Scheduling

Make a plan, but hold it loosely. Try not to worry about books spilling over terms or even years. Charlotte’s students had books spread over years. It’s so much better to live with the material and stop when the timer beeps than to plow through just to check off the box. It really is ok. If you’re diligently working each day, little bits will add up. Trust the process.

This is easier said than done, but it’s so true!

Similar to Janell, I use time as the determiner on a daily basis.  When we’ve had an extended break, it takes a bit to build up to a max per day for reading.  We use chunks of time and don’t fret if we don’t get as much done as I originally planned.  Unless one of the kids, or our family read alouds begins to get way off target, I just pick up speed on days that have more room.  Hope that makes sense. 

For some books, I’ve divided pages over a term.  Others over a week.  It just depends on the books purpose….inidividual assignment, family read aloud, and I also try to keep the reader’s ability in mind, too.  Strugglers take longer, but need practice anyway.  That means I assign fewer titles, but require a certain amount of minutes per day instead of a set number of pages. 

A set time just tends to help us get more completed over each term/year than a set number of pages/titles.  Knowing that a brain change is coming within so many minutes seems to help my kids stay focussed on each of their assignments.  That said, we do linger on some subjects longer from time to time and just let our day go long, or skip that particular subject the following time it is scheduled to make up for any lost time in another area.

Our schedule looks quite the same from day to day during the early morning hours.  This allows me to cover a varied together time and still have ample time for the most important subjects that are studied individually.  Then, later morning/afternoon have enough time for the important activities that don’t require as much structure and teaching.  So, Bible, reading instruction/practice/assigned reading, and math are done before our family and other assigned lessons.

I’m hoping this makes sense.  I do have our terms fairly planned out for each of the children for the upcoming year.  I need to tweak one or two areas and then proclick them.  Their binders are organized by subject, then time.  My binder keeps me on track with the daily flow of our studies, so it is organized by time, then subject.  I’m not sure if that makes total sense, but it works for me.  Either way, I think I’ve only set specific page numbers for math and hope to gauge a good pace for read alouds and then adjust the booklist plans to add/delete titles after the first few weeks.  The rest of the subjects have a set time, with the expectation that completion to the best of their abilities is the goal.  This may mean more/fewer pages are completed depending on the reading level of each book for each child.  So, I really just keep that in mind. 

Christie shared some nice character reports a while back.  I’m tweaking them for our needs.  Because of the history curriclum we’ve chosen for this year, a character report will be completed at the end of each month.  One goal for these reports is to make note of progress in areas of diligence, neatness, best effort, etc.  This will mean that once our rhythm is going with our routine/schedule, more can be accomplished on an individual basis.  I was really impressed with the idea of having the children evaluate their own character, not just me.  I think this gives them the opportunity to honestly determine any need for improvement and then be able to see progress over a month/term/year.  Narration (a form of exam at our house) and written evaluation will be done each month.  During our report meeting, we will be able to discuss whether, or not the times need to be adjusted for more/less time per subject. 

I’m not sure this helps you, but thought I’d throw the ideas out there for consideration.  A real eye opener for me was the time given for a handwriting/copywork assignment during the Living and Learning seminar.  The idea of less being more and more being less really made an impression on me.  So, I’m seeing that in certain areas, we needed less time for assignments to be done at “best effort level.”  Others needed more time for lingering and pondering.

Blessings on your planning!