Overwhelmed by Scheduling!

I like to schedule just one subject at a time.  After my DC are asleep, I’ll work on one subject and call it quits.  History and science take me a few nights each, but most subjects can be finished in a night.  I didn’t spend more than an hour each night.   

I would also make sure I didn’t have too many subjects or subjects that overlap too much.  It can be easy to overdo it with all the great resources out there!  Last year we did about 5-6 individual subjects a day (plus about 7 family subjects).  These are with the short lessons (5-20 minutes).  One day might have copywork, math, piano, typing, narration, and grammar.  I’d schedule a slightly different list for the next day (math, narration, and piano would be repeated each day).  I set up family subjects in a similar way so we have a nice variety.  I’ll be doing a similar schedule this year.

Yeah, I hear you! I had to cut out several things this year that I had wanted to do. We’ll have to save Pagoo for another time as well as the Prairie Primer. While I was kind of bummed about having to lose those, when I looked at what we are actually doing, I got invigorated for a great year all over again…

So, once you set aside some things for next quarter or next year, you’ll feel recharged with what you keep. At least that’s what I hope for you! 🙂

So, when you schedule – do you actually plan out a subject for the whole year? i.e. “Monday lesson 1; Tuesday experiment; Wednesday Lesson 2;, etc.??

The most time consuming of my school planning is trying to come up with a “schedule”.  I don’t actually schedule becasue I refuse to write down times.  But I like to have an order to our day.  What we do first, second, etc.  And what oldest daughter is doing while I’m working with 2nd, 3rd, or 4th daughter.  

For our subjects, I generally just “do the next thing”.  My adding in of resources I scribble in the margins.  Or decide on a whim.

But then every weekend I plan for the next week.  And that’s when I dig out ALL the books and put in my excel spreadsheet what we’re doing.  History, lesson 5; Science, lesson 3; etc.  Of course, I got all OCD and put the days across the top and color-coded my girls so that I know the purple spots are for the oldest daughter, etc.

And I need to re-vamp my spreadsheet because it’s not near as nice to fill in every week as my old chart was.  But, my old chart wasn’t in the order of our day.  And that bugged me.

I think I need to find a new hobby!!! School planning and scheduling are getting annoying *L*  And I still love it.  Maybe when I’m done homeschooling my girls I’ll go for my administrator’s certificate and find a school district to annoy! *L*

I should add that every year I look longingly at the MFW curriculum.  What would it be like if it was already done for me??? I would so love that….maybe not! What would I do when I did today’s history and yesterday’s science and totally skipped math??? with me making my own Teacher’s Guide thing-y, I can re-do it every week so that at least it starts out all clean and looking like I know what I’m doing!!

Ah, well.  Such is life.

I plan my full year at a time using the SCM Planning Book as my tool. I plan weekly/daily lessons as warranted, but don’t schedule in time blocks. We have a routine that moves us through our day and we simply do the next lesson when we come to it.

I do type in all my lessons ahead of time.  Some because I like it to “look nice”.  I know….crazy.   Some because I need to see what’s coming up.  Sometimes I will mess up the routine or do more work in one subject and I like to see just exactly what I’m messing up!  Anyway, I feel like if I can see what’s next, I can wiggle things around a bit.

I feel like I just can’t keep everything that there is to do in my head! Plus, we’re farmers, so my husband is sometimes in and out of the house – or wanting a meal NOW – or wanting me to bring him a meal to the field or whatever, so our daily routine can get lots of interruptions.

As for my typing things – really, I LOVE The look of a nicely filled piece of paper.  And I don’t mind me scribbling on it and drawing arrows here and there.  But I also love knowing that come Sat. night, my paper will be clean and beautiful to look at! *L* 

Math and sometimes other subjects are easy to fill in my “planner” – just type in the next number.  But I’ve found that with my oldest daughter, it helps keep her accountable if I say “Lesson 5” is next – as opposed to “do the next math lesson”.  

And for science and history, I like being able to see at a glance that this week we’re doing Louis Pasteur.  Sometimes I push things like that off a week, til my library books come in; or I remember that we have a neat book and I just want to stay at Pasteur and read another book or two.

One other thing (in addition to using a spreadsheet in Excel, instead of a table in Word) that I’m doing differently this year, is that I’ve planned us to do a rotation of 5 days.  So, Day A is American History & Nature Study. Day B is Science and Am. History. Day C is Geography and Artist study.  Day D is Science and World History.  Day E is Composer study and World History.  So, the other subjects aren’t impacted by what “day” it is.  Everyday, we do math, LA, handwriting, etc.  That way, when we miss a day, the next day we do school is whatever day in the rotation – so we’re not missing any history or science.  Also, we can do a half day – everything but history/science/artist/composer/nature study and then the next day we do those things, it’ll be whatever day in the rotation it should be.  OR if we do the history stuff and not the math/LA/etc. stuff, we move forward in the daily rotation.  Does that make sense? It makes so much sense in my head.  Finding a way to put it on paper and work with it daily is my challenge!

In regards to scheduling, it really helps if you get the things you feel are ‘essentials’ out of the way first in the morning. For us, that means that Bible, memory work and ‘desk work’ (math, language arts) are all done in the morning hours. This sets up a good routine for your day and helps the kids know what they are to do and when.

On the days when our afternoons go haywire with other plans, I know that they have already got the basics under their belt. So, if we are a chapter behind in history or literature I don’t worry too much about it…we catch up.

Also, I just wanted to point out that once your kids are reading well independently, you do not have to (and Charlotte actually recommended NOT to) read everything aloud. Assign the extra resources as independent study and let them learn how to get their education for themselves :).