planning a light year

Under basics/essentials I would put learning to read, learning to form letters or write (so copywork for younger and written narration 1-2 times a week for older), and math.  That with life skills and character training, and lots of good books to enjoy, would be the ideal light year.  (And I would remember the value in picture books and audio books, not just chapter books!)

I would make sure to keep up with skill subjects (phonics, reading/writing, math).  Some sort of Bible time is important, even if it’s just a daily devotion or Bible story.  For chores/life skills, I try to get them started in what impacts me the most.  Here it’s dishes & laundry.  Having them help in just those two areas makes a big difference.  Daily picking up and sweeping/vacuuming (1-2 times per week) are important as well.  Cooking and basic cleaning skills would be next on my list.

My school formula for busy times has been:

Daily: LA, math, Bible/Bible memory, music lessons (if applicable).  For LA, I’d work on copywork/handwriting, having them read aloud or lean their letters, and maybe some dictation and/or grammar for the oldest.  Not all your LA areas need to be covered daily.  We do copywork 2-3 times per week, dictation 2x, and grammar 3x.  My 6yo does daily phonics, but my 3rd grader works on it twice a week.

Alternating days: science, history (or history 3 days, science the other two)

Extras: Pick 5 things (one for each day) and rotate them.  I might rotate picture study, composer study, nature notebook, poetry, and hymn study.  These can be completed in just 5-10 minutes each day, yet really enrich their studies.  We often listen to our composer while cleaning or folding laundry so it doesn’t add any time to our day.  You could fit a character training book (like LDTR for Children in this rotation).

Read Aloud:  I would try to fit a chapter of a book in at least 3 times per week.  In regular school times, we often read 3 or more chapters per day (of different books).

I like using Queens Language Lessons for a light year.  There is a mix of copywork, grammar, letter writing, poetry, and picture study.  There is some conservative Christian focus to it too, sometimes Scripture.

I like to prioritize our school subjects as 3 different categories.

1.  the essential skills:  this would be reading, math, writing/ narration/ copywork, spelling.  These are the things that need to be done every day.  This is what I would focus on in a light year (or light week as those come up every year). This is roughly 2.5- 3 hour worth of work for my kids who are 3rd, 6th and 9th grade.  With the ages of your kids, I would think this would be more like 1.5 to 2 hours.

2. outside class work:  this is homework for classes my kids.  In our case Spanish, Art, History, Science and one of my kids has an outside the home composition class.  In the case of a light year I would eliminate this category all together- especially with the ages you have. In our case it’s about 1 or 2 hours a day

3.  family studies:  Some people call it morning time.  This is our literature read aloud/ review (time line, big picture science concepts)/ recite (we are memorizing some speeches this year) time.  I also pick one topic to focus on for that week.  I might be a history week, a science week, a logic/ rhetoric week, an artist study week, a Shakespeare or Dickens week (we read abridged versions). I choose to scheduled this a week at a time rather then a day at a time because I find it less overwhelming then trying to fit in all the subjects in a week.  And then if this gets dropped for one day I don’t feel so behind. Also, I limit this to an hour (by the timer) so it doesn’t bleed into the rest of the day.

by prioritizing like this I know what to drop when a day gets busy. Obviously your priorities will be different, but it might be helpful to know what is most important.

Thanks LindseyS for the idea of a focus week for the extras.  I have been struggling to fit them in even though they don’t take long each day.  But it is too much for me right now to have all the extras planned and figure out which one we should be doing that day, and what if we miss it one day.  I will start next week.  I am excited again about adding in these extras.  Thanks!

And I make use of bedtime for reading some poetry using the Ambleside Poetry kindle books and reading a chapter in literature or read a picture book.  Or I play an audio book then if I am limited on time that night.  I include these titles as school.