Click here to find Part 1, and Part 2.
While I am eating up all the constructive comments happening over at this post (if you have thoughts to add, please don’t be shy!), I thought I’d switch gears tonight and tidy up a few final thoughts on school schedules.
You’ve seen how our schedules appear on paper, and you’ve heard how we manage (and don’t manage!) to fit it all in. In this last post I’ll just give a synopsis of how and why this format works for us.
First of all, Ambleside Online makes scheduling very easy for me. Once I have fleshed out our initial scheduling format at the beginning of the year (what you see below), all I do the rest of the year is change the page numbers on the books listed under Reading. That’s it! And to make things even simpler, Ambleside Online has the book selections parsed out into page chunks on their website, so I literally do not even have to think. I just delete page numbers, and type page numbers. All the other boxes on our schedule remain unchanged.
Now, for the books we substitute from AO’s booklists (or the books we add), I obviously must figure out the page and chapter divisions on my own. But there are so few of these across my three students that it’s hardly a hassle.
How I make our weekly schedule:
I’ve already explained that we divide our charts into Daily Alone, Daily Together, Weekly Alone, Weekly Together, and Reading, now let me draw a picture of how I physically produce our schedules week after week.
On Sunday evenings (or Monday mornings, shhhh!) I pull out my Bible, the children’s completed charts (which they turned in on the previous Friday), the previous week’s schedule template on my laptop, and my printed copies of Ambleside Online’s chart PDFs. (To find the charts on your own for each year, select your student’s year (grade) at the top left of the main curriculum page, and then click on “36 Week Schedule” beneath “Which Version of AO is right for you”. A tiny image of the chart will then appear at the top of the page to which you’re directed, with PDF, DOC and ODT options.)
I’m ready now to tackle this thing. My first task is to glance through the previous week’s completed charts to see what bubbles were missed and then make a mental note to roll the uncompleted assignments on to the new week’s schedule. I then take my Bible and, after a quick perusal through the passages the boys have already read, assign five new readings. This in an area in which we deviate from AO, and it has quickly become my favorite scheduling duty.
After typing in the Bible assignments, I go through AO’s PDF, erasing in my own schedules the completed chapters and pages, replacing them with the new. I add or take away bubbles beside a book’s name depending on how many pages that particular book has scheduled for the week–I try to keep one bubble per reading of the book, and some books need more than one reading. This is guess work for me, though. I add a reasonable amount of bubbles but my sons know to divide their readings based upon natural breaking points; if I put too many bubbles, they simply will fill in the leftover bubbles when they’ve completed their assigned pages. I don’t take the time to actually look through every book myself on a weekly basis, so this approach is low maintenance for me, and seems to work fine for them.
When the reading section is ready I move on to the other boxes on our schedule, glancing through the lists to see if any changes need made. Generally they are fine as they are. I then swing to the top of the page, type in the new week number, and print.
That’s it. The hardest leg-work of the week is done. It takes me about an hour to do all three schedules (and this is because I get IDEAS! and go on RABBIT TRAILS! and look at FACEBOOK! and…). But because I’ve taken this hour, my week will begin on a focused note. If I do not do this, I will start out Monday morning with a good book in bed and an idea around 10 AM to make pancakes, and we will never get anything accomplished. Not that there’s anything wrong with pancakes. It’s just…well, better, if I can make it at least until Thursday before breaking all my rules.
How the kids use the charts:
On Monday mornings the kids read through their schedules. My Year Three and Year Five students count up all the bubbles on their reading list, and divide them over the course of the week so that they know how many readings to do each day. Because of the bubble discrepancy mentioned above, chances are they will have bonus days where readings will not take as many bubbles as scheduled and they will finish early. They make a game of predicting these discrepancies, and so far they’ve nearly always been correct.
The rest of the week is pretty self explanatory. The kids do an assignment, and fill in the bubble. At the end of each day they must check in with me before they are free from school. During the course of the week, they keep their own schedules in their school binder, turning them in to yours truly on Friday afternoons. In this way, our school schedules serve as our school records (which we are not required by law in our state to keep) as well as keep us all on task.
Why this works for us:
Having a written schedule transfers the burden of task-keeping from the mama to the child. The child is in charge of filling in his bubbles. A written schedule also takes on its own authority, becoming a law unto itself, thus greatly easing the mother’s load.
I am at the point where I need to have things written down. With three students and a mind that loves to wander, a schedule is imperative if we are going to ever get anywhere in this schooling journey. But that said, the reason I love this format so much is its provision for flexibility. Nothing is locked into time. In fact, nothing is really even locked into days. We can move things around, switch things up, ignore something all together–or even add something on a whim. The schedules are our servants, as mentioned before, not our masters. And they really serve us well!
- Read part 1: intro to the charts
- Read part 2: explanation of how I make and use the charts: and a reminder than the charts are TOOLS
- Read: how we do first grade
I have been devouring these posts. I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to post these gems if information. I love scheduling- it makes my little heart flutter with organized excitement! But my life is not necessarily schedule-friendly. Anyway, thank you! Also, I have very little space in our home. And when I say little, I really am not exaggerating. Where do you guys do your work? And where do you store your homeschooling supplies?
Jodi, I have a couple of posts brewing in my head about the where and the how of our school days. I think you’ve just given me the kick in the pants to get those written. 🙂 But for the moment, we really school all over the house (and outside if the weather is nice).
I have a set of IKEA drawer organizers in our dining room, and the kids each have their own school basket with their binders for math, Latin, etc. All of our school books are kept on a shelf in the regular bookcase in the living room, except for the fifth grader’s–he keeps his books by his bed. When we were particularly short on space, or when we have schooled during moves across country, the kids have each had a Rubbermaid bin with a lid, and all their school supplies–books, binders, pencils, math helps, etc. were placed inside. Now the kids do table work in the dining room or outside, and read everywhere else. (My first grader particularly loves to do her school work on top of the storage bins in the garage!) 😀 I’ve never had a designated school room, and now that school is so integrated into our life, I don’t feel like we need one.
