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How come our day is so full? (and a question about Dianne Craft's Brain Integration)
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I would love input on our planned week. I’ve charted it and tweaked it over and over but still feel it is too full and thus, not sustainable. My sons are 7yo and doing 2nd grade.
Our mornings are consistent. I do Crossfit on MWF and get up for quiet writing/planning/inspiration time TTh at 6am. I’m home/finished writing at 7:15 at which time I jump into family life.
From 7:15-8:30 we get ready for the day, listening to our composer music. Husband and two older children leave for work/school, we feed animals, put away clean clothes, eat breakfast, brush teeth, etc.
From 8:30-9:00 we do a ‘house challenge’ which is basically cleaning the house.
From 9:00 to noon we homeschool M-Th:
individual work in math, reading and piano or drums (both needing my attention at this point) with 50 minutes planned for all three, so 1 hr 40 min of our morning time in total.
together work in history and language arts for a total of an hour. LA doesn’t usually take 30 min but I’m trying to catch us up a bit since we did none last year and at this point it is all very easy and sweet (using First Language Lessons and Writing with Ease).
On Friday I plan to change this up a bit. We’ll alternate between: they do reading and piano/drums and we do language arts, writing cards (to friends/family), family math (games) and I’ll read from Living Math through History OR we go horseback riding.
We then have lunch when I read something aloud from artist study/composer study/poetry/bird study/character study.
We then have an hour of quiet time when I study myself or do home management things.
From 2:00 to 4:30 is variable: Monday = music lessons and library. Tuesday = a activist group on topic of children’s choosing (currently carnivorous plants). Wednesday = science or meeting for Jr FLL. Thursday = playgroup. Friday = art and older daughter’s voice lessons.
At 4:30 we straighten the house and vacuum. At 5:00 I start working on dinner and they feed the animals then have free time until dinner at 6:00. At 7:00 we get ready for bed so the day is over.
It feels like we don’t have nearly enough free time, like we are always bumping up against the clock. We don’t have everything we want to do scheduled…like during Jr FLL season do we do no other science, and do we never do science twice a week like everyone else? And what about taking a lot of time to make a cardboard robot or any other large project?
The boys were a bit below grade level when tested last May. We had been doing reading and math for only four months but I want to make sure they are ‘average or better’ this year or my husband may start pushing for other educational arrangements. We are testing again in February (my choice, to get it over before our lovely spring calls us out into the woods and creeks).
And the tester last year suggested I do Dianne Craft’s Brain Integration Program with both boys which I have been reading about and am totally confused. I had thought it would take about 20 min a day (and planned to do it in the morning) but it seems like I’m not supposed to do reading or language arts with them out of our own programs and just do what she recommends. Is that correct? I’m so confused!
I guess each family is different. What you describe for your afternoons is way too busy for me personally (activities every day). But then again I have eight children and would dread packing everyone up every single day to go to activities for one, two, or more of the kids. We do school in the morning and then lunch, quiet time, and then the kids are free the rest of the afternoon except the 7th grader who may have 1 last subject to do depending on the day and how long she spent writing or practicing piano.
As I said, everyone is different!
Agreeing w/ Tristan. Your plan would be too much for my family, and I have two children as well (dd8 and ds9). I am a homebody and don’t want to be running out every afternoon, when that is my time to pursue my own interests and my children’s time to have free play. That’s 2.5 hours a day that could be spent on housework, meals, handicrafts, free reading, resting, etc., etc. I would personally cut out the out-of-home activities as much as possible and use that time instead to stay caught up so that you don’t feel behind or like your days are getting away from you, because it seems that they are. Also, your children are 7. They are still VERY young! Perhaps they choose one thing that they’re really interested in, and you invest in that thing, instead of five other things.
We are a very busy, out-of-the-house, kind of family, too. Staying home everyday makes my kids crazy, just as much as too busy of a schedule. On the days that we don’t have to be anywhere until late in the afternoon, we take advantage of the time we have and just relax and our dc have more free time to play. But, honestly, my dc have lots of time to play, even though they have a lot going on.
