(This is the ninth post in a series of planning post, and the eighth post on planning for our homeschool.)

It was an interesting experiment.  At first it was a work out just trying to change trains at the times, I had set aside.  The first week, we only got about half of the things done to completion.  And I will say that our school schedule and afternoon schedule for the most part happened.  The evenings were fairly close, but the mornings were never truly realized.  After that initial period though, what I found was that Britt and Ruth had better attention, by limiting the time we spent on a given subject.  I also found that after a few times of finishing our day, only to have Britt have to pull back out the math he hadn't finished while everyone else was free to go play, I didn't have near the resistance to working that he did before.  Now, this didn't solve our focus problems entirely.  In the past I was in the habit of teaching a lesson, and getting them started then leaving them to do it while I cleaned house, or paid bills, or prepped meals, or whatever.  This year, at another suggestion from the neuropsychologist, I just told Gary that 10-3:30, I was teaching, and that I really just couldn't do anything else during that time. Britt isn't ready for that level of independent work yet, and I need to sit next to him to constantly redirect him.


This left me with a need to not only schedule our school day, but to work in time set aside to chores.  I've long divided up a list of chores with the kids and expected them to do some in the morning and some in the afternoon.  But in order to actually get things done around the house, if I was going to have to devote that much of the day to sitting with the kids while they worked, I needed to really map out things.  After running pretty close to schedule before Christmas during our first term, and comparing it to not running on a schedule second and third term, I am again sitting down to work out a schedule.  It's a tool that I foresee us using for the foreseeable future, at least until they can truly embrace working independently.


If you too are interested in giving a daily schedule a try, I'll share my process with you.  The first key is to look at your goals you made and to really prioritize them.  For me, reading is a goal that is right there at the top, and with Britt's dyslexia it's going to take a significant investment of time and effort.  However, with the ADHD we want to break it up in to manageable chunks and work the skill, every single solitary day.  So it ranks pretty high on my priority list.  In contrast there is Nature Walks.  I really admire the Charlotte Mason approach to homeschooling, and I have thought for a while now, that even if no one else does that I would benefit from us getting out and walking a little each morning.  I've felt guilty that we didn't do more of that kind of thing in our homeschool day.  We tried it some this year.  I'm going to be honest.  It was about as enjoyable as a trip to the dentist office.  We can't move at any speed, due to the littles, so really it's no benefit to me in that regard.  If I use the stroller going off road is more work.  One kid is yelling wondering what kind of animals we might see.  (Answer, none, because you are yelling.)  Another kid is complaining because she has sand in her sandals, but she refuses to wear tennis shoes.  And they spend plenty of their free time exploring outside anyway.  So, the priority is so low on my list that it's not even on the schedule for this year.  Let me provide one last example on this topic.  Read alouds, this has been high on my priority list even before I began homeschooling.  But we were always so sporadic with it.  We'd read before bedtime for a while, then I would just be exhausted and still have a list of things to do.  Or we'd read in the car, and that works when the hubby is along to drive, but not if I'm the one making the long car drives.  I felt like it was really important to continue with, but I was having trouble setting aside time when other other necessary things were pressing. I had to get creative, but it dawned on me one day, that I eat  lunch in about 15 minutes while they easily take 45 minutes.  The answer had been staring me in the face for a while.  I could read aloud at the table, after I finished eating, while they were still eating.  You need a priority list, and you shouldn't feel guilty for what is on it, or not, and where you rank things.  And your priorities will change at different seasons in your life.

Last Year's Schedule (side 1)

Next, you need to make note of what things can be done mostly independently and what things you will need to walk them through.  This is important.  I will use the example of reading aloud.  Each child needs to spend about 30 minutes a day reading aloud.  I obviously cannot listen to all three of them at the same time, and be able to follow a story, correct mistakes, remind them of phonics rules when they are having trouble with a word, or ask questions to gauge their reading comprehension.  This proved the most challenging in looking at this year's schedule.  If you have a baby in the house, or several that aren't doing any kind of schooling, you may need to work to figure out how to entertain them.  I've lucked out in that Kate is pretty happy to entertain herself in the living room, or crawl around the dining room table trailing me as I teach.

