November 18, 2011

  • 2011 School Schedule

    A gal whose blog I have been following recently has – three times – mentioned schedules and schooling.  Granted, it was over years (days, when you’re blitzing thru someone’s blog), but I realized that I have had good intentions to share our schedule with you, and then I… never actually post it here.  So I’m breaking down and doing it for you.  ‘Cause you know me and threes.  ((wink!))

    My schooling endeavors are EXTREMELY organized… because I learned very early that having a schedule is paramount to succeeding with home education.  It’s mankind’s tendency to become more lax, so to start out with a rough idea leaves you with pandemonium, in the long run.  Having a ‘loose schedule’ leave you operating at ‘rough idea’ level… while having an intensive schedule is what (when subjected to the lax factor), actually works.


    (as always, click to enlarge)

    First of all, this is our daily routine schedule.  You have permission to laugh at me, because we have NEVER followed this schedule all the way through a single day.  It’s… just… life happens when you have a family as big as mine.  Brian’ll call and we need to go get hay for the goats.  I’ll find something on Craigslist.  There’ll be an extra rehearsal for our Sing-thing (like next week).  My mom will come over for breakfast and to spend the morning.  I’ll need to run up to the library after lunch.  We went to visit our English neighbor for an hour yesterday afternoon.  Life happens.  But the goal is to keep as close to the routine as possible.  And we do pretty well.  There’s a LOT of wiggle room on it… which is the sign of a really good schedule.

    When it comes to schooling, I also have a daily log sheet.  In Michigan, there are no homeschool laws at all – we don’t even have to file an ‘intent to homeschool’ letter with the public schools, so it’s AMAZINGLY open here – you can’t get anymore freedom where education is concerned than what Michigan has right now.  In my opinion, that’s the way ALL states should be.  I don’t have to keep records of what we do… but I do it, anyhow.  For me, for my kids’ sakes, and just in case something comes up with the govt’, later.  Every year, I have a new, improved daily log sheet (which, until this year, was different for the kids from Mama’s)… and each year, they were a little better.  You can see them ALL on my homeschool archive (as of TODAY!!)  But this year, we’re ALL using Mama’s sheet, so it’s easier all the way across the board.  This is our sheet – click to enlarge, of course.

    I have laid it out much like our routine, so that we have different sections for our different periods of schooling throughout the day.  The goal, of course, is to check off everything on the list and have all the boxes filled.  We get darn close, if not hit everything, most weeks.  There are a few things on there that I (over-ambitiously) put on and haven’t added to our schooling – like guitar, reading music, and Spanish.  We’ll add those, later, but I’m thinking this schedule is a keeper.

    We also have other charts that we use with school… I’ve blogged about them before, though – in Chart Chat (link).  So we won’t show you our calendars, weather charts, weather logs, and the like today.  You know where to find them.  But that’s how we roll where school is concerned!

Comments (5)

  • You are sooo nocturnal  :)

  • :twitch: :twitch: :twitch: :twitch:

  • Ahhhh, I gotcha, HP. Because we do projects and reading at night and the bookwork and writing parts during the day, right? That’s because Brian works all day, and he likes to hear the stories and do the projects with us. We’re a FAMILY, y’know? So we school as one. (((My fault, entirely.)))

    In fact, we’ve been doing art on weekends so that Brian can paint/chalk with us, too… for a year or so, now. It’s about being together, above all. We’re a team, and quality time only makes the team stronger, IMHO. :thumbsup:

  • We are actually in the middle of a major overhaul of our schedule at the moment.  Kids are getting older, time to make adjustments.  But us, we are more early birds.  I’m usually up by 5:30 and I get the kids up by 6:30.  I use that hour for Torah study, meditation, yoga and then starting breakfast just before I wake the kids.  Bed by 8 or so.  Though there are exceptions.  Schedules are great, even if we don’t follow them to a t..

  • I can’t function without a specific schedule. At first, Steven laughed at me – we’re Homeschooling, we don’t need to do Lesson Plans like public school! – but now, he’s happy I schedule everything. I won’t skip something because I don’t wanna do it this way – if it’s on the Plan, it HAS to be done.

    The only thing we have to do here in TX is – IF the kid’s been in public school – file a withdrawal letter. (We might have to file a letter of intent, too – not sure about that). No records, no formal “school” – but, like you, I keep the records to *prove* what we’re doing. I also keep all the kids’ papers – 1 pendaflex folder per year – just in case. It doesn’t hurt to be prepared…:lol:

    I envy you Brian’s involvement in school…..still, I have hope. Steven just yesterday told me he wants to be more involved with our Torah studies…so *maybe* that’ll lead to more school involvement. :bounce:

Post a Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *