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Creating a flexible schedule
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This will be the first time that most of my curriculum will be SCM! My frazzled brain is excited about the open-and-go format, but I was wondering if anyone has created a weekly schedule template rather than a day-to-day one for greater flexibility. Or if there’s another way to schedule for flexibility, I’m all ears! In the past, I’ve tried to schedule each day by order of subjects and length of time, but it became extremely wearisome (not to mention wasting so much ink and paper!) since so many unexpected factors throw my plans out the window, and we get behind in some subjects. Ideally, I’d like a 4-day schedule, but am unsure how to translate the suggested schedules in the SCM lesson plans into a 4-day format. Appreciate any tips and advice that has helped you. Any visual examples would be wonderful. Thanks!
We also try to stick with a 4 day week, at least we did before high school. Now we have a Friday light day. Have you checked out the SCM Organizer? You can plug in all your books and just not schedule anything Friday. That is how I have done most years. Their are scheduling templates on this site to help you spread the feast. If you are using the SCM Lesson plan books you can just do the next day and plug along, not worrying about whether your weeks line up like the book. There are about 15 exam days I think, if your kids are little you could skip some of those to make up for the extra day you miss each week. The easiest way, I think, is to make a family time schedule in a word document. Not lesson plans so much, just a list of what subjects for the day. I have a family schedule and each child has one. I did it in a table format and we all know to do just do the next lesson. So for example Monday for my 6th grader might say:
Bible
Math
Spelling wisdom/Using Language Well
Science
for family studies:
Bible
Poetry
Geography
Latin
We just do the next lesson. For the kids I may actually tell them what lesson they are on, but generally it is just do what is next. If something comes up and we do not get to something it just gets skipped until it comes up again. I never try to “make up” a lesson (this doesn’t apply to my high schoolers with deadlines of course).
Not sure if any of this helps, the lesson planning sheets on this site really helped me see how to spread it out so we weren’t spending too much on family time subjects each day. And the organizer helps me keep track of lessons completed so I always know where we are (especially after long breaks). I think if you are using the lesson plan books just put a little check or date notation after each lesson and the next day do what is next. Stick to your 4 day schedule and have fun. It may mean your weeks are quite varied, but that is nice. And if you don’t finish the whole book just pick up where you left off the next year. I would definitely do math every school day, but I don’t think it is critically to be “on track” anywhere else. Its not a race. Enjoy the journey.
SCM history guides work well for 4 days/week by adding geography day to any other day. The scheduled geography lessons are usually not too long so it is a great flex day subject to add on to another day and complete the guide. I really like the SCM history guides because they are numbered day 1, day 2… and so on, and not day of the week. Se simply do the next lesson the next day, that is what we do for almost all our subjects, simply do the next lesson for the subject not worrying about which day it is. If we miss a Wed because of a field trip we just do the next lessons on Thursday we don’t worry about being behind or having to catch up.
My oldest is in 9th grade and over the past couple years we have practiced having more of a set schedule as her work load has naturally increased, but with that we have lighter days, ones that are shorter, and days with a heavier work load that might take a bit longer. It takes time to find a rhythm and routine that works for each family and each child as well.
We are going to try a 4 day schedule this year. We are doing the Ancient Egypt year and I plan on moving a history lesson to one of the Bible lesson days (one lesson is often shorter). Or we can always fit a short history lesson in on the weekend if we need to. For Enrichment and individual studies, I cut what I could (like the extra scripture memory, literature, math, and science) and moved the rest to Monday-Thursday. We will likely catch up literature and scripture memory over the weekend. I will continue with Math over any breaks we have…and I’m hoping the science will work itself out. 😉 There usually are catch-up days scheduled in history and science. And we often play catch-up during exam weeks.
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