Wednesday, September 24, 2008

A Schedule That Works

We have finally found a schedule that works for us. We kind of fell into it and have been loosely following it for a couple of weeks now and I just made the last little change that will make it work better for me. The new schedule seems to be allowing us to get nearly all of our school work done; I have to tweak it a tiny bit to fit in a few extras we've been skipping. In addition, that last little change I began Friday is giving me the time I need to get errands and a little cleaning done. I'm finally at the point where I feel like we have something that works.

Here's what we're doing. It's definitely not the traditional 9am to 3pm school schedule.

Before 8am: If you wake up early, this is free time.

8:00am - 9:00am: Morning Chore time. Everyone works on their morning chores independently. When they are done (it takes about 15 minutes unless we have laundry to fold), they have free time after.

9:00am - 9:50am: Eat breakfast and then get ready to leave. Sammy gets his taekwondo uniform on and Mika is responsible for packing the diaper bag.

9:50am - 12:30pm: Take Sammy to taekwondo. While he's at taekwondo, I run errands with Mika and Josh. Mondays, I do my Albertsons shopping. Tuesdays, I do my Safeway shopping. Other days I'll do errands at other stores, the bank, or run to the library as needed. After errands or on days I have no errands, I use this time to wash breakfast dishes, do laundry, do other housework, or do paperwork. Mika uses the time at home to do her writing curriculum once or twice a week. When not doing her writing curriculum, she can do independent reading or creative writing.

12:30pm - 1:00pm: Sammy changes out of his taekwondo uniform and then all the kids get free time until lunch is ready.

1:00pm - 1:30pm: Lunch time.

1:30pm - 3:00pm: School time. This time period is used to do spelling, phonics, grammar, vocabulary, poetry, penmanship, math, mindbenders, play Timez Attack, and typing. Not all of it fits into this time slot so I need to work out a schedule for what subjects we'll cover on what days. Then I'll make a weekly checklist for the kids so they know what to do.

3:00pm - 3:30pm: PE/Active play time. Right now, while the weather is still nice enough, the big kids go outside to ride bikes. I supervise this play time so that Josh can be outside too.

3:30pm - 4:30pm: History. We work on our history work together. We ready out of Story of the World, do the map work, color the coloring page, work on projects, and read library books to supplement the text.

4:30pm - 6:30pm: This time slot is when I cook dinner, we eat, and then (hopefully) do the dishes. While I cook dinner, the kids have free time to play. Occasionally, I'll have Mika help cook dinner since she is learning kitchen skills this year. After dinner, Sammy and Mika have some simple chores to do.

6:30pm - 7:00pm: We've been trying to walk around the block together after dinner. Sammy and Mika ride their bikes and Josh gets a free ride on his buggy.

7:00pm - 8:00pm: The kids and I do their science together. We read from the text, do notebooking pages, complete experiments, and read library books to supplement the text. Sometimes we'll do history projects or art projects during this time instead.

8:00pm - 9:00pm: Free time. Usually we watch TV. The kids can play or finish their computer time, if they have any left.

9:00pm - 9:30pm: Read aloud time. I try to choose classics or literature that goes with what what we are learning about. We are working our way through Where the Red Fern Grows right now and will be reading BFG next. After reading, it's bedtime.

We fit each kid's bath time wherever we can. If there's something scheduled outside the house, we just skip everything during that time. If we skipped something that I really don't want to get behind on, I'll replace something less important with it. For example, if we miss history I'd most likely do that instead of science in the evenings because that subject has more to cover than our science.

This has been working pretty well for us. It's good to have it figured out.

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2 Comments:

Suswan said...

Hooooo! That's still a WOW schedule, but I'm glad to hear you've got it working for you now. :-)

This schedule tells me that you and the kids are working VERY hard. Too bad you don't get paid for that, ey? :-)

Anonymous said...

Working on my schedule as well. And trying to start for the next school year. I'm glad I read your post. I may change things a bit.

Take care,
Amy
www.crumbsonmyfloor.com