I am very interested in geting started in a more organized way, last year I used amblesideonline, which was a little confusing and disorganized. One thing that is still unclear, is how often to schedule each subject for the week. Should it be used continually throughout the year,or just a semester?
I have done both ways, depending on our needs. Sometimes my girls have picked up science and ran with it, so I backed off history, for example. Right now I’m trying to do more of a weekly or bi-weekly schedule with it all. But I know I need to be sensitive to seasons! As we head into the summer (we don’t officially stop until late June or July) I have to lighten up as 4-H fair comes up in July (although I count the bookwork and project making time towards learning time!). Some of my girls also attend an orchestra camp, which although it’s very educational, obviously other things need to be dropped!
So I guess it really depends on your family’s lifestyle and needs. When mine were younger, out of necessity I had to schedule things less “perfectly” than I liked. We even got to where I did phonics/reading/language arts one day and math the next! Now that I have older helpers it makes a world of difference! Hopefully you’ll get some more input!
The best way I have found to answer that question is to back up and look at the resources I plan to use for the year. (I’ll be explaining this idea in more detail in the Planning series we’re doing, but here’s the general concept.) First, I divide my year into three sections (terms). Then I figure out how many chapters/lessons I want to cover in each term. So if I have three History books, do I want to read all of their chapters in the first term, or do I want to spread them evenly across all three terms and take all year to read them. That’s the first step, determining how many chapters/lessons I need to do in each term to complete the books during the year.
Then I look at just one term at a time. Once I know how many chapters/lessons I want to cover in this term for History (for example), I divide that number by how many weeks are in my term. So if I need to cover a total of 36 chapters of History this term (the total of my three books), and I have 12 weeks in this term, I divided the 36 by the 12 and get 3. Now I know that I need to read History three days a week (one chapter a day) to finish the books I have scheduled.
Does that make any sense? It’s getting late and I’m not sure I’m explaining clearly. It’s so much easier to draw a chart or something! 🙂
Thanks for the great explanation! A light came on this morning! I feel relieved about next year knowing how things are going to fit together. Thank you both for helping out.
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