Do you have a set schedule?
Yes... and no. We have a set schedule for the six subjects a day that Optimus Prime & Bumblebee do, but that's it. Scooby-Doo is isn't even preschool age yet, if he doesn't want to do his worksheets he doesn't have to. We don't have a set "story time" or anything like that. We read what we want, when we want.
What is your schedule?
(You can always find Optimus Prime & Bumblebee's current schedule on their page and Scooby-Doo's current schedule on his.)
We have two schedules, the morning schedule and the afternoon/evening schedule.
In the morning we do all of our schoolwork and chores. We have breakfast and get dressed, then Optimus Prime & Bumblebee will do three subjects, usually followed by Scooby-Doo doing his schoolwork, followed by most of our chores for the day, followed by Optimus Prime & Bumblebee's other three subjects, followed by lunch, followed by cleaning up all the schoolwork supplies and dishes.
In the afternoon we read books, play games, do puzzles, watch a documentary, practice reading with Optimus Prime & Bumblebee, Scooby-Doo will sometimes takes a nap, things like that. The morning rush is followed by an easy day with a lot of relaxing, goofing off, and very few chores.
Right now our morning schedule is abridged because Scooby-Doo's speech therapy was more than we though it was going to be, and our afternoon schedule does not have any tv right now and not as much playtime, but it's still essentially the same.
Do you have to write up a schedule?
This really depends on the state where you live. We live in Texas, so the answer is no. If you live in New York, then the answer is yes, you legally have to have a schedule in case the state decides to stop by your house to make sure you're actually homeschooling your kids.
Now, if we take the legality aspect of the answer away (because it varies state-by-state) then my answer to you would be do what works best for you & your family. In the case of my family, my kids like a set schedule in the morning for their schoolwork and chores, followed by an unstructured day of playing and reading with very few chores. In the afternoon if I need their help with a chore, or decide it's time to read a book then I'll give them a 5 or 10 minute warning so there are no meltdowns or freakouts when they have to stop and come over to do something else.
Do you recommend writing a schedule?
Yes, yes I do. Even if it is just a rough out line for the day/week/month you want to make sure you are covering your bases and not shortchanging your kids. Your kid needs to learn addition, subtraction, how to read, etc. and personally I really think you should have a plan to meet those goals. Now, do you need to write up a super detailed lesson plan for the day/week/month? No. Unless, of course, you want to. A rough outline will work beautifully, trust me. Just so long as you know your goals and can see them on paper it will help you to meet your goals.
Do you like having a set schedule?
No, I actually hate it. I'm lazy and just want to lay in bed all day and read books (by myself or with my kids). But life doesn't work that way, and stuff needs to get done. Everyone likes the morning schedule routine, and everyone likes like afternoon free-for-all, so we go with that.
Do you ever change your schedule?
Dear god, yes! Every three months. We don't want things to get boring here! I change what subjects we cover, the order we cover them in, the number of pages we do, the number of subjects a day, etc. By the time we get halfway through month three of our schedule everyone's ready for a change. So I change it. Homeschooling shouldn't be monotonous.
Also, sometimes plans change and schedules need to be adjusted. It's all swell and fine to write up an entire school years schedule (and in some states you legally have to) but if you plan for one month of number order in September, followed by one month of addition in October, followed by one month of subtraction in November, followed by one month of fractions in December, followed by one month of counting by fives in January, followed by one month of counting by tens in February, followed by one month of telling time in March, followed by a month of money in April, what happens when it's week three of March and you never want to look at a clock again in your life and you start getting bitchy during math lessons? Or your kid still needs help with subtraction in January?
It's currently March. Optimus Prime still needs to draw circles and x them out when doing subtraction problems, and half the time he still gets the answers wrong. If I had a schedule like the one I just mentioned I'd be pulling my hair out right now. I'd be freaking out saying, "How can he still not get it?!? We're supposed to be on telling time right now!" Instead I'm not worried about it. Our current schedule just says "4 pages of math." Right now we are reviewing number order, to make sure they still have it down. We'll come back to subtraction after we've all had a nice break from it.
What do you do when your schedule changes/is disrupted?
Okay, I hope you have a couple of hours to read about my personal life.
Kids get sick, you get sick, relatives from across the country come to visit, you relocate to a new town halfway across the country, your youngest has to go to speech therapy, your oldest two have to play t-ball, etc. These are all scenarios that we have faced, and I've probably left out a few. When Optimus Prime & Bumblebee were in kindergarten the whole family was so sick for two months straight we didn't do a single bit of schoolwork. We got the worst flu I've ever seen. Everyone was piled in bed watching movies on the computer or sleeping because there was nothing else we could do. Except for my poor husband, who actually went to work each day. We made up all that schoolwork over the next month. Everyday we did three day's worth of schoolwork, so we didn't fall behind. I was determined, and they were good sports about it. I think they were just relieved to be better again and back onto our regular schedule.
