Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

This topic has 13 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 1 month ago by sheraz.

Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)

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March 30, 2011 at 8:17 pm
easybrizy
Participant
We’ve been following Charlotte Mason’s ideas this year as we had our first year of homeschooling. It’s been great! I used Sonlight’s P4/5 Core and adapted it to suit me. We’ve had a wonderful year.
This coming year, I’m working on putting together my own materials using the SCM guide. I’ve had fun, but it’s been a bit intimidating because it seems like a LOT more time and work will be going into our days. Is that just the jump from kindergarten to a Year 1 student?
This is what I have planned, and I’d love some input to know if it’s just too much. It follows the SCM guide very closely for a first grader, but has a few tweaks from the charlottemasonhelp.com site.
Daily
Circle Time (~30 minutes)
1. Bible story reading from Egermeier’s Bible Story Book
2. Once a week do Wisdom and the Millers or Polite Moments instead of the Bible story
3. One poem per day (A Child’s Garden of Verses, Now We Are Six, and When We Were Very Young)
4. Scripture memory
5. One folk song
6. A picture book selection for my preschooler
Phonics lesson (~15 minutes)
- Ordinary Parent’s Guide
Recorder (~10 minutes)
Table Time (~45 minutes)
1. Math-U-See for 1st grader
2. Copywork for first grader
3. Practice forming letters for preschooler
4. Practice counting with MUS blocks for preschooler
5. The Easy Spanish Junior
***Break for lunch while listening to selected composer***
History/Geography/Bible (~15 minutes)
- SCM Module 1
Reading (~10 minutes)
- First grader reading aloud books on his reading level
Literature (~15 minutes)
- Various readalouds
Weekly (additional 15-30 minutes in the afternoons)
Monday: US History–selections from This Country of Ours and various picture books
Tuesday and Thursday: Science–lessons from The Outdoor Secrets Companion, nature walks, and living science books
Wednesday: Drawing–Draw Write Now
Friday: Picture study and infrequently a book about the composer we’re listening to.

