Something that has helped since our beginning days of homeschooling six years ago was developing a homeschool schedule.
We found tips in setting up a homeschool schedule in the Moore Formula Manual, which was a huge aid during our first year of homeschooling. The schedule includes certain anchor points such as wake up time, meal times, and bed time, and other slots for study subjects, work, and service. The anchor points are fairly fixed and should remain consistent from day to day. For example, our meal times are set at 8:00 for breakfast, 12:00 for lunch and 6:00 for dinner.
Our subject areas, in the order that we complete them, are Bible/Music, Language Arts, Mathematics/Art, Reading, Typing/Email, Science, Social Studies, and Health. We complete 3-5 subjects before lunch and the remainder after lunch. We generally rotate the Science/Social Studies/Health subjects so that we focus on one at a time, though the kids enjoy reading Social Studies books on their own after our formal school work is done. The subject areas are flexible, as some projects take longer on some days than others. We generally start our study time around 9:00 and end at 1:30.
A simplified version of our homeschool schedule, including resources and curriculum we are using this year with our 12- and 9-year-old boys, is as follows:
8:00 AM Breakfast and cleanup
9:00 AM Bible/Music
Silent Scripture reading on a schedule
Prayer journals (writing, Spiritual)Scripture memory – AWANA books and Kids 4 Truth
Thursdays: The Usborne Piano Course Book Two
10:00 AM Language Arts
Alternate handwriting, spelling, creative writing, and grammar
A Reason for Handwriting – Levels C and F
Spelling: Spelling Plus Word List
Writing: Jump In
Grammar: Easy Grammar ¾ and Winston Grammar
Rosetta Stone Homeschool Spanish
11:00 AM Mathematics/Art
Math-U-See Epsilon
Art: Drawing and making cards using Usborne art books
12:00 PM Lunch and cleanup
1:00 PM Reading (incorporate Bible, Science and Social Studies)
Monday: Sunday school papers (Bible)
McGuffey Readers: Pilgrim’s Progress and Liberty Tree
Typing and Email (technology, writing)
Mavis-Beacon software
Email Dad Monday to Thursday and grandparents on Friday
Science: R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey Life (level one)
Social Studies: Various Usborne and library books1:30 PM Health (incorporate work/service)
A Healthier You, A Beka Book Health Series, grade 7
2:00 PM Speech on Fridays with Dad
You can check out Darcy’s Not-Back-to-School Blog Hop to see how other homeschoolers schedule their days.
How do you schedule your homeschool day?
Lisa (aka Morning Rose) has been teaching her two elementary-aged sons for four years and incorporating study, work, service, and play into their homeschooling days. She enjoys reading, writing, and photography and blogs publicly at Pockets of Time and privately at Scooter and B.
I spent a great amount of time pulling together a schedule for our new year, but I don’t think I’ve followed it faithfully since the first week. I quickly realized how much tweeking it needed and to be honest, it is too detailed to read at a glance.
So, the weeks have been as follows:
7:00am breakfast/devotions/Proverbs/clean up
8:00am get dressed/chores
8:30am work with preschoolers (letters, numbers, phonics, word games, etc)
9:00am (baby down for a nap)
10:00am Eldest (7) starts lessons in somewhat order:
*Bible
*Math
*Writing – penmanship/copywork–poetry
12pm – lunch, clean up
1pm – lessons resume
*Reading/written and oral narration
*drills
*activities
*enrichment
-drawing
-spanish
-nature study
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Lisa V. Reply:
September 18th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Sounds like a great schedule!
Lisa V.´s last blog ..Word-filled Wednesday – Children
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Thanks for sharing. I’m determined to get a better schedule this year!! Actually, what I have for the kids is working fairly well, but I really need to get my own schedule in order since I’m also a WAHM.
Bethany L.´s last blog ..Make a Wall Timeline Without a Wall
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Thanks for sharing, loves seeing how others do it!
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Schedules are great; each of my children have different schedules. I have two kids in high school, one in Jr. high and a preschooler.
One thing I have learned after 9 years of home schooling is that the schedule is a guide. We very rarely follow it exactly. One of the things that I enjoy about home schooling is the flexibility. Great article.
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Lisa V. Reply:
September 21st, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Thanks, Charmaine! We enjoy the flexibility of homeschooling too.
Lisa V.´s last blog ..Word-filled Wednesday – Children
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M-W-F
Bible,
Reading,
History,
Grammar,
Math,
Health,
Spanish,
T-Th
Bible
Math
Spelling
Science
Music
Writing
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Lisa V. Reply:
September 26th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Thanks for sharing your schedule, Renee!
Lisa V.´s last blog ..Tackle It Tuesday – Usborne Show
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Its new last year we covered all in a day but wanted to try something diff
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