I'm about five years into this homeschooling thing now, and I've only ever done it with a bunch of babies and toddlers underfoot. I have lived and breathed by routines: the breakfast routine, the morning nap routine, the lunch routine, the afternoon nap routine. I always knew approximately what needed to happen in each approximate time of day, but I never, ever, ever planned anything by the clock. You know what happens when you plan things by the clock for toddlers and babies? They poop. Or they fight. Or lunch takes twice as long (or half as long) as you planned. Or naps take twice as long (or half as long) as you expected. Routines are golden. Schedules make you crazy. (In my humble opinion.)
So it was quite a surprise to me when I realized, back in the spring when I started planning for this fall's schooling, that I'm sort of out of that phase. Sure, I still have Calvin (who will be two in October), but he's it. Everyone else is . . . dare I say it . . . fairly predictable. We've been doing the schooling thing for long enough now that the four older kids generally know what's expected of them. While they're normal kids who protest random things at random times, our days generally run pretty smoothly. (That's a big "generally." I'm looking at the big picture here.)
And thus, this year, we are using a schedule. A bona fide, by-the-clock, down-on-paper schedule. We've done one almost-full week of school now, and it's working! I'm as surprised as you are. It's very Managers-of-their-Homes in nature, if you're familiar with that scheduling system, but not quite as severe. (FYI, that link will take you to a blog post with a review of Managers of Their Homes, which I thought was a decent, honest review that mimicked my own opinions of the book/system.)
To help organize my brain, I wrote down everything we need to cover academically on little post-it notes, figuring a half-hour per post-it. I grabbed a large sheet of paper, labeled it down the side (with larger post-it notes) in one-hour increments, and started sticking those post-it notes on. It took some shuffling before it all clicked! What helped me most in this was to see where I would need someone to be helping Toby or playing with Calvin while I worked with an older boy.
So it was quite a surprise to me when I realized, back in the spring when I started planning for this fall's schooling, that I'm sort of out of that phase. Sure, I still have Calvin (who will be two in October), but he's it. Everyone else is . . . dare I say it . . . fairly predictable. We've been doing the schooling thing for long enough now that the four older kids generally know what's expected of them. While they're normal kids who protest random things at random times, our days generally run pretty smoothly. (That's a big "generally." I'm looking at the big picture here.)
And thus, this year, we are using a schedule. A bona fide, by-the-clock, down-on-paper schedule. We've done one almost-full week of school now, and it's working! I'm as surprised as you are. It's very Managers-of-their-Homes in nature, if you're familiar with that scheduling system, but not quite as severe. (FYI, that link will take you to a blog post with a review of Managers of Their Homes, which I thought was a decent, honest review that mimicked my own opinions of the book/system.)
To help organize my brain, I wrote down everything we need to cover academically on little post-it notes, figuring a half-hour per post-it. I grabbed a large sheet of paper, labeled it down the side (with larger post-it notes) in one-hour increments, and started sticking those post-it notes on. It took some shuffling before it all clicked! What helped me most in this was to see where I would need someone to be helping Toby or playing with Calvin while I worked with an older boy.
Some of it is easy to figure out: we have to practice instruments while Calvin is awake. It's better to do science while Calvin is asleep. Levi is on the computer for math an hour each day, which is in the same room as the piano, so we can't be practicing during math. You get the idea. I have to confess, the planner/organizer in me had a lot of fun working this all out. (Is this adulthood? Having fun planning? That's kinda sad . . . )
Anyway. Once I was satisfied with my post-it poster, I moved to excel. (This is scary for me. I am not confident in excel. That's totally my husband's domain.) Half-hour increments down the side, each person's name at the top (including mine), everyone gets a color. My column is color-coded to match the kid I'm supposed to be working with when appropriate. Purple is things we all do together.
(Sorry for the blurry photo of my computer screen. I'd be happy to share it with you personally if you want to see more specifically what we're doing.)
We focused mostly on getting the morning schedule down this week, as the afternoons are a bit more fluid. Like I said above, it worked: the things I've been struggling to get done -- everyone's instrument practice, Silas's independent reading, Toby's preschool -- all got done. This will be our schedule on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Wednesday mornings are Bible study, and Friday mornings are house-cleaning days (more on that later!).
I'm hoping to do another post soon with our actual curriculum choices and a bit about loop scheduling. I absolutely love the planning part of school, and this time of year is happy jumps from one list to another! (Oh, that is sad.)
A few snapshots from our first official week of school (besides math and history, which we do all summer):
Silas reading The Littles
Owen practicing phonics with Toby using letter tiles
Calvin "painting" a black boat with water
Boys playing (chaos!) while I read aloud.
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