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Daily schedule – running too long
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I am trying to figure out why we take so long to get all of our school work finished for the day. We go past schedule. It looks good on paper. I have been good about setting my timer. Sometimes we go over 5 minutes for a subject to complete what we are working on. Each subject is scheduled for 20 – 30 minutes. I am thinking that it may be taking us too long to get from one subject to the next. Today, our day took us 2 hours longer than it says on the paper schedule. Since we didn’t finish before ball practice, we finished after supper and then it was nearly time for bed. My oldest of 2 kids is 7 years old and he asked why he has to do school work all day. I felt bad for him. I just can’t understand why real life doesn’t work out to how it is on the paper schedule. We move around from room to room with different subjects, so I keep those subject books in the rooms where we most often study them. On paper, the longest our day should take is 5 hours plus lunch time, including extras like games and arts/crafts and playing outside. We didn’t get to the last ones because we were tired of doing school work all day. Should I schedule less daily and do some only weekly? Is there a lot of wasted time and rabbit trails in between that I am not aware of? I try to stay on task, but when someone needs a restroom break, we take a short break then. When we finish one subject, I need a moment to collect my thoughts and books for the next subject. Should I schedule and time this transition time from one subject to the next? Should I use workboxes or one central location for all of our current-use books? Any other ideas? Has anyone else had a similar problem and found a solution?
We need help to get all the work done during the day as scheduled so I can get some projects done around the house and the kids can have more time to play. Please help!
I’m sure a more experienced mom could help more since I’m kind of a newbie….but your comment about only scheduling some subjects once a week strikes me right off the bat as a possible good solution. I have been working on our scheduling/product ordering for next school year so this subject in really on my mind right now.
When laying out my schedule I noticed that Sonya only has a number of the subjects recommended 1x a week, some maybe several times but still not every day. For instance composer study, picture study and nature study (science) are once a week activities. I noticed on this forum a number of moms only do copy work 1-3 times a week. I’ve found that read aloud/literature usually works better either late afternoon with a snack after outside time or before bedtime vs along with everything else.
I’ll be anxious to hear what others recommend….
If you could post your schedule someone may be able to give advice on it.
I, personally, decided that our family should be done with schoolwork each day by 1:00pm. I just need that time later to do, well, the whole rest of my life LOL. Plus it is a high priority for me for the kids to have time for play. So I had to learn over time what could get done by 1pm. Now I have a much better feel for it and it is easier to schedule.
Honestly I am not killing myself trying to do composer study or read a poem everyday or whatever. These activities are done occasionally, not regularly. I had to make a call about what worked and this is it – for now.
I’m sure that is frustrating trying to figure out what’s going on! On paper (for this next year) my schedule is about 3 hours. That is including breaks after every 2 subjects. This is for my 6 & 7yo. (we will do nearly all subjects together). I only slot about 15 minutes per subject. Some will take longer when we do projects that go along with what we’re studying. Perhaps 30 minutes is too long at this age? I know that doesn’t help with your question of why it takes so much longer in real life than on paper. I’m sorry I can’t be more help. I’m sure some of these other wise women will be able to help you more! I hope you’re able to solve this!
Do you not have any weekly subjects, only daily?
I do think 5 hours is a long time for a seven year old. I think you need to re-evaluate what you have planned. I rarely have more than 2 1/2 to 3 hours on “paper” for a child that age. What do you have on your list for “every day” and what do you do weekly or only a few times a week?
I agree that it sounds like you have too much scheduled… 5 hours is too much for a 7yo (and you say it is taking about 2 hours more than your plan… so 7 hours?) although I’m not sure how much of that was the playing outside etc…
We are doing Picture Study every other week, listen to music in the background for music study.
My kids do about 5 minutes a day on copywork (my 7yo does a scriptural type quote on Monday, practices a letter that I notice needs work on Tuesday, does a quote from readings on Wednesday, does a “writing fluency” test on Thursday… and Friday is our “wild day” so nothing then.)
Math takes us from 20 to 30 minutes for a lesson
We only do history a couple of times a week
Geography is running to the map to lookup places we are reading about…
Some time for literature….
Other books (say one for character or whatever) alternates
Anyway, with me moving between my 2 oldest kids (and often the one I’m not working with playing with the youngers…) we school for about 2.5-3 hours… then there is a 20-40min violin practice right after lunch (in theory, sometimes it ends up being another time) – then we are done and then they play outside for a while.
