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Needing input on our schedule
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My child is 7 years old. It was a rough school year, so we are now on summer break. Last school year, our subjects were math, reading, phonics, some handwriting, and read alouds.
We have decided to add in a few more subjects, but I dont know how often they really need to be done or if I overscheduled. Any advice/input would be greatly appreciated. This is my oldest child, so I am still figuring all this out.
The subjects for the new school year will be math, reading, phonics, handwriting, some grammar, history, foreign language, science/nature study, art, and of course read alouds. We have had 4 day weeks, but I feel like with all these subjects we need to increase it to 5 day weeks (unfortunately). The proposed schedule is below.
Mon & Wed: math, reading, phonics, spelling, foreign language, read alouds
Tue & Thurs: math, reading, handwriting & grammar, history, read aloud
Fri: science/nature, art, foreign language, read aloud
I dont know any other way to schedule all this or if this is too much or not, so I need advice. I know all families are different, but I’d need input from others. I honestly already feel overwhelmed, and we havent even started yet.
I have been only homeschooling for a few years. My oldest is 8 going into 3rd grade. I have 3 littler ones. Here are my thoughts.
If stressed drop foreigh language and grammar. He can pick up both later just fine and the stress of striving now is probably not worth it. We are mothers first of all and our relationship with our kids is far more important than weather they ever learn Spanish or latin. Their eternal soals are worth far more. Focus on faith, relationships, amd habits first!
Also drop spelling unless its part of phonics till 2nd grade.
Here is an idea schedule with idea times. Sometimes a timer during school is useful. When it dings save rest till tomorrow:
Morning time 4 days per week snughled on couch(35-45 min total): Bible(or other religion), read aloud, alternate history and nature lore on a loop.
Mon, Tues, Wed, Th am (1 hour or 2 1/2 hour blocks): math(20 min), phonics(15 min), spelling(15 min), handwriting(10min)
1 afternoon a week or Friday am nature study
Another afternoon a week or perhaps 2 art
4X a week in the afternoon reading (15 min) perhaps in kitchen while you prep dinner or while your feeding a baby or knitting ect
I would drop grammar, phonics, and spelling. If you’re using good literature quotes for handwriting/copywork in those early years, that exposure is enough. We just started formal grammar study this year and my boy will be 10 in a few months.
Don’t go too heavy on the science. Again, at that age it’s mostly about exposure. Drop the textbook and worksheets and go in the backyard and watch birds build a nest and then care for the chicks. Find some worms or caterpillars and watch them work. Start a little container garden, a compost pile, an ant farm, or make a part of your yard a butterfl-friendly area by planting milkweed. You can order caterpillars and watch them go through metamorphosis in your house then release them. 🙂
It looks good to me. You scheduled skilled subjects daily (reading, writing, math) and content subjects are less often. What are you using for foreign language? The early years are a good time to expose them to the sounds of a new language. You can use music and/or videos. We have included them informally, as a fun introduction, until Jr high or high school.
First, I’d like to say thank you all for your quick responses! I want my child to enjoy school as much as possible, so I’m really not trying to overschedule. I’m going to change up the schedule a bit and start doing morning time with the loop subjects. We will keep phonics because it is just explode the code, and my daughter loves it.
We have done Handwriting without tears, but this year I was planning on getting her to do copywork instead. Would starting out with 1 sentence be enough, and how often is copywork necessary? I will drop off a separate grammar and spelling. My child is doing pretty good with figuring out how to spell without us doing a formal spelling, so I’ll just trust that copywork will have this part covered and see how it goes.
For science, we were mostly going to look at books, observe nature, watch educational videos, go to the zoo, ect. We dont have any textbooks or anything for it.
For history, I was going to use Beautiful Feet Books if the teacher’s guide can be secularized. I was also going to get some DVDs about the books that we will be reading (like Pocahontas, liberty kids, ect).
Foreign language is going to be dinolingo. I ordered the deluxe pack from Amazon for Italian. This will be mostly DVDs so the kids can hear it. I read that hearing the language at an early age will help with pronunciation. I’d like to keep foreign language, so should I put it in the morning basket on a loop or does it need to be done a certain amount of days per week?
Just to add, I’m also getting a few educational board games that go with our subjects.
How often….? You will likely get various answers. I can only share what worked for us. We used ETC and copywork daily. You will see that ETC is easily divided to get through a lesson in four days. On the fifth day, you can have a short spelling test using the words from the last page of the lesson. This is not CM, but it can help the student learn to look closely at their words to remember how they are spelled. You can do this with letter cards or tiles, or written or oral.
I think foreign language is supposed to be daily. But 3-4 days per week is what we spend on it.
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