Name: CHEC Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-06-12T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-06-14T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Denver, CO

Tagged: Feeling overwelmed, schedules, spreading the feast, Varying subjects

This topic has 12 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 9 months ago by Tristan.

Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)

Author
Posts
June 28, 2016 at 8:07 am
jill smith
Participant
HI,
I am for the first time going all in for Charlotte Mason. I am having a hard time planning and organizing when to use what subject and how often ect. I cant afford to buy anything else this year so reading a lot of post but I am very visual. If any one can share how they plan and and what their schedule looks like for instance: Monday, Bible, History ect but not sure hopw long for what age and how to give the brain a break from reading and moving on to math lets say? I am not a computer person for say, but need to have something written out. Thanks for the help.
June 28, 2016 at 9:03 am
Kelley
Participant
I think the most important thing with homeschooling is that you tailor it to work for YOUR family, and not try to duplicate what others do. Generally, with CM style homeschooling, there is a daily family time or circle time. That’s when you include subjects you deem important on a daily basis. Then for the rest of the subjects (math, science, language arts, etc), you can schedule them through the week. The easiest way that I’ve found for myself is to get a plain notebook. At the beginning of our school year, I plan what our family time will look like, how many times a week we’ll do math, science, social studies, art, music, etc., then I write down a weekly plan. Under each day, I’ll write down the subjects we’ll cover, and check them off as we finish them.

I don’t know how old your kids are, but with younger kids, you work for 10-15 minutes and then move on, and as they get older, you add some minutes. There’s no right or wrong amount of time – whatever works for your children.
We’re a more secular, CM-inspired family, and our schedule looks more like this:
Daily – calendar work, quote of the day, read aloud, something physical like swimming, tennis, yoga, or a nature walk
3 times a week – Math, Language Arts/Reading
1 time a week – Social studies, Science, Art study, Spanish

Hope that helps – just try to find your own groove and relax!
June 28, 2016 at 10:07 am
Tristan
Participant
Here is my best tip for getting a schedule/routine figured out: Write each child’s work on individual sticky notes or bits of paper, as well as the words Monday, Tuesday, etc. Put the days of the week in a row left to right. Under each one put the subjects papers for each child and move them around until you like it. Notice that if you want a child to do math 5 days in a week you need to make 5 papers that say math for that child. If you decide you want to do science 2 days per week only make 2 pieces.
Once you get a first plan sorted out write it down on a piece of paper. Then gather all those sticky notes or bits of paper into an envelope. Try out the schedule you made and when you find something needs tweaked you can get those sticky notes back out and rearrange again!
I am working out these details right now for my house (9 kids, 6 school age this year). I know some things, like we will do math daily. I know my 6th grade and under kids will do art 2 days a week because that was their request. We will do history daily because it also contains a lot of our literature. Science will probably be 3 days a week. Writing will probably be 3 days a week outside of oral narrations. At the same time I know my high schooler will be working on her science more, probably 4-5 days a week. She has an online class for it weekly and then she chooses how to divide up her assignments for that week and usually divides it up evenly, but occasionally divides all the work into 2 longer days. She’ll be doing writing lessons 4 days per week and the 5th day will be writing with a prompt.
For time for each age – start with 10 minutes per subject for younger ages and increase a bit each year for older ones. So my Kindergartener will spend about 10 minutes doing math at most each day. My high schooler usually spends 40 minutes doing math. My 6th grader usually does 20-30 minutes. Also, remember that copywork is a lot less! 5 minutes at most.
Hope those random thoughts help some!
June 28, 2016 at 12:05 pm
Karen Smith
Moderator
You may find these blog posts from the SCM Learning Library helpful.
Keeping Your Balance: Your Weekly Schedule
Keeping Your Balance: Switch Things Around
There are also sample weekly scedules, including a sample for a typical week and a build your own schedule.
June 28, 2016 at 12:12 pm
jill smith
Participant
Thanks you both for your input.
Tristen,
Here is the beginning of what I have so far, please feel free to critique it:) Weekly schedule. Family time
Scripture memory, History, Bible Lit, poetry, composer study, spanish
DD 8 : Math, copy work, print to cursive, piano, reading.
I have her switching between cope work and print to cursive but the rest of the work stays the same.
DD 11: Math, ULW 2, spelling wisdom, cursive, copy work, reading, dictation (confused on) Bible study for girls, Narration 2x week. How many times a week for her subjects?
DS 13: math Algebra, science physical, spelling wisdom book 2, reading, grammar, narration 3x week.
DD17: math consumers, science, grammar (queens) lit, GOV/ECO, Dictation. spelling wisdom 5.
June 28, 2016 at 12:13 pm
jill smith
Participant
Thanks Karen! I am using the weekly schedule as guide.
June 28, 2016 at 5:14 pm
Tristan
Participant
I guess what jumps out at me is that you could drop/combine a few things. For the 11yo: cursive, copywork, Spelling Wisdom, and prepared dictation can all be ONE thing. Have the 11yo do copywork in cursive. What will they use as their passages to copy? Their Spelling Wisdom passage (which is prepared dictation, explained in the introduction of the book). I’m serious! Here is exactly how I have done it before:
Monday: Pass out the Spelling Wisdom passage my child will do that week (we do 1 per week, not 2). Monday they use it as copywork (in cursive if that is what they are doing, or print if they aren’t doing cursive). They also circle words they don’t know how to spell already. Tuesday they copywork JUST those words. Wednesday they copywork the whole passage again, noticing the punctuation while they are at it. Thursday or Friday they do the prepared dictation – I read the passage a phrase at a time and they write it, remembering the proper spelling and punctuation hopefully!
Does that make sense? I just took 4 separate assignments and blended them into one – which saves us time and sanity!
June 28, 2016 at 10:32 pm
jill smith
Participant
Tristan,
So I over bought as well then! I bought the spelling wisdom to go with ULW and cursive for learning how . I figured the spelling wisdom could also be copy work, or I could find a passage from the Bible to copy. On the weekly schedule sample it shows dictation on like Tuesday, when do they have time to copy work a large passage? I am a little confused on that. Other than that is everything else look good? like I said, we are just starting a full CM this year. My DD 11 is still struggling with memorizing her multiplication facts, and spell eek is horrible. I did purchase all about spelling and thought I may try that through the summer along with Math and reading. Thanks for all the info, and help. SO do you use a schedule or do you just go off the weekly and correct as you go? I am not a computer person, and I envy how some of these woman put together such a amazing planner for there kids. 🙂