When they were in pre-k Scooby-Doo was so sick for four months straight that we just stopped homeschooling. This was also coupled with a move from Alaska to Texas. I was running on less than four hours of sleep a day, worried sick about my newborn. I was in no position to homeschool anyone. It was no big deal because they were in pre-k, and had been doing pre-k since they were 3. If it was another grade we would of made up the schoolwork, but at that time we weren't doing a set schedule. Everyday for pre-k we were just doing whatever we wanted, so we shelved the workbooks until Scooby-Doo got better.
These were major disruptions, and we bounced back. And it made us love homeschooling even more. Could you imagine pulling your kids out of school for two months straight because they couldn't seen to stop catching the flu? The back log of homework would of been hell, and my kids would of been so far behind. Instead, there was no stress, no worry. We caught up, we moved on.
If you can get over a major disruption like that, then small ones are no biggie. We have shitty days. Days when the kids are sick, days when they can't seem to focus, days when they just need a day off. I just swap our schedules a bit. Take off an extra day and make it up later on in the week. Do a little extra work each day or skip one of our normal days off. Just this week, actually, I let my kids take Thursday off and we did Thursday's schoolwork on Saturday. They were feeling burned out and wanted a day off so I let them.
Now, if a planned short-term disruption is coming up than you can just adjust your schedule accordingly. My grandmother is coming to visit in April. Every time she comes, no matter how hard I try, we do not stay on schedule. So, the week before she comes we always double up on our schoolwork. If we do schoolwork when she's here then we are doing it ahead of schedule. If we do none, then we're just fine when she leaves and my kids just got a week off. It's win-win as far as I'm concerned.
If a planned long-term disruption is coming up then just fix your schedule. Our schedule is not set in stone. Once I write it I try to do everything in my power to stick to it for the next three months but sometimes it just doesn't work and you have to start from scratch. Take this quarter. I knew Scooby-Doo had to do speech therapy, but I thought it was just going to be for two days a week, half an hour a day. "No biggie," I thought. "We can keep our schedule and just tweak it a bit. We can still do our six subjects a day for Optimus Prime & Bumblebee. We'll play Scooby-Doo's schoolwork by ear. Yes it will suck for those two days that we have to be out of town for 1 1/2 hours, but I can just make those our days off, or make one of them our day off to help lighten the load."
Then came the reality check. It was speech therapy everyday for two hours a day (plus an hour in the car). Our schedule lasted one week, and let me tell you it was a stressful week. So I tossed it and wrote a new one. I'm not happy with our current schedule, but it'll have to do for something written on the spur of the moment, and we're committed by this point in time.
The good thing about homeschooling is your ability to adapt to any situation and still come out ahead. I wish our current schedule looks different, but the major focus on reading has helped Optimus Prime & Bumblebee make huge leaps in that area in just the past few weeks. The other day Optimus Prime read a page in Fancy Nancy almost completely by himself. He didn't know two of the words (and they were big words) and he needed prompting with two other words. It was a huge breakthrough moment for him that made him (and me) realize that all his hard work was starting to pay off.
Sometimes our schedule gets disrupted beyond repair, but we just bounce back with a new set of goals, and we meet them.
I hope all of this helps!
Yes, yes I do. Even if it is just a rough out line for the day/week/month you want to make sure you are covering your bases and not shortchanging your kids. Your kid needs to learn addition, subtraction, how to read, etc. and personally I really think you should have a plan to meet those goals. Now, do you need to write up a super detailed lesson plan for the day/week/month? No. Unless, of course, you want to. A rough outline will work beautifully, trust me. Just so long as you know your goals and can see them on paper it will help you to meet your goals.
Do you like having a set schedule?
No, I actually hate it. I'm lazy and just want to lay in bed all day and read books (by myself or with my kids). But life doesn't work that way, and stuff needs to get done. Everyone likes the morning schedule routine, and everyone likes like afternoon free-for-all, so we go with that.
Do you ever change your schedule?
Dear god, yes! Every three months. We don't want things to get boring here! I change what subjects we cover, the order we cover them in, the number of pages we do, the number of subjects a day, etc. By the time we get halfway through month three of our schedule everyone's ready for a change. So I change it. Homeschooling shouldn't be monotonous.
Also, sometimes plans change and schedules need to be adjusted. It's all swell and fine to write up an entire school years schedule (and in some states you legally have to) but if you plan for one month of number order in September, followed by one month of addition in October, followed by one month of subtraction in November, followed by one month of fractions in December, followed by one month of counting by fives in January, followed by one month of counting by tens in February, followed by one month of telling time in March, followed by a month of money in April, what happens when it's week three of March and you never want to look at a clock again in your life and you start getting bitchy during math lessons? Or your kid still needs help with subtraction in January?
