Weekly Schedule

The latest post at The Homeschool Classroom asks: "What does your schedule for the week look like?"

I'm pretty much done planning our fall schedule, (we've done a bit of math and history over the summer but otherwise have been too busy for much schoolwork). I've been moving gradually from the Charlotte Mason method to the classical method, so I'm adding some things suggested by The Well Trained Mind. So here's the plan. (Of course, we never ended up following the plan strictly, but it's good to start out with a plan!)

DAILY
**get up early to read my Bible, pray, eat breakfast and exercise. I have mixed success with the whole getting up early thing, but am working on training myself to get up earlier and earlier. 6:00/6:30 is the ultimate goal. I might even be able to squeeze in a shower too!

**kids eat breakfast: read Bible and other reading aloud to them. Morning chores, kids get dressed. (The times on these depend on what time the kids get up.)

**school time! work with Matthew first while Lucy does some independent work: penmanship, grammar, Bible coloring, devotional reading and/or workbook, possibly start on math. Matthew doesn't need instruction, really, but he likes it. He's working on learning lower case letters and letter sounds and I like to get plenty of time to read aloud to him and do puzzles with him.

**school time with Lucy -- help her with any questions from her independent work time. Finish math, do spelling, Latin, writing, dictation or copywork. The challenge is to find something for Matthew to do. I'm hoping if I work with him first, he'll be happier to play on his own for awhile. He's learned how to use the computer mouse, so he does pretty well playing preschooler games on the computer with the headphones on.

**lunch, lunchtime chores.

**history 3 days/week; art and music the fourth day. Sometimes Matthew will listen for these subjects, or he may watch a video during this time. He loves the DK Eyewitness videos right now -- especially The Planets and Skeleton.

**naptime -- Lucy has freetime once she's done her assigned reading and finished up any stray work from the morning. This is my writing time, as I'm a poet and I'm also working on a novel right now.

**afternoon activities or freetime -- Lucy participates in a few after school activities

**dinner, dinner time chores, bedtime eventually. Lucy will do science with daddy 2 nights a week.

I try to get all our schoolwork down on 4 days, so we can have one day a week free for activities, or just relaxing around the house. I'm planning on joining a homeschool group this year, so I'll have to see how that ends up changing our schedule.