At this age, your lessons according to Charlotte were only supposed to take about 15 minutes. Copywork is only a few minutes (like 10) so that the hand muscles can relax. =)
There are lots of things that we (family) only do once a week, like nature study, picture study, hymn study, art (applying lessons), Shakespeare, handicrafts, geography (map drills), and music (composer) study. We listen to the composer while we eat, do math, etc,
We (family) have science three times a week, Bible and history 4 times a week (geography is the 5th day). Grammar is 3 times and very simple.
Daily: we sing the hymn we are studying that week, (5 min), scripture mastery (5 min), 1 poem (5 min), character study (5-10 min), and read one (or two) chapters in the literature book.
Individual kids do math daily , copywork (2 times week), dictation 1-2 times week (based on the copywork and their readiness to test, (and your kids aren’t there yet, so you shoould do copywork for 5-10 minutes tops daily), instrument practise daily (15 minutes – we’re beginners), and more independent reading (mine are older and are reading three different chapter books for different subjects) daily.
Don’t forget that there is a lot of time “lost” in transitioning from room to room, resettling in, and then preparing for the next subject. Could you combine 3 subjects to one sitting place, like math, picture study and then literature? You would have three subjects done in like 30 minutes tops. Then the science, copywork, and scripture memory? Three more subjects done in about 30 minutes. Combine the history, and the other daily things and you would have 5-6 things done in about 30 minutes. If you alternate the areas of the brain like that, then the attention is there and the kids aren’t bored and restless.
One other question – are you training them to give total attention so that you only say something once? If not, maybe you should start a habit training of the top three: attention (I say it once) and obedience (you do it now, nicely) and truthfulness (accuracy)? That will help a lot with time! =) HTH
My oldest is 8, and I have 4 children. We are usually done with school for all of them in 3-4 hours, max. At 7, I think most subjects should be 10-15 min. long at most. It sounds like you are going too long? Here is what we do:
We start at 8:30am and do our family subjects: Bible chapter, devotion, Scripture memory, poem, Sunday school song if they have one, hymn, artist/poet/composer study (the books & paintings – one of those per day). This takes us to around 9am or so.
Next we break off into individuals. My 8yo does her math, English & grammar, Spanish, and copywork mostly on her own, with a little help from me sometimes. Even on days I help her with practically everything, we are done with her stuff in approx. an hour or so. While she does her independent work, I start my 6yo on her math, copywork, Spanish, and reading. I help her with practically everything, and it takes us 40 min or so.
As the 2 older girls have time, they each are in charge of helping my 4yo learn to count to 20 and recognize letters. A couple days a week I teach her reading (she’s ready to read and has been trying on her own). I also help her with her copywork on a dry erase board or with crayons for about 5 min. a day.
Mixed in we have the 2 older girls do History, Personal development (2 days/wk), Bible story, Geography, Science, and Journals (this is one we’ve always done and the girls enjoy – once a week or every 2 weeks or so). On a “long” day, these take us an hour or so.
All in all, we are usually done by 11:30am, and if not, we will do the last 30-60 min. after quiet time (which ends at about 2:30pm). Oh, we read my 4yo’s Read-Aloud and do the older girls literature (both in the 1st grade level right now) at the beginning of quiet time to save time on school time.
I hope this helps!
Thank you so much for the advice so far. I see that I should reduce the copywork and combine 3 subjects into one sitting, then a break for restroom or lunch, and then 3 subjects to another room. I will work on that more.
Here is the tentative schedule:
20 After breakfast in the kitchen: Proverbs chapter from Bible and discuss, Scripture Memory Box, Devotional Book
10 Kitchen: Poem/song/Memory Box/ American Sign Language
30 Living Room: Reading – Alternate kids while other plays. Sightword cards / Word lists / Reader / Beginner’s Bible
20 Living Room: Read Aloud: Geography (we focus on one country and their culture each month) OR Biography about composer or artist, alternating days 1 and 3 to geography and days 2 and 4 to biography. We listen to composer music at lunch time or during chores.
30 Dinning Room: Math – MUS and/or AL abacus and/or RS game. I teach them together and I do a lot of explaining and demonstrating with manipulates before we move on to the worksheet. I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to keep them together. Oldest catching it sooner now.
LUNCH / Clean up / Chores / Bathroom Break
30 Dinning Room: Science – My son loves science and we do Exploring Creation with Zoology 2. This is scheduled for 4 days. On the 5th day is a field trip or nature walk. It is followed by a lapbook activity (they love) 4 days or nature notebook on the 5th day. I have 30 minutes scheduled for Science for both kids together. I have my 7 year old narrate after I read.