Last Year's Schedule (side 2)

One of the often cited benefits of a schedule, is that the kids learn it, and eventually stop asking what is next because they learn to anticipate and expect things.  Last year every day of the week varied so widely that I worked up 6 separate schedules, that was really difficult.  Even when the mornings for all of them are the same (get up, make up your bed, pick up your room, get dressed, go and eat, brush teeth), there is the attempt every day to do none of those things, and instead get on the wii or play with Barbies.  I don't know if they will ever get to the point where they will check the schedule for themselves and continue on to the next thing, instead of attempting to sneak off to play.  We are going to try a different tact to manage that this year, but I'll talk about it in a later post.

This coming school year's schedule.

This year in an attempt to streamline things, I have 3 schedules: our typical school day, this is a day where we don't go anywhere and we cover everything; a modified schedule, this is a day where we cover just the essentials and expect to be in town all afternoon; then a schedule for a Saturday where Daddy is home.  When I try to do a typical schedule I'm planning to cover everything.  Now, I know in a given week, that we are going to do math every day, but our science curriculum doesn't have 5 days worth of material.  So even though it's on the schedule, there will be days that we don't do science.  We might stretch our read aloud time out longer, or do something fun like bake.  But I want that on the schedule to be sure we allow time for it.  However, I know there are going to be days that we are going to leave the house.  We will have Ruth's speech some afternoons, there will be our homeschool book club other afternoons, and our afternoon PE classes.  We will have a day every couple of weeks that we go to the library, and I'll try to schedule doctors appointments after lunch.  On those days, I want to still do some of our school.  So, I further prioritize our list.  Everyday I want to be sure we do a page of math and have them read aloud to me.  I also want to be sure that we work on our memory verse each day.  So for our modified schedule I have all of that down to do before we eat lunch and head to town.  There may be days that we have morning field trips, but that's less common and in that case I can always reverse my morning and afternoon schedule, or just pick up the schedule in the afternoon when I get home.  I have several options.  The final schedule is labelled Saturday, but it's really in mind that Gary is home.  In the summer he's home on Fridays as well as Saturdays.  In the fall when he is in his busy season, he's at work on Saturday so we will treat it like another school day.  The truth is that the schedule completely falls apart when he's home.  He wants to relax, and I want to lay around and do nothing with him.  BUT, there are still some things that need to get done.  So the schedule is just bare bones, with the exception, that in the afternoon they all have a time to read with him.  This lets him be a part of their schooling, it lets them have a chance to show him what they are learning, and it gives me a break.


Another plus, to doing this, is that I use to get so wore out trying to get everything done, and was aggravated when Gary didn't pitch in when he was home.  He has told me, if I will ask he'll help most of the time.  But I hate to ask.  This way we can talk about, what he's willing to do, and still have a chance to unwind at the end of the night.  We find a reasonable middle ground, since I need help in the evenings, but unlike him I get to sleep longer in the mornings.  It also helps me to be able to allot my major task each week, so that for example I don't forget to balance the checkbook and end up having to pay a fee when they transfer money for me.  The months we've used this schedule this school year, things have been less crazy.


You may be like me and build a beautiful perfect schedule, only to immediately need to throw it in the garbage and try again.  I frequently discover that things will take twice as long as I planned, or I forgot to put something on our list, or that we hate how this is working.  I always let Gary check it out for me before I start using it, to see if he catches any of those things for me.  Occasionally he tells me that something or another won't work.  And to change something.  Then, I put the thing everywhere.  It's in my school planner, it's in my personal planner, it's tacked up on the command center, for everyone to see.  It will go in each of the kids planners this year.  Because it doesn't do any good to work out a schedule only to never look at it again.