It's currently March. Optimus Prime still needs to draw circles and x them out when doing subtraction problems, and half the time he still gets the answers wrong. If I had a schedule like the one I just mentioned I'd be pulling my hair out right now. I'd be freaking out saying, "How can he still not get it?!? We're supposed to be on telling time right now!" Instead I'm not worried about it. Our current schedule just says "4 pages of math." Right now we are reviewing number order, to make sure they still have it down. We'll come back to subtraction after we've all had a nice break from it.
What do you do when your schedule changes/is disrupted?
Okay, I hope you have a couple of hours to read about my personal life.
Kids get sick, you get sick, relatives from across the country come to visit, you relocate to a new town halfway across the country, your youngest has to go to speech therapy, your oldest two have to play t-ball, etc. These are all scenarios that we have faced, and I've probably left out a few. When Optimus Prime & Bumblebee were in kindergarten the whole family was so sick for two months straight we didn't do a single bit of schoolwork. We got the worst flu I've ever seen. Everyone was piled in bed watching movies on the computer or sleeping because there was nothing else we could do. Except for my poor husband, who actually went to work each day. We made up all that schoolwork over the next month. Everyday we did three day's worth of schoolwork, so we didn't fall behind. I was determined, and they were good sports about it. I think they were just relieved to be better again and back onto our regular schedule.
When they were in pre-k Scooby-Doo was so sick for four months straight that we just stopped homeschooling. This was also coupled with a move from Alaska to Texas. I was running on less than four hours of sleep a day, worried sick about my newborn. I was in no position to homeschool anyone. It was no big deal because they were in pre-k, and had been doing pre-k since they were 3. If it was another grade we would of made up the schoolwork, but at that time we weren't doing a set schedule. Everyday for pre-k we were just doing whatever we wanted, so we shelved the workbooks until Scooby-Doo got better.
These were major disruptions, and we bounced back. And it made us love homeschooling even more. Could you imagine pulling your kids out of school for two months straight because they couldn't seen to stop catching the flu? The back log of homework would of been hell, and my kids would of been so far behind. Instead, there was no stress, no worry. We caught up, we moved on.
If you can get over a major disruption like that, then small ones are no biggie. We have shitty days. Days when the kids are sick, days when they can't seem to focus, days when they just need a day off. I just swap our schedules a bit. Take off an extra day and make it up later on in the week. Do a little extra work each day or skip one of our normal days off. Just this week, actually, I let my kids take Thursday off and we did Thursday's schoolwork on Saturday. They were feeling burned out and wanted a day off so I let them.
Now, if a planned short-term disruption is coming up than you can just adjust your schedule accordingly. My grandmother is coming to visit in April. Every time she comes, no matter how hard I try, we do not stay on schedule. So, the week before she comes we always double up on our schoolwork. If we do schoolwork when she's here then we are doing it ahead of schedule. If we do none, then we're just fine when she leaves and my kids just got a week off. It's win-win as far as I'm concerned.
If a planned long-term disruption is coming up then just fix your schedule. Our schedule is not set in stone. Once I write it I try to do everything in my power to stick to it for the next three months but sometimes it just doesn't work and you have to start from scratch. Take this quarter. I knew Scooby-Doo had to do speech therapy, but I thought it was just going to be for two days a week, half an hour a day. "No biggie," I thought. "We can keep our schedule and just tweak it a bit. We can still do our six subjects a day for Optimus Prime & Bumblebee. We'll play Scooby-Doo's schoolwork by ear. Yes it will suck for those two days that we have to be out of town for 1 1/2 hours, but I can just make those our days off, or make one of them our day off to help lighten the load."
Then came the reality check. It was speech therapy everyday for two hours a day (plus an hour in the car). Our schedule lasted one week, and let me tell you it was a stressful week. So I tossed it and wrote a new one. I'm not happy with our current schedule, but it'll have to do for something written on the spur of the moment, and we're committed by this point in time.
The good thing about homeschooling is your ability to adapt to any situation and still come out ahead. I wish our current schedule looks different, but the major focus on reading has helped Optimus Prime & Bumblebee make huge leaps in that area in just the past few weeks. The other day Optimus Prime read a page in Fancy Nancy almost completely by himself. He didn't know two of the words (and they were big words) and he needed prompting with two other words. It was a huge breakthrough moment for him that made him (and me) realize that all his hard work was starting to pay off.
Sometimes our schedule gets disrupted beyond repair, but we just bounce back with a new set of goals, and we meet them.
I hope all of this helps!
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