually finish, but that is for two students) Memory Work….Poetry, Scripture

Math (60 minutes) New Lesson,  Review and Memory work…..math facts….important facts (i.e. There are 12″ in 1 foot)

History (Mon. Wed. Fri.) Fri. is for activities, map work, time line notebook, decorating their narration notebooks

Science (Tues. Thurs.) Fri. is for nature walk, experiments

Art (Fri.)

Music, still trying………..but it would be on Fri.

I use memory work “little bits in many subject to try to give the hands a rest.  Is memory work a small or large muscle working.  I know the brain is a large muscle that is being exercised here, but is it in low or high gear ?)

I was thinking that I might need to put math earlier in the day, HOWEVER sometimes we are really spent after math.  I guess that would be a good time to have handwriting/copywork or Literature Reading follow?

Your comments, suggestions are welcome and valued.

April

I don’t know that there’s one “right” way to apply the principle, but I do think that you really need to consider how you approach the subject. For example, anything that is predominantly a “read aloud” for your kids might be in one category. HOWEVER, for some science might be largely a read-aloud subject (depending on age and curriculum choices), whereas for others it might be more hands-on doing more experiments. Same thing for Shakespeare: if you are reading aloud versus kids taking parts and moving around and acting it out more — same subject, different approach. That’s probably not the answer you want to hear! lol

I like Sonya’s explanation above about large motor, etc. I thought maybe I could pull together a little list for you, but honestly because I don’t know HOW you are doing your subjects, it’s hard to say. For my family, over the many years of CM education that we’ve done, I’ve found that we do a lot of reading — more read alouds when they’re younger, more independent reading as they get older… but always lots of reading. SO, for me, I would try to intersperse just about anything else amidst all the reading. I think I covered all the subjects in the SCM guide below, but again, this is just how I would categorize for my family — do what works for you, and modify as you go along, if needed! 🙂

READING:

science, history, geography, Bible, poetry, Shakespeare, Plutarch, literature

** but these might often include some kind of picture narration with younger ones, so if you’re doing that then that helps provide a change of pace. If you read geography and your kids drew a picture, then it might not be a big deal to do another reading/picture.

ARTS:

picture study, hymn study, music study, nature notebooks

MEMORY:

foreign language, scripture memory, other memory work, possibly poetry if focused on memorizing

WRITING:

narrations (if older), copywork, dictation, spelling, grammar

COMPUTER:

narrations (if typing); typing; possibly foreign language but that’s not usually much actual typing, just staring at a computer screen

MATH:

well, math has always been in a category by itself, for us. I just always try to do something more active on at least one side of math, if not both. lol Incidentally, I would handle beginning reading the same way because of the tremendous effort it can take when they are first learning.

OUTSIDE:

nature study, free play for a break, going for a walk, etc.

I don’t think you have to vary everything, but it helps to know your children (like with the math example for my family). I have a CM friend who does a lot of read alouds first thing in the morning and it works well for them — it would never work that for us. My kids wouldn’t be able to focus that long, and *I* would be falling asleep while I’m reading that much! lol  

Sorry, that didn’t come out the way I had hoped. I had tabs in there to separate the columns. Here’s my subjects in list form:

Mind Subjects

Literature

History

Geography

Science (reading, narrating)

Mathematics (mental work, drill)

Music Study

Picture Study

Body Subjects

Spelling/Dictation

Copywork/Handwriting

Composition (written narrations)

Science (labs, experiments, projects)

Grammar (usually involves writing)

Mathematics (manipulatives, writing problems)

PE

HTH!