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Time Spent Schooling
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Oh my goodness, we are schooling from AT LEAST 8-3 everyday and I just don’t think that seems right. We’re teaching grades K, 2nd, and 4th. We are using My Father’s World Curriculum if that makes a difference. Maybe it’s too full? What am I doing wrong? My kids want more playtime and I want that for them too. That’s part of the reason that we home school, to have more time. We are also doing 2 science programs, the one included My Father’s World and the one we need to do for our co-op. There’s nothing I can really do about that though. Help!
I am not an expert by any means but I have a suggestion. Take time to put before God everything you are doing in your homeschool. Ask Him to show you what He wants your kids to cover this year and to change your plans as He sees fit. I used to teach in public school and I do not like my homeschool to feel like school but at home. I am learning that some things I can teach in a flexible way and sometimes curriculums can feel like school at home because that is the only way the can easily package it. Maybe you can cover the same science but with nature study? Girls trip? Videos on arkive.org?
Maybe listen to some read aloud on CD or skim something? If you like the curriculum you use stick with it and listen to God to know how it is suppose to work for you. I have found in the young years simple math, copywork, and phonicsand reading instruction is all I can do while teaching multiple kids. Following multiple programs (mfw k and 1st while doing an older year guide) was too much for me. But everyone is different
My children are 5th, 3rd, 1st. I used to have similar days to yours. It changed when I quit allowing our day to be governed by a curriculum provider’s lesson plans.Now the first thing I do when planning out my year is decide how much time each child will spend on schoolwork per day (and how many days per year). I then look at all the subjects I want to cover in a week. I adjust the frequency I do each and how much time I will spend on each until all subjects fit within my time allotment. This has made me very aware of the fact that time is limited and I must choose my subjects and curriculum well. I must also be willing to say no to some outside commitments and in-home programs because I can not extend our school days past the time limit I determine is best. Too much of a good thing can be a very bad thing. (SCM’s learning and living DVD has an excellent section going over scheduling)
In my house, each child has a timer and is required to work with full attention, best effort, and a great attitude for the entire time I have scheduled for each subject. I don’t worry about how many pages are finished in a day or if I cover all of a book in a year. Sometimes I’ll assign pages and if they are done before the time is up they can move on to their next subject. However, they never have to work longer than the timer. The next day they will pick up wherever they left off.
When I first switched over to being controlled by the timer instead of the lesson plans, I was sure we would cover less material. We covered way more that year! I attribute our success to the children giving a better effort because they knew they only had a short amount of time to work at their lessons. It is amazing what full attention and best effort can accomplish!! It is also amazing how much better this Momma’s attitude became when I quit focusing on output (pages read, lessons completed) and began focusing on faithfulness. If we are faithful to put in our time, I am happy. Even if half a history lesson got done. Even if my son had to regress two lessons in math to solidify a concept. Even if my child’s best effort produced a one sentence written narration. I think this method also protects the gifted child from having too little required of them. If their abilities mean they can do twice the work during their 30 minute math slot, they should be encouraged to do it instead of quiting halfway through because that is all the curriculum provider feels is necessary.
This has worked well for us. I’m sure others will have different ideas that would work equally well.
Kayla – thanks, lots of good advice. I need to be less concerned about “finishing” a curriculum providers scheduled lessons.
Grace – We are doing Rome to the Reformation, along with MFW K.
I it was me, I would start by dropping MFW K and let the kinder tag along and listen in. Once my oldest was past kinder my younger two did not have official “kinder” year of curriculum 🙂 They had their learning to read and write and simple math (all of which takes about 20-30 minutes/day), but everything else was just part of the older kids curriculum and it has worked out great. I am amazed at what the younger ones grasp and understand as they quietly play on the floor or color, while the older ones are doing science or history.
I have a 6th, 4th and 1st grader this year. We are usually done by around noon with the majority of our school, and the afternoon allows time for the kids to play and explore things that interest them such as drawing, building cities with legos, playing outside… I agree about not becoming a “slave” to the curriculum. I actually really like SCM because each subject is its own guide/schedule, so I don’t feel that I have to complete an entire day of EVERYTHING in a guide to have a completed a successful day. I have a weekly schedule I made and every Sunday I sit down and fill it out for each of the kids (takes about 15-20 minutes). We plan our week to what works for us. Science 3 days/week, history 4 days/week, geography 1 day/week. Enrichment programs (hymn study, poetry, music…) we fit into the days that work best for us and our schedule. I read our family read aloud after dinner one day, after breakfast another day.