But, I agree that your dc are very young, and I didn’t start having my kids “busy” until they were a bit older. My 7yo does have some interests out of the house, but then my oldest has slowed down considerably (he is very content to be home most of the day-a little too content sometimes), so that has balanced out.
Plus, my dh is a big fan of our dc being involved in what they like (although we do have to work together on the schedules and be reasonable).
I just expect the busy, because that it just how it is for our family, but if you really don’t like it, then maybe you do need to adjust the afternoon interests.
HTH
Shannon, I read your post b/c I am just getting started with HS and enjoy seeing how others are putting their family’s day together. I love that you play your composer music during the time you are all preparing for the day. I am wondering, do you find your kids can focus for 50 minutes on a single subject? It seems long to me. Would it work to spend no more than 20 minutes on a subject? You might be able to fit in something you are missing, and you could come back to the subject later in the morning for a second time. Do you do narrations?
These really are questions. I have as many, or more questions about scheduling as you! 🙂
As for the large projects – I would leave them for now.
I feel the same way. We’re a year behind you; my boys are six and in “first grade”. We seem to have too much subject matter crammed into the morning and then in the afternoon we go out. I don’t feel like I can even squeeze in quiet time, which I desperately need (or want!) If I added that, I would feel like I had to hurry up and relax, lol.
Our schedule is similar to yours in that we school from 9-noon. Tuesdays, they have a science/nature class from 1-3, which I LOOOVE (and they do to, so that’s a priority). I’m a single mom so I use this time to grocery shop and catch up. Wednesdays, Spanish class. Thursdays, gym class and chess club. Gym class is pretty important for them and me as this is where our core group of friends meets. Chess Club is new this year, but they requested it.
I know the socialization question is a hotbutton topic, but if we stayed home every afternoon, when would we see other kids? How would they make friends if we were home all day, every day?
Maybe I need to wait and see how the year plays out, but I do not see how we can cover everything that’s been recommended here, have a life outside of school and still be sane. I’m exhausted already and we just started…oh wait, I’m always exhausted. 😉 Like you, our schedule feels too full and not sustainable. I love the idea of CM, but in reality, we don’t have enough time for fun or “bunny trails.”
Huh, not much advice for you, just letting you know I feel the same way. Hope you get lots of responses here so we can both adjust accordingly!
A few of my very random thoughts re. to CM educational philosophy and busyness of modern life:
- Bunny Trails are often the result of a lack in the habit of attention. Like multi-tasking, bunny trails can be a time thief. Much better to stay on task for short periods of time and save the bunny trails for after school time.
- Children need a quiet growing time up through age 6 according to CM. I would argue that we all need that throughout life to a certain degree. Afternoons in a CM education were meant for masterly inactivity. This is when much learning, growth, creativity and more get their chance to blossom. This does not happen in a fully scheduled life.
- The tendency in America is to structure and schedule every free moment for kids. When do they get to run outside, dig up worms, marvel at roly-polys, play in the sandbox, fight out wars they read about in history, sail to a deserted island to make camp, build tree forts, make up games, and the list goes on. No amount of classes or activities can equal what this unstructured time will give your kids.
- I am not advocating being a hermit. We are active in our church (Sun. mornings, dd12 attends youth group some Wed. evenings); ds9 plays baseball and golf; dd12 and dd6 ride horses, ds9 and dd6 take piano; and we participate in a CM co-op I lead. We are at home on Mon, Tues, and Fri. We leave for commitments on Wed. and Thurs. afternoons. We allow ds9 to play two sports because it is his bent and because the timing is convenient to us. Otherwise, they are limited to 1 activity at most.
- My father-in-law and I were discussing this idea of wonderful opportunities and activities recently. He is an incredibly smart, talented, retired minister. He said, “We did not have art classes, ballet classes, karate or gym classes, chess club, or even little league. We had free time to play, to think, to build, to conquer, for hobbies, and so much more. We seem to be a better adjusted generation with many of the skills and and talents that so many young folks think they need to schedule in their kids lives.”
