How close should I keep my schedule?

chocodog,

first, take a deep breath!  it’s ok!  your family is your family, and the best you can do is meet your kids where they are and move them forward a little bit each year!have you used the SCM book planning your CM homeschool education?  i think it would speak to a lot of your questions.  first, stick as close to your schedule as you can, but don’t be in bondage to it.  Give yourself grace.  Second, i feel, be a little tough with your son, within the context of gentle boundaries.  ie) Honey, I know  you are a little tired of this; me too!  CAn we just try maybe 3 more of these problems?  Then we’ll break for a glass of water and a snack!  or modify as needed for the age.  my kids always want a break, if i gave in everytime, we’d get  nothing done!  if he needs a break from chores too, maybe is there some character stuff you can address?

ALso, take a close look at how you’ve scheduled your day.  try to break up subjects a little – by maybe doing his toughest subject when he’s freshest, then a short break and then into a different subject or a family subject or listening to a bit of read aloud, KWIM?  so he’s not using the same part of his brain ALL morning.  As for keeping to the schedule, I have found Sonya’s time boxes or as we call it “hard stops” to be most effective.  Certain things must get accomplished by a certain time, if not, it comes out of the kids’ free time in the afternoon and becomes “homework.”  so for us, we try to eat by a certain time, finish bible by a certain time, then the kids have independent work for a certain time, in which i circulate and help/tutor/intro new concepts as the kids need me.  It’s during this time that my older two do most of their 3 R’s and i work with my about to be 1st grader.  we all work as a team trying to keep my toddler boys engaged and happy and moderately quiet during this time.  what ever the bigger kids don’t accomplish becomes homework for after school time. then we have family read aloud time, usually with a snack, because this keeps the little boys happy and quiet-ish.  then we do slightly independent work like spelling, art/drawing, independent history/science reading for a bit.  next we have lunch prep and tidy up schoolwork we are done with.  then we eat, the littlest naps, and we settle in for history – usually reading aloud, narrations, small projects, etc.  we alternate science with composition & literature after that.  sometimes we’ll go outside for nature study. then our day is done.  whether i am done with our day or not i try to sign off by 3 or 3:30 because i need to have 20 quiet minutes to myself to decompress before i tackle the dinner prep tidying up nightime mayehm.  when we commit to stick to this as best we can, with not letting one part of the day spill into the other, it’s so much more smooth.  the kids know they’ll get some free time to chill later, so we work toward that.

to your  final concern about not scheduling enough, a year at a time, playing catch-up, this is my two cents.  i used to teach in a PS, and now i’ve HSed for four years.  it’s my expereince that to plan that far in advance is to set yourself up for disaster.  i think that using sonya’s five steps really helped me.  i moved from my overall goals, to my year, to my term, to my weeks/days.  so you have a sort of set of goals or guidelines of what you’d like to accomplish in a school year.  break that into 3 parts for terms, and then build in an extra week or so for catch up.  i also do a modified 4-day schedule.  our friday is kind of light.  everyone does their math, maybe a bit of LA, and then we read, do projects, catch up on whatever needs catch up; also, we try to leave the afternoon for fine arts, shakespeare, nature study, handicrafts etc.  sometimes we use the friday afternoon for playdates.  if you try to pack a lot in, and have your year scheduled down to the day or week, what happends when life happens?  then the WHOLE thing is set back (yet another reason why the CM organizer rocks)!  I would suggest starting from overarching goals, then break it into terms, then just approach one term at a time!  another thought might be a modofied workbox type system for your kids to sort of take a little ownership of their time, and know that when finished they might get a fun activity?  this would obviously depend on their ages and your funds and time.  but if you google workboxes, you’ll get a lot of blog hits, etc.  start small, doable, and at a sustainable pace, b/c you can always add in…having to leave things out b/c you can’t accomplish it all makes you feel unsuccessful (trust me, boy, do i know this one!).

again, i’d beg you to give yourself some grace, remember His mercies are new every morning and He is the lifter of your head…there is no condemnation in Christ!

and finally, pray about checking out Sonya’s planning book.

blessings,

Amy

Tristan’s method with a schedule can work good – and for independent work – workboxes can work good as they can see what needs to be done etc.