Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: Custom schedule, scheduling resources, Scheduling resources for different days, Unique scheduling

This topic has 4 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 6 months ago by cdm2kk.

Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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August 3, 2014 at 4:25 pm
cdm2kk
Participant
This year my husband works shift work and so it is a rotating schedule. He asked if I would school while he is working so when he is off, all of us will be as well. That is a great benefit of homeschooling after all, but when I went to enter the resources and when I would use them, there was the problem of MTWTHFSS…. For I will not only school on certain days or use a particular resource only on a certain day of the week. My schedule is set up as Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 and so, here is my solution and if anyone has a better way to do it, please let me know, but I thought I would share for others that are in my situation, but still love the CMO!!
When you schedule the resource, I always select custom method after the subject and then type in how many lessons/pages/chapters etc. per week I need to complete and then I type [day 1] or if I will use for 2 days of the week, [day2]&[day 4] after it. As for selecting the day of the week, well I will at some point end uppp schooling everyday of the week, except Sunday, but I will only school 4 days per week. So I mark all days of the week so that no matter what day of the week it is, this resource will show in the list for that dayof the week we happened to be on. Now to scale down the resources that you will use just that one day….
When you look at your daily schedule and the resource, just under the title, then day you entered [day1] or whatever can be seen. So before I start the day, I see if we are on Day 1, day 2, day 3. or day 4 of our schedule and then I go down the list of resources closing the ones that are not showing that particular day. Now, for those left open, I check and see if we completed for the week or not and close the ones we did. Now you are left with what truly needs to be done for the day, regardless of which day of the week it is.
No more searching around for my paper list etc. and I used it for the first time yesterday and my day went so very smooth even after having a 2 hour delay on getting started. LOL
All I have to keep up with now is what order I do the subjects on Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, & Day4 and the CMO keeps up with which resources. I do an excel spreadsheet and I listed the order the subjects should be for each day so that it changes from day to day and we aren’t always doing same subjects everyday. I also note how long I wish to work on each subject and I use a timer to help me. Last year my days were 8-2:30 or 3 to complete and this year being more efficient with our time, we are down to 8-12 or 1 at the latest. CM style really does work and I can already see a less stressed year.
So, wanted to share so that others can also have smoother days and love the CMO even more.
October 30, 2014 at 6:40 pm
suzukimom
Participant
I am considering doing that this year…. Did you find it is working well? Any changes or tweaks that would be useful?
October 30, 2014 at 11:15 pm
cdm2kk
Participant
It is working out smashingly!! I highly recommend it. Kids and Dad love having all the time off together and my son is finally getting his much needed man time! LOL this also has left me and my daughter to get in some great time together too. We finally have time to be a family and play games and talk and pray together. My husband hasn’t been to the grocery store since we got married 20 years ago and this year we have been going as a family. That alone is awesome.
Only problem we have had is that kids thought (ha ha) that since we had no school when dad was home, that chores didn’t have to be done either. That didn’t fly far for sure, but once we established that chores are done NO MATTER WHAT, everything was smooth sailing.
I found that when my husband is on days we school from 8-12 he leaves at 3am so I get lots done before hand. When he is on nights, I do not sleep as soundly and school gets started later at about 9 and goes till about 1 or so and he gets up around 2:30 to eat and go. I try to have a hot meal ready and it is at a weird time.

The only day we never do school is Sunday and this rotating schedule is strange in that saturdays feel like week days and we rely on the calendar more than ever now just to know what day of the week it is. LOL
Kids are much happier this year switching from Sonlight to a more eclectic CM style homeschool! Thanks for asking and we wish you the best if you do this too.

October 30, 2014 at 11:23 pm
suzukimom
Participant
How is the organizer working out with the Day 1 etc in the custom method. Is it easy to find what you need for the day, and to mark things off? (I get how you are doing it – just wondering how well it is working out in the scheduler…)
October 31, 2014 at 12:13 am
cdm2kk
Participant
It is the only thing that is keeping me on track! It is working perfectly. I did find since our school week is every 4 school days regardless if 2 days are in one week and the other 2 are in the next week on a calendar the 4 days is OUR week. I use some resources only on certain weeks or to keep me from getting behind in my readings, I found it was easier to divide the resource up by weeks and then show how many to read or chapters to read in the written out. So on my daily checklist, I see REsource 2lesosns per week [day1] [day 3] then on the worked on portion it shows week 8 – chapter 6-7. Some of my science resource skip weeks at a time etc. and so they show up, but I can see immediately for what week they are for and I know to do it or minimize until that week. Works absolutely perfectly and every morning it takes me about 2 minutes to select our daily work and minimize everything else and then we just sail right through. So I scheduled everything by weeks and how many chapters or pages for each week and days, 1,2,3,4.

Hope this helps.
Channa