Making A Schedule

When we started homeschooling, I didn't really have a schedule we followed.  We worked, we played, we lived.  If something interesting came up, I (more than once) chose fun over school.

That could only work for so long...if it even was working at all.  Luckily, about October of our 1st Grade year, I changed and made school the priority.  I was only short changing Reese by setting aside our work.  I wasn't really teaching him any good life habits either.  Sometimes, work is necessary...even if you have to choose it over something fun. 

I'm a list maker, a box checker, a schedule setter.  So my first attempt at making a schedule was to recreate what I did as a teacher. 

9:00 Start school
9:00-9:30 Math
9:30-10:00 Spelling

And so on.

Well...lo and behold...homeschool is not like teaching a class full of 22 wiggly kids who all have to be on the same page at the same time, following the same pace.  Some days, Math needed more time.  Spelling went quickly.  We were hungry in the middle of our studies and needed a break.

So for 2nd Grade, I went with a loose schedule & it worked perfectly.  Here's what works for us:

We begin our school morning by 9:30.  Reese likes to sleep, & I hate to wake him up early.  He is the world's slowest eater, so breakfast easily takes an hour to eat.  Some days we start before 9:30, but in general, we are at the table, breakfast eaten, teeth brushed, bathroom cleaned, & ready to go. 

Notice how I left out "get dressed."  My only requirement there is that you wear something to school.  Boxers.  Pjs.  Clothes.  It matters not to me.  Just cover yourself :)

From 9:30-12:00, we work together.  Subjects don't have a time frame, but they do follow an order. 

We begin with our calendar & daily things like reading the temperature, saying the Pledge, & solving a few quick Math warm up problems.  Every day, we: count money & make change mentally, identify number patterns, solve a word problem, create 3 math equations that equal the number of the day, tell time on an analog clock, review facts, & write the full date.

After our warm up, we dive into Math.  Reese completed Saxon 3 last year, & the writing almost killed us.  This year, we are using Teaching Textbooks, which is a computer-based curriculum.  It looks to be very thorough in it's explanations & problems.  From what I've read, it is behind other programs if you simply compare grade level to grade level, so Reese will be starting with Teaching Textbooks 5 (which is supposed to be similar to a 4th grade level).  I will supplement with lots of games...he loves to sit on the floor with Mom & play...I love that he's learning!

After Math, we grab a snack if we're hungry.  Then, Reese spends about 30 minutes reading aloud to me from a chapter book I have chosen.  These tie in to our history lesson usually.  He has great comprehension, & we continue to work on fluency.  I am impressed with the words he is able to figure out using phonetic rules!

The rest of the morning we do Spelling, Grammar, writing/narration/dictation, Bible study, History & Geography, & Logic Problems.  I do my best to vary the subjects so we are doing something light (history, Bible, Geography) in between the heavy brain work (spelling, math, logic problems).

We break for lunch at 12:00, and Reese usually takes a full hour to eat lunch.  I always wonder how much he would get down if he only had 20 minutes to eat at school? 

One o'clock starts our afternoon, which usually is just Science.  This year, I will also incorporate a "fun" reading time, so both he & I are comfy and reading to ourselves.  Sometimes, he's able to whip through his morning work & we fit Science in before lunch....which means we are done for the day at noon.  Other days, we have a few things left over from the morning & we work on that after lunch as well as Science. 

It really helped to ditch the minute-by-minute attempt at scheduling our day. 

How do you like to schedule your day?  Do you prefer no schedule?