20 – Kitchen: Language – son does 2 pages Explode the Code and likes to color the pictures (carried over from Sonlight since he likes it so much.) Daughter does only 1 page. She takes longer, but is able since she is advanced and reads/writes and wants to do what older brother does. Then I’ll do some phonics teaching from a workbook on long vowels or short vowels. I am looking to change that to possibly Queen LL for little ones vol. 3 or CLP Adventures in Phonics B. I know these aren’t much CM, but I think they need some phonics teaching. Any advice here? I could maybe reduce the Explode the code by every other question.
30 – Living Room: History – Read aloud (20 min.) from living books on history and possible timeline figure for part of that time (10 minutes).
SNACK / Get mail / Bathroom break
20 – Living Room: Story time – Read aloud literature
20 – Dinning Room: Copywork (I see from Suzukimom how I need to change this. So this would be 5 – 10 minutes. Thanks)
20 – Dinning Room: Game, a fun time after completing school to focus on language days 1 and 3 and Math days 2 and 4.
30 – Art Free Time: Monday – Son drawing, daughter ballet / Tues. Piano lesson / Wed. Music study of other instruments in orchestra or more piano / Thurs. Piano lesson / Friday Craft. (We have never gotten to this time slot yet!) They usually work in ballet and drawing on their own play time. I thought it would be a good reward for finishing school work and keep them on task with things they like. We have not started piano lessons because I can’t seem to find the time to fit it in. They have asked to learn how to play and they will sometimes play around on the piano. So I would like to start teaching this when we can work it in.
30 – Play Outside. If it is ball practice, we just do that. If it is raining, we do a lesson on health/safey/manners.
30 extra at bedtime: Scripture memory Box again, read a poem from A.A. Milne, Read a library picture book, Read a bedtime Bible story, prayers, and play a CD of music or story when I leave.
This looks really long. It is a total of 4 hours plus 1 hour of art and play outside plus 30 minutes at bedtime. Yet it takes us longer with breaks and transitions through the day. We do this 4 days and on Friday we do something with the local homeschool group, so some subjects are not done on Friday.
I used to have the same trouble as you – the school day would just drag on and on and on. I have 4 children – 2 doing formal studies, 1 doing 4yo “preschool” and a toddler. Like I said in my previous post, we now get done in 3 hours on most days, all in the morning. That’s with doing individual work with all of them, plus reading nearly everything aloud (my 2nd and 1st graders are together, and the 1st grader can’t read yet), plus all the family work. We really pared down what we were working on, and also concentrated on the habits of obedience and attention. Most days they do pretty well, although I have a lot of goofing around when we do our family stuff right away. But even with that, we are done with those things in 30 min. or so.
As I looked at your list, a number of things came to mind. First, why are you switching rooms all the time? We have a dedicated schoolroom, but we didn’t at our old house. We stayed in one room the whole time (this varied as we switched to get our house ready to sell – first the living room, then the kitchen, then back to the living room again – but not during 1 school day). All of our books are/were kept in the same place so as not to have to move around. In some cases, I’d even bring the entire stack into the room we’d be learning in just so that I wouldn’t have to run back to our storage place to grab more books.
What time do you start school? Before lunch, you’re only working for about 1 1/2 hours. Assuming you have lunch at noon, you don’t finish breakfast until 10:30am? I must be missing something there, right? Another 1 1/2 hrs after lunch puts you at maybe 2:30pm for snack. Another hour, then 30 min. for art, etc. This puts you at about 4:30pm. And only 30 min for outside. I think I have that about right, give or take a little bit, right? Let me know if I’m wrong…
As far as I know, CM advocated all the studies being done in the am (except possibly for older students), with the afternoons free for outside, handicrafts, musical instruments, etc. I really encourage you to have a quiet time during the afternoon of at least an hour, too – it makes such a difference!
I do think you can cut back quite a bit on Language. I work with my 8yo for 15 min. tops, usually it’s about 10 min. She is doing English for the Thoughtful Child. In 1st grade (is your son in 1st or 2nd?), he shouldn’t even have formal language lessons yet. Reading too could be cut way down. Your 7yo should be working on that for 10-15 min tops, and your other child (how old is she?) probably far less than that (my 4yo 5 min a day, my 6yo maybe 10 min max).
30 min. for Science sounds like a lot as well. We do 10 min every day reading from Burgess’ Bird Book for Children. We also spend time looking up the birds in our MN color-photo bird book. Once in a while we’ll go 15 min. If your kids like the lapbooks, why not read for 10 min. on Monday, do the lapbook for 10-15 min. on Tuesday, nature notebook for 10-15 min. Wed., an “experiment” or another reading on Thurs., etc. That just cut 15-20 min. from your day, and the kids will have time to digest what they’re reading/doing. Same for history – we read for 10 min or so. We haven’t started time lines yet, but I do have The Timetables of History, and I can’t imagine this taking more than 5 min. at this age.