I tried an “all together” curriculum and it was so hard for me because what if we didn’t get to science on Tuesday as the plan told me to, now I have to do science from Tuesday but the rest of the schedule is on Wednesday and then if Wednesday something happens now I am all over the place flipping back and forth. I am a “box checker” so I had to make a schedule that fit our family and I could still check off my boxes and feel accomplished but not be pulling my hair out trying to fit our family into boxes that were not working, LOL.
You can also drop the MFW science and just do the coop science, build off that. If it is a specific subject that is not the same as what MFW is suggesting grab some library books that go along with the coop science and just do one science. Just because it is written in for MFW doesn’t mean you have to do it as written. 🙂
Sarah2106,
I really liked your post. It did remind me how in my Sonlight days the lesson plans made it difficult to progress in subjects separately since it would require me to have a million bookmarks for each subject. I wonder if the CM organizer could be a good solution for this issue. Each subject could be scheduled into the organizer. For instance, MFW science lessons 1-180 (or however many they schedule). MFW language arts lessons 1-180. Etc… then the mother could just tick off which lesson was worked on or completed and her daily plan for the following day would show her which lesson they were on for each subject. I hope that makes since. I just think there surely is a way to use the lesson plans while not being bound to them (and not getting confused about what lesson is scheduled next)
We schedule by time spent on each subject instead of work to be accomplished. I have scheduled this way for kindergarten through 12th grade, increasing the time as the child matures.
I would definitely choose which science is most important to you and toss the lowest on the totem poll. Two sciences is just too much.
Always remember that curriculum is your tool and not your master and that you are teaching the child, not the curriculum.
Here’s a great post about a Charlotte Mason style schedule:
https://afterthoughtsblog.net/2014/06/secrets-from-charlotte-mason-on.html
This is part of the reason we stopped using MFW, I always ended up on week 18 in science, week 24 in history, week 26 in Bible. It drove me nuts. I can tell you how I made it work the last year I used it, maybe it will help…or not. For one I feel it is waaaayy to much to cover in one year, we never spent any time with any person or time period so I slowed waaayyy down. Forget doing it in a year, take your time and enjoy it, it really is a rich program, it just goes too fast in my opinion.
Pick lots of living books from their lists or other lists. Read the books recommended by the SCM guides. I know this sounds like adding more but it wont be.
Pick a daily Bible reading to add to MFW. I know adding more here, but it works out to be less. Since it took longer to get through a day I wanted to be sure to read the Bible daily even when there was nothing scheduled.
We took it day by day. It sometimes took 2 or 3 days to get through a MFW day but it was good.
It would look something like this:
Monday, start at the beginning of Monday, do Bible, read only one “spine”, do your lang arts and Math, maybe get to science or art or something else on Mondays list. Read your living book aloud.
Tuesday, you already did MFW Bible so read a passage somewhere else. Psalms or Proverbs work well for this, or OT since MFW is focused on NT. Read another spine if scheduled, or do the worksheets, finish science, art or whatever. Read aloud, lang arts and math.
Wednesday, finish Monday or move on to Tuesday.
I was still able to check off all the boxes, I just had to ignore the days of the week. We had a much more enjoyable year and retained so much more.
MFW is written in such a way that “years” flow so nicely that you could finish Rome mid year and just move into American seamlessly.
Good luck.
That is a really long day for that age. Is it all sit down? Are you taking breaks that are pushing the time longer? Are all the kids doing the same program or are you trying to do several individual programs?
I’m homeschooling 7 official students this year (11th grader down to K) with 2 preschoolers below that. We’re done easily by noon daily, other than the 11th grader, who sometimes has an hour in the afternoon too, depending on the day.
Here are my thoughts: Write down everything you are trying to fit in a day/week. Now decide what is reasonable. For example, I think doing math daily is reasonable, (20-30 minutes at most at those ages). I don’t think science, copywork, history, art, music, etc need to be done daily at those ages. Starting picking and choosing what pieces of MFW you can drop or become ok with doing it over more than one year.
It’s hard when you pay money for a full curriculum like that to let go of things, I know. BUT sanity is worth it.
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