- If you ever leave your home, just to visit the park, go grocery shopping, attend church. Your children have plenty of socializing opportunities. This should not be confused with socialization. I do not wish my kids to be socialized by their peer group EVER!
- Sometimes we have to say NO to good opportunites, even great opportunities, in order to say YES to what is truly best.
I highly recommend this blog by Nancy Kelly today – http://sageparnassus.blogspot.com/2013/09/our-schedule-our-atmosphere.html
Thanks for the feedback so far! As for afternoons, I spent some time a few months ago thinking and writing a ‘What I Need to Feel Settled Manifesto’. That is when I decided that at 4:30 we need to be home (and guests need to be gone) so we can start with our evening routine. If we start later than that it doesn’t all get done and life feels out of control. I also decided that I don’t want to have afternoon commitments more than 3 times a week. EXCEPT in the fall, I have to stretch that to 4 times because we just couldn’t give up enough of what we had planned to do. Believe me, I’ve dropped or resisted many other commitments to get this ‘simple’ schedule above. We just started music lessons this summer and want to continue. We add in library that day bc I love to go on Mondays and they are on the same side of town. The Tuesday club we started meets at my house so at least I don’t have to travel. The reasons to do it: children learn about topics of their own choosing, learn to ‘make a difference’ (they raised $120 to help coral reefs in the spring!) and learn some public speaking skills/forming own opinions and expressing them to others. We do it with one other family we all really like. The JrFLL team will be just my two boys and one other child this year (trying to keep it simple!) and I am the leader so it meets at my house. We’re planning to be done by the end of November at the latest and after that we’ll have no commitments on Wednesdays. JrFLL is important bc my husband runs a team at his school (residential high school) and my oldest son is the leader of his team at his high school. It is a huge part of our family culture at this point so I want my younger ones to also be in on it. The playgroup on Thursdays is just fun and easy to skip if we need to be home, but the kids love it and so do I. And art on Friday is at home, though sometimes another family joins us so I can teach all the kids. My daughter’s voice lesson is something new (she doesn’t homeschool) but very important to her. I just don’t see how to give up anything at this point.
There is not a 50 min lesson of one subject. The 50 min time period is for 3 things: math, reading and instrument practice. At this point, though, almost all of it has to be done with me right beside them and not at the same time, so it takes 100 minutes of our morning.
In reality we have several other things we do: tumbling class one night a week for my very athletic and active boy, and BMX racing any weekend we can get to it (not more than twice a month bc we just don’t have the time) and BMX trick riding any Tuesday afternoon we’re free (which is very rare at this point). That’s all for one son. The other has decided he wants to run for sport so I’m trying to fit in a run every day and that is nearly impossible…and yet so important bc that son is overweight and I’m delighted he has decided to do this and ENJOYS it. And Spanish! I haven’t put that into a schedule and yet we’re ready to do it several (3-5) times a week now. My youngest sons are Guatemalan by birth and it is very important to us they speak Spanish.
I keep thinking I need to make lessons shorter but really sometimes those short lessons just makes me feel like I’m slave to the clock. For example, we all really enjoy our history reading (early American) and that is our snuggle down time so it feels good to go on for 30 min. I’m going to shorten what I can this week and take notes about how it feels. I also know that once they are able to do more on their own – maybe next year – there will be a little more time to go around. At least I tell myself that.
We aren’t really doing narration. We started it this summer and it fizzled out. I really need to start that again, like tomorrow!, but I know that will add to my feeling of not enough time. Still, it must be done.
Tomorrow I really should take our elderly dog to get groomed – she’s smelling pretty bad – and yet it will take an hour from our morning to drop her off and we didn’t school today bc we were traveling so I feel anxious to get back to our schedule. Even something simple like caring for our dog seems to be a huge burden when the schedule is so tight. I really don’t see how larger families do it… or well, small ones too! 🙂
Thanks for the things to think on, everyone. I’m going to keep tweaking the schedule. I’m sure I can get it feeling ‘joyfully full’ at some point. That is my goal. I’d appreciate anyone else adding their thoughts in too!
