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Frustrated with my scheduling this year
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I have tweaked, cut, re-structured, and played with my schedule (both school and general day-to-day) too many times to count. But I cannot fit everything in this year. Not without going to bed at 11pm and getting up at 4am. It’s ridiculous. What changed??? Last year it was perfect. 4 hours of school, chores got done daily, we had hours of free time in the afternoon, plenty of time to meal plan and prep… This year, my 2 oldest are independent on just about everything, and yet our school time went up by 1 1/2 hours! What happened? Why can I not fit this into my normal 4 hours? Because of this, I simply cannot fit in keeping up with the house and meals – and worse, my devotion time – without sacrificing my sleep. And I am one of those who cannot function without my full 8 hours of sleep as often as possible (like every night, unless a kid wakes me up, in which case, it better be short-lived LOL). The way it is, my kids are just barely getting any time outside – the last tweak got them up to an hour.
I wish I could give you a sample of my schedule so you can see what I’ve got, but like I said, it’s totally not working, so I don’t know that it would help at all. I just need some ideas of how to cut things or how to structure it better… Or something!
How many hours per week do all your school subjects require? What grades are you oldest in? My high schoolers have about 6 hours of work per day. What other levels are you teaching?
Sorry, was going to post ages. 🙂 I have 4, ages 10, 9, 6 (almost 7), and 4. This year’s school time for me doing all 4 (a little preschool time with my 4yo because he likes his “school” time with me) is taking 5 1/2 hours. That includes all of my olders’ independent work, all time as a family, and all time one on one. It doesn’t include piano practice, Bible reading, or read-alouds, which I had been hoping (but so far unable) to fit into afternoons & evenings.
Family time: What do you do together and how much time does it take?
4yo: 15 minutes one-on-one
7yo: 1-1/2 hours one-on-one
9yo: How much one-on-one time here?
10yo: How much one-on-one time here?
Thanks for looking at it with me. Fresh pair of eyes might just do the trick!
Here’s what I have right now (same every day – we do 4 days a week and Fridays are co-op):
Family (including 4yo): 60 min split into 2 sections of 30 each
3 olders (4yo sometimes listens in): 30 min
4yo: 40 min, but this could lose about 10 min, I think
6yo: 70 min.
9yo: 70 min.
10yo: 60 min. (this is only narrations and math – RS)
I am thinking maybe the family time needs to be tweaked? I really love what I have planned and hate to cut it down, but I know I simply must do something. I really wish I knew what major things I added in that I didn’t have last year. I didn’t think I added much at all except the 6yo actually being able to do more of Year 1/2 mix (she kind of sort of did Year 1 with the 9yo last year).
Aha! Maybe that’s what happened! Since my 6yo is finally *really* in school, and not just “pretending” to be in school, maybe that’s where my extra time had to come from. And she isn’t sitting in with another person this year. 9yo is in Year 4 this year, so they aren’t together for most things anymore. Or anything, really. Huh. I would bet that’s what happened. Do you think?
Do you want to try to post your latest version of the schedule? I’d love to see what you are working with.
Since you loved last year’s schedule and the amount of time it took, have you compared the two side-by-side to figure out the exact minutes that have expanded to fill that 1.5 hrs?
Sounds like you may have found what changed! Adding that hour with your 6yo in “real” schol and upping the level of work with your 9yo could easily add in at least 1-1/2 hours.
With the RS math, do you have a set amount of time such as 15 minutes or 1/2 hour (depending on age) then you stop for the day and pick up where you were at the next day? Or do you push through and finish 1 whole lesson? I know they can run long sometimes.
And then the next questions are: is it still realistic to get it all done in 4 hours? Is there some other way to work your day that will allow you to keep all the family time you wish to keep? Could your children do more house/meal work to allow you to fit it all in?
My 4th grader does independent work and has to come to me to give his oral narration. I am usually working on laundry or fixing lunch. But I am listening as I work. That could save you some time. I agree about RS lessons. Some are short and some are long. I am bad about watching the time and they can get long. I have to watch that better this year as I am teaching two. I combine them on some math games and activities. Or I have one sit on my left and one on my right and I give them questions or lesson parts by taking turns. Some say not to multi-task because you lose focus but I manage okay to save on time. I can go through the scripted lesson with one while playing a math game with the other. It depends on the lesson and how comfortable I am with the game. Maybe you could give it a try.
One thing I am doing to save time this year is getting breakfast ready before the kids come down and while they eat we do scripture memorization, read God’s word, read poetry and sometimes our character study.
Than while the older do the independent stuff I work w/the younger ones.
I also started to ask my older son to help w/lunch prep, the second one does the dishes. It does go faster when we have left overs for lunch!
Thanks for all the ideas, everyone!
For math, yes, I stop wherever we are whenever the time is up.
I am not sure if it’s realistic to try to get it back into 4 hours without losing too much throughout the week, especially for the older 2 now. This may just be reality for a while until the 6yo is independent in a few years.
That’s a good idea to listen to narrations while doing chores or something else.
My dh and I also discussed the possibility of doing the bulk of the cleaning on the weekends rather than a little every day throughout the week. So I am playing around with a schedule like that today. Different seasons, right? I do have the kids doing more chores this year since they’re a little older. And we will be doing the cleaning together each week (I divided up the house into “zones” kind of along the lines of FlyLady). So hopefully that will cut down on some time, as well.
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