Is anyone following TWTM schedule timewise?

[rwalizer]

I have been reviewing my (old 1999) copy of TWTM to try to pull us back into what I love about SWB philosophy and I realize that if I try to schedule the way to book says, I will be spending 6-plus hours on school ech day.We spend 6 hours as it is and that includes bible study time two days a week. We already have little time for art and field trips. How do you all do it? Also, there is no way ds is going to finish a whole math lesson in an hour and be ready to move on to the next on the following day. Am I just terrible at organizing things? Ds will be in 8th grade next year and I'm trying to get ready. Any suggestions?

[ELaurie]

but I find that we need to keep lessons "short and sweet" to avoid overloading them (or me : ). As a rule, our lessons are shorter than suggested in WTM.

[Pata]

If I recall correctly there is something in the book about the schedules being there because the publisher suggested them. We don't spend the amount of time the schedule suggests. I've found that it works best for us when we have taken our schedule and then incorporated the philosophies from the WTM into what we are doing. Hope that helps!

[ABQmom]

I also recall reading something where SWB said that she only put those schedules in there because the publisher wanted them. We keep our lessons short and sweet as well. A little bit every day has served us well for the last 7 years of homeschooling.

[melissaL]

my children know what they have to work through each day, they can choose to work through their math lesson (or any other subject) as fast or as slow as they want. the amount they have to do doesn't change, they can and mostly do work through their math lesson in 20minutes, though it can take them 1 1/2 hours if they go slow!
I have mostly boys, they love to compete. they race each other to see who can get their morning work done first. we get the days school work done a lot faster than the schedule in WTM on most days.
MelissaL

[Colleen in NS]

If I recall correctly there is something in the book about the schedules being there because the publisher suggested them. We don't spend the amount of time the schedule suggests. I've found that it works best for us when we have taken our schedule and then incorporated the philosophies from the WTM into what we are doing. Hope that helps!

What she said. :) For me, it's taking the philosophies in WTM, the techniques, resources, and tweaking it all to fit with our family.

[Beth in Central TX]

I have been reviewing my (old 1999) copy of TWTM to try to pull us back into what I love about SWB philosophy and I realize that if I try to schedule the way to book says, I will be spending 6-plus hours on school ech day.We spend 6 hours as it is and that includes bible study time two days a week. We already have little time for art and field trips. How do you all do it? Also, there is no way ds is going to finish a whole math lesson in an hour and be ready to move on to the next on the following day. Am I just terrible at organizing things? Ds will be in 8th grade next year and I'm trying to get ready. Any suggestions?

and look up the schedules in the back. I realize that I do somewhat follow the 5th grade schedule for our homeschool. We start at about 8am and end at about 3pm. Fridays are lighter because I try to schedule some of our subjects just 4 days a week. This frees up our Fridays for those occasional subjects like Art and Music.

One of the great aspects of homeschooling is the ability to adjust the time we spend and what we do each week based on the needs of our children. If your son needs 2 days to complete one lesson, then that's the best way to schedule it for him. It may take him longer to get through the book, but he's learning, which, in my opinion, is what homeschooling is all about. I did a lot of work in high school, but I did very little learning. I've learned more in the past 5 years of homeschooling than I ever did in the 16 years of schooling that I've had.

Next year I'll have a 7th grader. I'm trying very hard not to overload his schedule. I would like to continue the same 8am to 3pm schedule (which includes a morning break and lunch). Therefore, my DH and I have made some tough decisions based on our homeschool goals. One decision is to not do a formal science program. Science is important to us, but we've decided to make it a priority in high school and focus on grammar, Latin, & Greek in the junior high years. Of course, this decision is not going to work for your homeschool because you have different goals.

I would suggest writing down your long-term and short-term homeschool goals. Then look at your present schedule to see if what you are doing is going to help you meet those goals. If not, that's where you can make adjustments.

We use this same approach to determine what extra-curricular activities we should be involved in. There are a lot of good things to do in our community, but not all of them line up with our goals. We participate in the ones that do line up with our goals and don't overload our schedule. We drop or decide not to participate in the ones that don't line up with our goals and/or the ones that overload our schedule. This is very difficult to balance at times, but we continually strive to protect our time at home and give our boys the best education we can.

HTH!

[mcconnellboys]

By about seventh or eighth, I think my older son was doing work for about 7 hours per day vs. 6. That still allowed him to be finished by 4 and I didn't feel that an hour a day of "homework" at that grade level was too much.

We dropped Spanish during that period and concentrated on Latin. He finished up Latin II last year (9th) and began high school level Spanish. He dropped Latin this year to continue Spanish II.

I think everything else got covered in some form or fashion, but perhaps not in exactly the way WTM recommended or for the exact time per week they recommended.

I believe that her schedules were meant as suggestions, anyway, because the publisher asked her to put something in her book about that.

Regena

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

By about seventh or eighth, I think my older son was doing work for about 7 hours per day vs. 6. That still allowed him to be finished by 4 and I didn't feel that an hour a day of "homework" at that grade level was too much.

We dropped Spanish during that period and concentrated on Latin. He finished up Latin II last year (9th) and began high school level Spanish. He dropped Latin this year to continue Spanish II.

I think everything else got covered in some form or fashion, but perhaps not in exactly the way WTM recommended or for the exact time per week they recommended.

I believe that her schedules were meant as suggestions, anyway, because the publisher asked her to put something in her book about that.

Regena

Same here.