I hope this didn’t get too long and is helpful to you. Prayers that you get it figured out quickly!
Sara 🙂
After further studying, I think I may change to individual times for math, reading, copywork, and language as 1 hour for oldest and 45 min. for youngest. They can come together later in the day when we play a game for language or math. What does the other child do as you teach their sibling in their individual time? Just free play? This would still take mom the same time of 1hr40min. as I had previously scheduled, but it would not be as tiring on each child.
Maybe you should consider not doing Geography and Biography so much during the week. You could do geography once a week or a biography once a week. Whichever one takes up more time, could be divded to twice a week. My son loves science too! But we only do it 2 times a week alternating it with History. We don’t do science, history, and geography everyday! Also you can combine a short geography lesson with History or Literature you are studying. Have a map with you when you do History and Literature.
We go a long time each day too. But that is only because I have health issues and start feeling better later in the morning. Plus my sons do much much better when they have a play period in the morning playing Chess, legoes, cars, or drawing before school. It helps them focus! We usually don’t have lunch till 1pm. Then we finish up around 2:30. Then they have the rest of the day to go outside. They read at night most nights. And I count any mind building toy/craft/activity as school. Such as chess, drawing, building, word playing games on a hand held device, they also have a College calculator! (dad is a college math teacher!)
They really do need more time outside! My kids are 6 and 8. I used to think that I needed to pour more and more into them! But my goodness, you can only retain so much at this age! Plus my 6 yr old has a late b-day. He would be in K in public school! He already knows stuff that a first grader knows! I have to remind myself to take it slow and enjoy the ride! Also Lies Homeschooling Believe by Todd Wilson, really helped me to focus on what I want for my kids!
Blessings!
Sorry I can not speak from experience but I think it might help shorten some of the lessons? Like other ladies mentioned here at that age Charlotte recommends about 15 min per subject. On paper our schedule is about 3 hours a day with Sports. Handicrafts/Lifeskills and Art planned for afternoon hours. My plan goes by 2 15 minute block followed by a 15 min break. This gives me time to prepare for the next 2 subjects and the children time for refreshments/playtime. Sure life just happens and breaks may be longer one day or you need an additional 5-10 min with a subject but you should still be in done in max 4 hours.Maybe you can also take some of the independent reading out the schedule and just let them do it before bedtime?
Hope you find some help here that may lift some pressure of your shoulders!
Blessings
Christine
Sara: It is 2 1/2 hours before lunch. I wrote down to get something in the oven before science, if needed. We eat lunch after science…if all goes as scheduled. It is possible we need to work on a better habit of attention. They do pretty well with obedience, but I’m sure that could also use some work.
Thank you. We tried some new things in our schedule last week. I figured out that in my children’s minds, “schoolwork” = “tablework”. I tried splitting them into individual lessons for reading, writing, phonics, and math. For now, phonics is the “language” using Explode the Code. They seemed to like the one-on-one with mom and did well with the lessons. I was amazed at how we were able to keep going through the whole 45 minutes without slowing. Their attention was much better in this way. Although, the child who was not doing schoolwork asked a few times what they could do. I said it was free time and they could go play. What do some of you do?
I shortened my read aloud time and subjects. It has helped to keep on task by staying in the same room for a longer period. After lunch, they enjoy a game and listening to me reading again. They do not consider this schoolwork. My son asked if we could just read the history stories without calling it schoolwork, because calling it schoolwork somehow makes it less fun, I guess. So I would like to try doing a quiet time after reading after lunch. What is a quiet time all about for young children?
This is how it is looking now:
20 After breakfast in the kitchen: Proverbs chapter from Bible and discuss, Scripture Memory Box, Devotional Book
10 Kitchen: Poem/song/Memory Box/ American Sign Language
15 Dinning Room: Read Aloud – History OR Geography (we focus on one country and their culture each month) OR Biography about composer or artist. We listen to composer music at lunch time or during chores.
30 + 45 Dinning Room: Individuals: Math, Reading, Phonics, Writing
15 Dinning Room: Science – Read Zoology 2, do experiment, or go on a nature walk
15 Kitchen: Map Drill, Timeline figure, Lapbook, OR craft
LUNCH / Clean up / Chores / Bathroom Break
20 – Game
15 – Story time with mom
45 – Quiet Time – ??
30 – Art Free Time: Monday – Son drawing, daughter ballet / Tues. Piano lesson / Wed. Music study of other instruments in orchestra or more piano / Thurs. Piano lesson / Friday Craft.
SNACK / Get mail / Chores / Bathroom break
30 – Play Outside
30 extra at bedtime: same as above
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