Missceegee, I absolutely agree with what you have said (except maybe the bunny trails comment :)) and still there is not an obvious solution for my situation, at least not to me. I will keep prayerfully thinking about this and hope for some clarity. Best.
Shannon, I often tell myself ‘put the rocks in first’. You said ‘joyfully full’. If you take an empty jar and fill it with rocks till no more rocks can fit in, you can still add pebbles, then sand, then water till the jar is truly full. You may have heard this , but I think it is a great picture of how we must schedule our days/weeks. We must put the most important things in first. I’d encourage you to prayerfully consider not your schedule, but your family’s priorities.
Is it possible that activities outside the home are dictating too much of your week? I am not at all suggesting that these things are not valuable, or that you should give them up – I know that sometimes I can put activities on the calendar first and then I struggle to find the right times to accomplish all the other things that I should be doing. Is what is truly important going on your schedule first?
I have been thinking about locating language tapes that we can listen to in the car. Perhaps your travel time would be a good time to fit in a Spanish lesson!
I wish you a peaceful week, with some insights as you experiment with the schedule.
Best wishes, Vanessa
About the Dianne Craft BIT…We have just started doing it this year(we are in week 5) and my ds is almost 12. He doesn’t have trouble in LA and reading(other than hating to read) but shows problems in all of the blocked learning gates. We are not doing anything except the exercises and the lazy 8. I think if they are having a real hard time learning these subjects using what you have then yes you should try her methods but otherwise I would use what I like. Just my opinion 🙂
I have not started officially homeschooling yet, but I have made our year one schedule. After making it I realized that it was WAY to much! I went back and took out A lot. My process was to make a list of all the subjects for 4/5 times a week, 3 times, 2 times, and 1 time. Then I wrote on each one how long it takes. I made alips of paper with the subject written on it (for the number of days we will do it) and sat on the floor and laid out each day , the papers were nice because I could easily move them around. I tried to do only 2 read alouds per day (so bed time literature and history, or science and bed
Time) and I have each of the “extras” on their own day to do during tea/snack time after rest time in the afternoon. (Composer, hymn, artist….) Each day for year one including read alouds came out to about 90min of “school”
The only subjects I have scheduled all 5 days are scripture memory, reading and writing. Math is 4 days. Literature is 3, (we have a seperate literature selection for bed time that is every day) but history, science, poetry, almost all of the other subjects are 2 days a week.
Like I said I haven’t actually started homeschooling so all tis may completly change but maybe you need to set aside an hour or 2 and start from the begining again. I know you have kids in public school so you probably follow their schedule but doing school in more of a year around would probably aliviate the need to fit it all in in a shoeter amount of time. Even 4 extra weeks would probably aliviate some stress and give you time to focus on school when all the outside the house activities are done for the season.
Hope that helps
Kayla
Hi Shannon,
If this was my schedule, I know I would be feeling very overwhelmed. In fact, I spent much of the time home educating my older kids with this same feeling of angst trying to fit it all in. One thing I learned over the years is that I have a LOT of time to fit things in- I don’t need to do it all NOW. I have until my kids are 18 to impart the things I think are important for their future and if I try to complete it all NOW, they won’t absorb it anyway. I found taking the long view helps take the pressure off to “do it all right now”.
I found the answer to be my educational philosophy. An educational phiosophy is the goal, the form, the method, and the process we use to teach our kids. This website is dedicated to the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason. You may not agree with all her ideas, but the advice I will give you is based on her philosophy and I think its a great starting point.
As butterflylake suggested, I try to start with the most important things. For my family this would be relationship first as it is the foundation of everything else that will follow. My younger kids are also adopted (from foster care) and we are still working on attachment and connection. It is especially important for us that for the relationship piece of the puzzle everything be gentle and pleasant, then Habits, Bible, reading instruction, writing instruction, math instruction and exposure to great literature are my priorities. Once they can read, write and do basic math, they have all the tools they need to learn anything they want, at any time. Great literature will provide the ideas needed to fuel the fire of their minds.
