The Flow of Subjects

Another thing I had to keep in mind in planning my day is what is the hardest for ME to get to? I feel that the foundation of our homeschooling where the most discipling is accomplished is during our read alouds where we can discuss things and narrate back and forth. I always saved this for the last on the list, but then I’d find alot to do and it would get left out. So, I had to plan our day in a way that would ensure that we would not skip this. I also had to be okay with interrupting their independent work so that I could do read alouds during the day. Of course I’m flexible with this, but here’s our day in a little more detail:

On an ideal day (notice the word ideal), we start with Bible, hymns, and prayer, then I homeschool my little one (just read to her) while the other all work at the table on language arts, math, copywork. They all have to share the laptop for math so they can’t all do it at the same time. Then I interrupt them between 10am-11am for some poetry and history read aloud. (Little one does an educational video or starfall.com). Then I leave them to finish their schoolwork while little one and I fix lunch. After lunch we brew up a pot of tea and we do our last read aloud (on a different subject each day).

I try to finish all schoolwork by 2pm (with natural breaks in between as each one finishes their schoolwork), so that we can have some quiet time and then free time for the rest of the afternoon. This has helped alot with the glazed eyes and info overload. I was doing all of my reading in one big chunk and found that it was too much. So, I split up the reading times and it seems to have helped alot.

I’ve had to really trim back what I was requiring and doing each day so that the children could have the afternoons off like Charlotte Mason recommended. During their free time it is amazing how they often choose to do some research on a subject we touched on, draw, work on a puzzle, and just process all that information they’ve had come in during the day. They are much more willing to work diligently when they know they will have free time later.

We save art, nature study, composer/art study for Fridays in place of all the other schoolwork. This also has rejuvenated our schooling week, especially for me. It’s a nice break.

Hope this helps.

What I’ve been doing this year with good success is not only varying the flow of subjects during the individual day, but varying the flow within the week. We have busy days with out-of-home commitments every other day with stay-at-home days in between. On the days with afternoon activities, we finish up our daily essentials in the morning, but on the days when we stay home, we spread the subjects out with plenty of free time throughout the day. I do a couple of subjects, take a break, do some more studies, do some housework, do the weekly subjects like composer study, alternate one-on-one time with the kids, etc.

I’ve seen improvement in school discipline from all of us (including me!) with the ebb and flow of our daily commitments during the week.

I also like to do some subjects during lunch – Bible reading, poetry, a nature reading, and art study.