June 29, 2016 at 8:00 am
Tristan
Participant
I don’t use the SCM Organizer. I simply have assignment sheets in Word I fill in each week for the kids. Then if we get to the end of a week and haven’t finished something it goes on the next week’s assignment sheet. Their assignment sheets are simple. Across the top of a table are the days of the week. Down the left hand side are their subjects. I fill in what to do each day in the boxes. Often these don’t change. Literature, for example, always says “Read 1 chapter”. Math will say Do Lesson with Mom on Monday, Tues-Thur will say Do practice page, and Friday will say Math Test.
Remember the sample is just that, one possible way to do things. You have to decide what will work for your child. If it is an especially long passage we will break it in half and use over 2 weeks, depending on the child’s age and ability.
June 29, 2016 at 12:13 pm
bethanna
Participant
Tristan: How do your children handle the copywork for really long passages? Do they work on some now and some later so that the whole paragraph (or two stanzas of poetry) is completely copied in one day? I didn’t have dd10 to use SW for copywork last year, but I want to this year. We are still in book 1, exercise 96, so the passages are growing longer.
June 29, 2016 at 12:15 pm
bethanna
Participant
Ok, I feel silly. I just read the last paragraph of your last reply. 🙂 I need a nap…
August 26, 2017 at 9:57 am
jill smith
Participant
Tristan,
I am reading through all the questions from last year. My DDs are 12 and 9 now. Time goes fast! I was curious if I should keep the same schedule as I did last year for them? Combining the Copy work and cursive with spelling wisdom? My dd9 hasn’t done any grammar yet to the date. I wonder if I should add grammar to her but only do it 2 time a week? If so, is easy grammar a good place to start or Language lessons? trying to use what I have it possible. We are using the living math this year for both girls. So excited!!!!:) We did change to My Fathers World this year so that History and Bible and Science with a schedule! Thought it would be fun to do a year of Geography. My dd12 will also be starting Jump in this year. Does this sound good? Plus piano, voice, violin.
Blessings,
Jill
August 26, 2017 at 2:17 pm
Tristan
Participant
Isn’t it fun to start a new year?! I like your plans. For grammar it’s up to you. We’re using Fix It Grammar this year and enjoying it, and it’s taken the place of Spelling Wisdom for this year as a trial. I’ve never used easy grammar.