It looks to me like with transition time, the morning work will probably be at least two hours and the afternoon work at least one. That just seems like a LOT. Especially compared to what we’re doing now which is so brief (maybe an hour and a half?)
Is this unrealistic? I know that a child in a school setting would be spending much more of their day AT the school (though I realize it’s not all instruction time), but I’m not using that as my standard. I’ve followed the guide as I’ve chosen my books, etc, and the lesson times are all short enough in and of themselves. But I’m still wondering if it’s just too much.
Right now we do a circle time with Bible reading, poetry, picture books, and sometimes singing. Table time is math, copywork, and some workbooks my kids enjoy. We spend time going over beginning reading. We do extra reading on various topics (usually library books) like history, science, etc. And we always have a readaloud chapter book going. So, I guess the main differences would be that I’m trying to add the recorder, the Spanish, Scripture memory and more work with my preschooler (however simple). The history and science will be more formal instead of just reading whatever books from the library took our fancy. Plus, I’ll be beginning to ask my first grader for some narrations, so that will take more time as well.
I’m a wee bit scared and this is only first grade with a preschooler!
March 30, 2011 at 9:42 pm
aylin
Participant
I’m not very seasoned, but I think you’re right in thinking that it’s too much. I think you could do spanish and recorder once or twice a week. I’d also try to cut down on some of the other areas, maybe by not planning to do everything each day. Another idea which can be nice is to focus on an area, like folks songs, and after a month or two use that time for something else.
I know it’s hard to think of cutting back when you look at Charlotte’s schedule, but she wasn’t changing diapers, etc. I also find that doing less on more days in helpful for my family, otherwise we all experience burnout! So we take off some days here and there, but usually do some “school” year round. But that’s just how things work best in my family, you may find the longer days to work great.
March 30, 2011 at 10:22 pm
Sara B.
Participant
I have an 8yo (2nd grade), 6 1/2yo (1st grade), 4yo, and an almost-2yo. One thing that I’ve found to be really, really helpful is to do our Read-Aloud with my preschooler and the older kids’ read-aloud literature book (we’re doing Charlotte’s Web right now) at quiet time. It usually takes me about 20-25 min to read her Read-Aloud picture book plus 1 chapter from Charlotte’s Web (or whatever book we’re on), then they get their 1-hour quiet time. This takes some time out of the “school” day.
Also, could your 1st grader “teach” your preschooler? My 6yo teaches my 4yo her numbers, and my 8yo teaches her the letters (though she is transitioning to reading now, so that could change). I have found it a great way to break up the school day for the older 2, take some pressure off me, have the 2 girls grow closer through the teaching, and I have them do it while I’m working one-on-one with the other, so it’s not taking extra time at all.
Composer we do during copywork, just as background music. Also, we only do Module 1 for History – we won’t do US History till we get there in the modules. Mostly for the simple reason that it’s too much, and also I think they’d get a tad confused going back and forth on the timelines. We do nature walks on the weekends, or just while playing outside. We don’t take “formal” time to do this. Some of our living science books we use as bedtime stories, others we read during the school time – but never more than 1-2 going at a time.
One other thing to consider is that CM had all the schoolwork done in the mornings before lunch, and the afternoon was free for handicrafts, playing outside, etc. We try hard to do that, and on the mornings we don’t succeed, we only have 1-2 subjects left (15-30 min. max). We do that right after quiet time at 2:30pm, and then they are free after that. On a “perfect” day LOL we get all our schoolwork done from 8:00am – 11:30am.
I hope some of this is helpful. Like aylin said, we too experience burnout if we do too much too many days of the week. Less is more sometimes. 😉
March 30, 2011 at 11:35 pm
MamaSnow
Participant
Yes, I’d agree to that that seems like too much. I am doing a CM-style Kindergarten year (with an almost 3yo who likes to “play along”) this year and just revamped our whole schedule because I realized that we were trying to do too much. One of the big things I have done is moved some things to other parts of our day – we are are still doing them, but they aren’t part of our formal sit-down school day.   The things we do at other times of the day and not part of our formal “school time” are hymns and scripture memory at the breakfast table (then we stop and do chores before we sit down for “school”), literature and reading practice after lunch before naps (includes picture books with the toddler,and then a chapter from a chapter book for dd5 after he goes down for nap), French before we get up from the dinner table (dh wanted to be involved in this b/c we might be moving to a French speaking country), and then Bible reading and another chapter from a chapter book before bed.
Our formal sit down school time is about 1-1/2 or so and looks like this right now, with approx times:
Circle Time (30-35 minutes)
1. M – Child’s Book of Character, T-F Psalm (5)
2. Poem of the Day + Review poem we are memorizing (5)
3. Calendar (includes reading a brief article from God’s World News, filling in the calendar, and filling in the 100 chart with a number of the day and building with base 10 blocks) (10-15)
4. Topic of the Day (10)
    M – History (US History read aloud)
    T – Geogrphy and Map Drill (reading about a different state each week and finding on the map)
    W – Nature living book
    Th – Geography and Map Drill (as on Tu)
    F – Alternate picture and music study each week
Table Time (25-30 minutes)
Phonics/Reading (10-15)
Math (5-10)
Copywork (5)
Snack-Break
Activity (about 30 minutes) – various things such as art/crafts, nature walk, science experiments, or whatever – sometimes we drop this if we have other things going on.
Now obviously with a first grader with more formal studies than K, your formal “sit down time” would probably be longer than our 1 to 1-1/2 hours…but 3 hours and stretching school into the afternoon does seem like it would much longer than necessary.   I suspect when we hit first grade next year, we will add the Module 1 readings as an extra thing to our circle time, and will probably be close to dropping the phonics lessons (at which point I’ll ramp up the amount of time we spend on math and copywork). I offer this as a suggestion only – sometimes seeing how others organize their schedule makes it easier to figure out how to make yours work for you. =)
HTH
Jen
March 31, 2011 at 12:04 am
MamaSnow
Participant
Oops, I meant to say that I am doing Kindergarten with my 5-1/2 year old, and also have an almost 3yo who likes to tag along – not that the 3yo is doing kindergarten!!
March 31, 2011 at 12:08 am
lgeurink
Member
