New Schedule Format for Rising 3rd Graders – I'd love input

Unfortunately I don’t have any great input on the schedule bc I’m not great at getting it all done either, & while I actually love structure, I’m dealing with a lot of things at this time in my life that keep me from following one as well as I’d like. With that said, I’m wondering why you need to do separate lessons for your boys…are they at very different levels with math & reading? If not, I’d combine them. My 8yo reads well so I don’t do reading lessons just have her read independently & aloud (not aloud every day) sometimes with me reading a section then having her read it too for fluency practice. However, it dawned on me recently that I’m a good reader in terms of reading with expression & the things that make it interesting to the listener yet only recall “learning” this indirectly and likely from my mom who read to me the same way. In realizing this, I saw that I stress myself out trying to directly teach things (even some things like character & chores) even that is much less necessary than we often think (the realization was largely brought about from a book I’ve been reading “Hold Onto Your Kids”). Ok, so if those thoughts aren’t applicable to your situation…have you gotten on track with just the basics? If not, put this plan on hold & just get all of you used to completing the basics of education at this age & maybe ensuring they have plenty of time to explore outside & are read to aloud from good books that cover other subjects. Just really simplify things like poetry, music & art study to reading living books… you may choose to let them draw or tell about these or just read to them & show pictures or have music on in background. Doing this at bedtime or mealtime usually has worked for us. I don’t see anything wrong with your plan, but I’m not the best to evaluate that since I’ve yet to be able to carry out a full CM approach. What I’ve found is I have this thing I call “Pinterest Syndrome” lol…I think there’s a “perfect” plan, idea, recipe, etc that will make life fall into place. I’ve wasted soooo many hours looking for that perfection instead of just acting on a plan, accepting that not everything will work & that I’m not screwing up my kids (or insert any area of life) by not successfully implementing that “perfect” plan & actually do damage by pursuing perfection. I know this may not all apply to you but were just my thoughts as I read your post. HTH 🙂

My 8yo’s schedule looks like this (she’ll be starting AO Year 2 on 7/7):

Family ~ About 90 min each morning … we call this our morning liturgy. This is our cornerstone and if this is all we accomplish in a given day, I feel like we did well, though we typically do get through the rest of our lessons after much habit training, of ME especially. 🙂

Bible & Memory (SCM Pack 4)

M/Th: Old Testament (TQ Beginnings)

Tu: Stories from the Life of Christ

W/F: The Virtuous Woman & Ruby Doll (Doorposts)

Singing:

M/W/F: hymn

Tu/Th: folk song

Lovelies:

M: picture or composer study (we do 6 weeks of each)

Tu: Shakespeare or Plutarch teatime & Nature Study

W: Holling geography

Th: Handicrafts & Habits

F: Book of Centuries

Read aloud:

M/W/F: Good books literature

Tu: Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales

Th: Fables & Tales

Her individual daily work:

Miquon & Fred maths

Italics cursive

Getting Started with Latin

Poetry (one poem per day from her term poet)

(1) AO reading per day

60 min quiet time daily, at least 30 of which must be free reading

Her lessons are short, intentional, and there is a consequence for dwadling and she knows the reward of free afternoons is rich and happy. My other kids are 10, 6, and 5.

artcmomto3 – I agree that it would be unworkable to focus on skill based subjects like learning to read, learning to write, and learning math only part of a school year. These need regular, consistent practice to master. However after 10 years of homeschooling I’ve seen in my own family that content based subjects can be learned this way.  Content based subjects can often be learned out of order without difficulty.  For example you don’t “have” to study cats before space, or Thomas Edison after George Washinton.

Think about it this way, the child spends a few months forming personal relationships to people/places/things in science or history. Perhaps they meet Queen Elizabeth of England and William Shakespeare in their August readings. Those relationships don’t just disappear because they do not have continual studies on Queen Elizabeth every month or every year.  The relationship is formed and can be built on later.

In the CM study rotation a child allows YEARS between their study of a time period.  Do they suddenly lose all the relationships they formed and have to begin at the very beginning when they come back to that time period four or six years later?  Of course not. 

The same could be said of artist studies, composer studies, or many of the content based studies.  After a 5 minute picture study or 6 weeks of studying once a week the same artist’s work will you still recognize those 6 pictures if you see them on a wall at a museum a few months or years later?  More than likely.