CM Schedules

You are free to schedule your home school in whatever way works for your family. Remember that Charlotte Mason ran a school with teachers. You are a mom with laundry, meals to plan and make, floors to clean, dishes to wash, etc. That’s a very different environment than a classroom in a school!

You don’t have to do everything that Charlotte Mason did in her schools either. Some moms choose not to do Shakespeare, for example. Others will do one artist or composer in a year instead of three artists or composers in a year. It’s up to you because it’s your home school.

You can also schedule subjects at different times of the day. Many moms like to read a book while the kids eat a meal or a snack. Some do Scripture memory at a meal time so dad can participate too. Others read their literature book in the evening before bedtime. No one way is the right way for everyone, so do what works for you.

One thing to keep in mind as you plan what works for your family is that each lesson should be an appropriate length for your child’s attention span. For grades 1-3, it is recommended that lessons be no longer than 20 minutes, often shorter. For grades 4-6, lessons increase in time to about 30 minutes maximum. Grades 7-12 lessons have a maximum time of about 45 minutes.

Well, if it makes you feel any better, my kids studied one history time period at a time and they turned out okay. 🙂 Because it was my school with my children, I had the freedom to move through each time period as quickly or as slowly as I wanted too. Sometimes we had only a few books on a time period, such as ancient Egypt. Other times we had many books on a time period and we couldn’t decide which ones to read and which ones not to read, so we read them all.

Because I homeschooled my kids before so many Charlotte Mason materials were available, there were also some subjects we couldn’t do or had to do with whatever we could find. For example, studying an artist’s works through picture study. Artist portfolios like SCM sells weren’t available. I had to make do with a few books on specific artists from library book sales (because they were cheap) and calendars. I reminded myself constantly that my kids were getting a more well-rounded education than I did through the public school system even with the scarcity of materials available when my kids were being homeschooled.

So, again, it’s your home school and you get to decide what fits your family.