Also, I totally know what you mean about life not being schedule friendly. My advice there would be to watch the rhythms that are already naturally occurring in your home, and then begin to maximize on those rhythms. Over time you can begin to be more intentional with what you do with your time based upon the natural ebbs and flows in your daily culture. Then, if you have identified weak spots in your day or bad habits, you can begin to make focused changes.
I feel like we kind of fell into our schedule, but really it took a couple of years of observing our default rhythms and being honest with myself about what works and what doesn’t.
Thanks a lot, Harmony. You inspired us. Here it’s the result, and I thank you. It was my 4th writing for the April challenge. http://www.silviacachia.com/2015/04/april-4th.html
I love it Silvia! I have trouble commenting on your blog sometimes, so I hope you got my comment over there. You organized it so simply and beautifully! It inspires me to pare down.
Harmony, everybody at FB loved your “hug mom” part.
It may look simpler (I don’t think yours looks overly loaded), because as I wrote, I don’t know yet what will be done together or independently. I may add that later, or even have a printed page more succinct that has my both girls’ schedule and the common things, so I can see how we are in the week with BOTH, to better distribute time.
I will share any further template. You do that too whenever you revamp yours? 🙂 Thanks
I will! This format really works for me, but I’m thinking of doing something a little different as we wind down the school year.
The “hug mom” part is really for me; way too often I will get to the end of my day, climb in bed, and then wonder, “did I even touch so-and-so today?” It seems half my kids practically live on my body but the other half will not seek out touch and I really, really, really want to be giving it to them, even if it is just one meaningful moment a day. The boys make a big, dramatic deal about the obligatory hug, sighing and moaning with displeasure, but I can see in their eyes that they like it. 😉 Or at least, I’ll keep telling myself that they do!
Oh my gosh. This just made my upcoming homeschool year so much less scary! We are bringing home two of our public school kids (finally!), and I’m so excited to use the AO curriculum but was a little worried about how I would lay it out for my kids to be able to see what they need to do each day. Thank you so much for sharing. I’m working on my own charts right now based on the AO curriculum, and I think this is going to be fabulous.
You’re so welcome, Sarah! Let me know if you want a copy, I’d be happy to email one to you. Know that my chart is often more than I actually get to in a week – it’s the moon I’m shooting for, but I let the chart be a guide. If something isn’t marked off, like Shakespeare, or art – then that’s what I try to start with the next week. We’re pretty good and getting to all the readings, but sometimes we rotate through the other things.
This makes AO seem so simple to me, thank you! I love the Charlotte Mason method but AO was so hard for me to figure out that we moved onto new things. I now feel like I know how to schedule AO for my kids. Again thank you so much!
Thank you for sharing how you schedule! AO is a little scary for this unorganized mama. I have been studying, trying to wrap my brain around how to implement Charlotte Mason’s lovely philosophy of educating but I get nervous in being in control of so much. So then I bounce back and forth from living books and curriculums. So I was wondering if you could maybe send me an idea or a blog post of what your children do after they do their readings? Do they keep notebooks or mostly narrate back? I really love your ideas and think they would work for us!! Just curious of the follow up. And sorry if you mentioned it and I missed it!!
Thank you again!!
Hi Amanda – we aren’t doing a normal CM homeschool year this year owing to life circumstances (three of my kids are attending a small public school) so I’m going to answer based off of what we have done before. Until about year 4 my kids give oral narrations, and after year 4 I begin adding in written narrations – starting with one a week in year 4, then 2 in year 5 or (whenever they are ready) then one a day, and so on. Homeschooling several children at once (in different years) makes narration tricky for me, because a child who reads on their own is ready to narrate when I’m in the middle of reading to another child, and because narration begins to feel like it happens all day long. So eventually we settled on this approach (or rather, I accepted that this was what was naturally happening and embraced it as part of our school): the younger years (1 and 2, maybe 3) narrate to me right after a reading, but the older students narrate to me at the end of the school day (or when I’m making dinner) – they narrate all their readings, at once.
So with younger kids, I read aloud a small section, they narrate. I read another small section, they narrate. We do that few times until the reading is done. When they seem capable of holding longer passages in their minds, I read the whole reading, and they narrate immediately when we are done.
When they begin to read on their own, they come to me after a single reading and narrate.
When they get pretty proficient at narrating their own readings, they will read a two or three readings (different books) and narrate all of those at once to me. When they really have it down, I release them to independently tackle all their scheduled readings on their own throughout the day, and they come to me and narrate at the end of the day, all the readings, all at once.
For the students who do written narrations, I sometimes choose what book they will write from, and other times let them decide.
When I read a book to multiple children at once, I either randomly select (after the reading, so they don’t know which one will be chosen) one student to narrate, or I let the narration be a group effort with one student starting, another taking over, a third or fourth or whomever finishing up.
I sometimes close a book and grin, ok, no narration today! And that is always a happy moment for them. lol. I have to be super careful with this because I WANT to say it all the time.
And honestly, when life gets really busy or our family is in just a different season, like we are now, I am not as thorough with narration as I want to be. I have one student (year 6) at home right now and I’m only getting one oral narration out of him a day. I try to compensate that with more written narrations.
Our written narrations are done in notebooks. Each student has their own notebook and all written narrations go in it. When they hit year 7 I have specific notebooks for specific subjects, like science, Bible, etc. Some years we rock narration and other years I totally fail. They still learn. 😀