A rough outline of our schedule

Another homeschooling mom asked to see our daily schedule. So for Ali and anyone else interested here is a rough outline of our days. This is for a first grader dd6 and pre-K ds4. My son will have another year of PreK after this one. We plan on holding him back a year due to a late summer birthday and not wanting him to be the youngest in his class.


Monday: no later than 9:00 start time : Morning Meeting: This is where we sit down together and cover various topics. Examples: work on memory of theology questions and answers (kids catechism), work in skip counting, counting by 1's for ds, telling time, counting money, sometimes we do math problems on our small hand held whiteboard, we also say a morning prayer and each child choses someone we know to pray for, we say the pledge each meeting and also work on any songs we are learning (right now it is the Star Spangled Banner). This meeting is ususally about 15 minutes or shorter if the kids end up laying on the floor. Alot of work gets done in these first few minutes.

After Morning meeting we do TABLE TIME. I start my dd on her copywork from Writing With Ease or Spelling Workout A (I keep an eye on this as she works so I can catch any mistakes. ) While she is doing copywork I work with ds on his worksheets from Get Ready For the Code. He can pretty much do these on his own at this point and I mostly read directions, check his work, and help him with his letter formation. After he finishes his "table time" I take him up to the computer and he plays on Nick Jr. Playhouse Disney or PBS Kids or Starfall. While he is working on the computer I tackle either Saxon Math or Writing With Ease/Language Lessons for the Well trained Mind with dd. I pick which subject needs one on one without brother that day to do first. If she needs a break after this we take a little break. DD is very good at staying on task and we tend to finish work quickly. Some days math can include little brother and he joins us.

Books are often read throughout the day, during lunchtime, on the couch etc. This time is pretty non-structured. DD loves to read and some weeks she reads what she chooses (right now it is Charlottes Web) and other weeks she must read a book I choose. Next week she will be reading excerpts out of CHristian Liberty Nature Reader that correlates with our science.

Tuesdays: DD goes to a co-op where she takes science, history, music and art

Wednesday: Basically the same as Monday but with some Awana verse review thrown in.

Thursday: The first half of the day is the same as Monday. We use Thursday afternoons to do science or history. I have worked myself into a month on science, a month on history and so on. I will have some months that overlap but when they do the science will be less so we can fit in our American History.

Friday: This day is our different more relaxed school day. Library trips, field trips on some Fridays. We use Fridays for our Artistic Pursuits lessons, science lessons and history lessons. If we have fallen behind during the week due to illness etc. Friday becomes a make-up day. I anticipate having to have math on Friday some weeks in order for us to finish our curriculum near the end of the year.

Most homeschool days we finish all our basics work by 10:30 or 11:00. This doesn't include reading stories etc. at or after lunch. And of course on Thursdays we have an afternoon session for history or science. With younger kiddos you might need more breaks and might find during little one's nap time to be a good time to teach. My dd is really quite the little machine when it comes to school work. Her focus and comprehension amaze me. My son will probably need more breaks between subjects etc. as he gets into the heavy schooling.

To be honest I am a person that craves reason in my day but I also grant myself flexability. If something grand comes up for science and it is a Monday then we spend our day doing nature study etc and move the basics to Friday. I really try to keep to the basics first because if I don't then my science/history loving 6 year old will let her favorite subjects take center stage.

For curriculum THIS Year I use with my first grader:
Saxon Math 2
Writing with Ease (Susan W. Bauer)
Language Lessons for the WEll trained Mind (wise) I correlate the lessons with the writing with ease and we won't do ALL the lessons.
Language Lessons for the Very Young (picture study/story telling lessons onlywhich could be done with a great art book instead)
Spelling Workout A (easy for her and independent at this point)
Science: a variety of sources with a focus on our nature journals: covering mostly animals this year
History: We did sotw 1 last year and loved it. This year we are doing American History which I have pieced together using a variety of sources. We will not be going into the Civil War this year.
Artistic Pursuits Book Oone

My ds4 is using Get Ready For the Code , Get SEt for the Code etc. and he will be doing some work from Sing Spell Read and Write K level. We also do songs, games etc.

I hope this helps Ali. My youngest just turned 4 and this year is easier than last year. Plus my dd6 is reading quite well and this cuts down on how much she needs me for her work. We are trying to adopt from China and if that ever happens then I will have a little one again and I don't know what I'll do! lol