My daughter is a social butterfly, and very bright so she craves new and stimulating activities all the time, especially social activities. I am an introvert and would prefer to stay home more, but I try to meet her where she has needs. 🙂 I try to add these activities later in the day so we have several hours of free time at home before we have to run out to activities. It does cut into our evening routine and the kids go to bed later, but they also sleep in later. We eat out too much, and I am trying to make freezer meals or use the crock pot to help us have more family dinners at home and still get to bed at a reasonable time. It is a balancing act!
I am trying not to let the good things- outside activities, social activities, etc- crowd out the truly important things like family togetherness, habit training and having the time to really soak in the great ideas and values that make up a real education.
Anyway, thats been my journey, your milage may vary. 🙂
I really appreciate these thoughts. And sadly, none of it is new to me…just somehow slipped from my mind. I started planning for this year with the ‘big rocks’ mindset, and I always know to keep things ‘loose’ bc my sons need a LOT of time to work on relationship/attitude/character, and I specifically wrote out that reading is our top priority until they get comfortable enough to read on their own when they want to learn things. And yet as I’m working through the Planning Your CM Education, I lost these principals in the details. So I’m starting over again (I feel like I do that All The Time) and hopefully I’ll get closer to BEST this time around.
I think instead of thinking of what I want to do academically this year and then finding the time to fit it in, I need to start with how much TIME I want to spend on academics and then fitting the subjects in that way. For instance, I was planning on two hours of history reading (plus some bedtime reading) each week because I’M EXCITED about the books we’ll be reading. They’re excited too, but I’m sure they’ll be fine if we read half that. I have no goal of needing to be finished with a certain time period by the end of this year so I have no reason to rush.
Thanks! I’ll report back what the new schedule looks like once I figure it out!
Shannon, I think it’s healthy to re-evaluate and make changes if we find what we’re doing isn’t working for us!
As I’ve gone back and re-read some things, I wanted to ask/answer some questions:
- Why does it have to take 50 minutes per child for math, reading, and instrument practice? I’m guessing you have twins since you are schooling two 7yos. I am schooling two also (but different ages), and they do these subjects at the same time. I am right there to help if either needs it, but I don’t sit through 20 minutes of math with one kid and then another 20 minutes of math with another. Same for reading. They are reading different books, and narrate separately, but the actual reading can be done at the same time. I would understand why you’d want to separate them for instrument practice, but maybe one can practice in the morning and the other during the evening.
- I think it’s great that your family has so many interests (art, BMX, FLL, etc.), but could it be that you’re trying to be a bit TOO well-rounded? It seems like it is stealing your time more than adding fullness to your lives. Maybe choose one or two things as priorities and focus on excellence in those.
- Your activities to learn public speaking/forming opinions…I’m wondering how necessary that is at the young age of 7? Don’t get me wrong; I definitely want my children to develop those skills, but I’m thinking that it will be more easily learned for them when they are perhaps 12-14 years old and when our time requires more to be spent on schooling. Something for you to consider maybe?
- I would find it very difficult to really focus on habit training if I had people in my home several afternoons a week or if I was out of my home as much too. These early years, in my opinion, are best spent at home, developing good habits so that the later years are easier for everyone, including myself. I don’t see how being out of the home and involved in so many activities AND focused habit training can coincide, personally. I have to pick one or the other because my attention is too divided otherwise, and things start slipping all over the place.
I hope you’re not feeling like I’m criticizing you at all. I’m not! I understand how life pulls us in so many directions and because we love our kids, we want to give them every possible opportunity. It’s just that we have to prioritize our time. One day we might be able to pursue some of the things that we’ve put on the back burner, but for now, having “a quiet growing time” is the priority for our family right now.
Blessings,
Lindsey
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