I would say we do about three hours per day but some of that is for a single child (reading or math) and the other child gets a break at that time. We work mostly from 9-12 unless we have something in the morning. We do our lit book before bed, character trait Sunday nights before bed. Our reading lesson and phonics is the same thing. We also only do one history and won’t do US till we get there in the modules.
The only other thing I notice that I know would not work at our house, though might for you is your order of subjects. To have all our reading in the afternoon and all our table work in one block would send us over the edge! Here we start at the table with copywork and a few daily practice things while I set out what I need, then we go to the couch to read history/Bible/Geo mod, to the piano for hymn sing. Then my older practices piano while my younger chooses math or reading/phonics. Then we swap, younger plays, older does math while she is still fresh. Then we go back to the couch for science reading, back to the table for drawing what we learned in science. Then older kid gets a break while younger does her last subject (reading/phonics or math-whichever is left). Then older does her reading and grammer and we are done. The once a week subjects (composer, artist, poetry, Spanish) we do at some time in the afternoon if we don’t get to it before lunch, just when they are bored or in between playing.   If I asked them to do all reading related subjects together we would have anarchy or I would fall asleep! We have are whole afternoons free. This year my kids are K and 2nd. I plan on next year being basically the same with a little step up for our current K. Does that all make sense?! I know sometimes it doesn’t via writing!
I hope it all irons out for you though. I was just wondering how your year was going since I hadn’t seen a post of yours in a while! Glad to hear you are still out there and that your year went well. Oh, and I don’t mean to sound “seasoned”, we are just finishing our second year of CM!
March 31, 2011 at 1:02 am
easybrizy
Participant
OK, I’ll have to think some more on it.
March 31, 2011 at 1:03 am
easybrizy
Participant
Oh, and lgeurink…I’ve posted so few posts on here…have we met?
March 31, 2011 at 6:26 pm
sheraz
Participant
I do about 3-3 1-2 hours during the morning and one thing that I also found helpful was to make a table graph on the computer and schedule all my things in it. That is how I make sure that all the “specials” like art, music, pe, computer, etc are scheduled at least once a week. It also allows me to visualize all my subjects and know that I have it all on there.
From personal experience: =)
Don’t forget to limit the copywork to just a few short minutes so that it is not so hard on the kids that they hate it. Even as my kids get older, I have to remind myself about that.
Switch up the mental part of the activities – do copywork, reading, picture study, math, etc. in various orders to help the kids feel interested in it all – and you too.
Try to leave the afternoons for the handicrafts and just play time, Your kids are young enough to still need lots of time to play and “think” about the things you are doing.
It is a good plan to include all of those, but maybe just once or twice a week would help. (There’s my “semester schedule graph” hanging on my fridge, in addition to the printed organizer pages.) You sounded like you might be afraid that you will leave something out – or like it is hard to “unschool” youself enough to really make the jump to CM and have it “be enough”. I still have trouble with that – in fact, reading a lot of these posts about “is it enough” make me positive that we all are still trying to do that. =)
I have seen amazing things happen in my dds since I went CM. You will too! Relax and enjoy the journey!
April 1, 2011 at 2:10 am
lgeurink
Member
I remember your little picture (not a comuter gal, I know they have a name!). I think you posted right before you were starting last year.  I don’t know if I posted on threads you were posting on or started, but I read them. As far as one can tell from posts, I thought you seem cool, funny, and having young kids like I do. We must have had some common questions!
April 1, 2011 at 1:05 pm
easybrizy
Participant
Well! How’s that for a nice start to my day. 😉
It’s nice to “meet” you!
April 2, 2011 at 10:05 pm
easybrizy
Participant
OK, I’ve revamped!
Daily
Circle Time (~20 minutes)
1. Once a week do Wisdom and the Millers or Polite Moments instead of the Bible story
2. One poem per day (A Child’s Garden of Verses, Now We Are Six, and When We Were Very Young)
3. Scripture memory
4. A picture book selection for my preschooler
5. Calendar
***I took out the Ergemeier’s Bible story book because we’re already getting a lot of Bible in our history module this year, plus we do family Bible time with Daddy in the evenings. I also took out the folk song. We can just listen to a folk song CD here and there instead.
Phonics lesson and Reading (~20 minutes)
- All About Spelling for 10-15 minutes (just focusing on the parts that will help him with reading–not so much spelling) and oldest DS reading aloud for 5-10 minutes
***I took a good look at OPG and decided it wasn’t a good fit. I’m going to combine AAS with his reading time. I *think* this will work well.
Recorder and Spanish (~15 minutes)
***Instead of doing these daily, I’ll alternate them every other day–one day Spanish, one day Recorder
Table Time (~30 minutes)
1. Math-U-See for 1st grader
2. Copywork for first grader
3. All About Reading for preschooler
4. Practice forming letters and counting for preschooler
***While my older is working on math, I’ll try to help the younger one with a few fun things like letters and numbers.
History/Geography/Bible (~15 minutes)
- SCM Module 1
Literature (~15 minutes)
- Various readalouds
Various
Monday–picture study
Tuesday and some Thursdays–Science (Lessons from the Outdoor Secrets Companion)
Wednesday–Drawing (Draw Write Now)
***I’m ditching the US history for now–it’s just too much. We’ll hit it when we read books from the library for pleasure or on holidays or when we get to that module. 🙂

We’ll do composer study while listening at lunch time and our read aloud in the afternoon, bedtime or while traveling in the car. It’s not hard for us to make sure our readaloud happens. 😉
This revamping puts us just over two hours which I feel MUCH better about. Frankly, I know that with four little ones, transition times will probably be longer and things won’t always go as smoothly as I’m planning. (Yeah, like, um, NEVER!) Ha!

The order of subjects above isn’t necessarily the order we’ll do them in, either. I think it’s very wise to try to keep them using different parts of their brains to stay fresh and not get worn out.
I’m excited!
Any new thoughts are certainly appreciated.
April 2, 2011 at 10:08 pm
easybrizy
Participant
Oh, I wanted to add that when we need a light day, I think it will be easy to just do circle time, history (goodness, that’s the best part!), and maybe math and reading.
April 2, 2011 at 10:49 pm
sheraz
Participant
You sound much more relaxed and the day sounds fun and doable! =) Especially with 4 little ones under grade 1 =) I think that you will enjoy it!