One subject per day??

[woolybear]

I've been mulling over the idea of switching to doing just one subject per day (and adding in other stuff when interest/patience--mine/etc. seem to be there. I'm thinking about maybe one day for science, one for history, one for arts, one for math and reading pretty much every day. Does anyone else do this? What are anyone's thoughts? Thanks.

[strider]

I cannot imagine doing a week's worth of math or grammar exercises on one day--my kids would just die on those days. I also think those areas are better learned with lots of short practice.

I could see trying to do all of history or science on one day.

[Deece in MN]

I've been mulling over the idea of switching to doing just one subject per day (and adding in other stuff when interest/patience--mine/etc. seem to be there. I'm thinking about maybe one day for science, one for history, one for arts, one for math and reading pretty much every day. Does anyone else do this? What are anyone's thoughts? Thanks.

We tried this one time just for a change of pace. We did math, reading and writing everyday and spent one day each on history, science, art, personal choice and life skills.
It worked out ok. This gave us time to really get into a project without feeling that we had to put it away to get on to other subjects.
It was a nice change of pace, but we only did this for about a year and then changed our schedule because of some of our curriculum for the following year.
It could work, but I wouldn't do math only one day a week.

[Cadam]

We do skill building subjects daily and content subjects once a week.

Daily

math
reading (assigned reading from that day's content area or phonics for littles)
Latin
writing (about that day's content area/ handwriting or copywork for littles)
bible devotional

Weekly

science day
history/geography day (this year we are taking a break from history to concentrate on geography)
Bible day
Lit/project day (bigger stuff that didn't fit into the other days or a good piece of classic lit.)

You might enjoy reading LCC. This approach lets us get immersed in our subject of the day and not feel like we are jumping around to much. It really works for my kids and had led to shorter days as we tend to focus better.

[Dayle in Guatemala]

I cannot imagine doing a week's worth of math or grammar exercises on one day--my kids would just die on those days. I also think those areas are better learned with lots of short practice.

I could see trying to do all of history or science on one day.

:iagree: Daily work is important in skill areas. Content areas like history, science, literature can be done weekly, I suppose, but, I like spreading it out over a week.

[Plaid Dad]

We do certain core subjects every day (Latin, math, writing), but the others only once a week. I think kids need steady practice with things like languages and math, so I wouldn't want to limit those to once a week, but it works well for us to do history, geography, and literature less frequently.

[MichelleWI]

This is precisely what we do. :) Certain subjects, depending upon the child, must be done daily. The reason we went to once-weekly on some subjects is because we greatly dislike interrupting ourselves in the middle of learning to move to the next thing. We get far more out of a full afternoon in Biology, for instance, than we get out of short sessions, five times per week.

[ArwenA]

I cannot imagine doing a week's worth of math or grammar exercises on one day--my kids would just die on those days. I also think those areas are better learned with lots of short practice.

I could see trying to do all of history or science on one day.

:iagree:
I think DC would drown in the one subject and not retain as much as they would if the lessons we spread out.

[hsmom]

When we first started last feb.'07 and until August '07, we did math daily, but we worked on one subject with it daily until it was finished. Like one whole month of Grammar, one who month of Science, etc.. I do want to add that every Friday we would do a quick review of everything cover already to make sure he was retaining it. It worked for us to get used to the whole homeschooling way of life. Also it really helped us build up more in places he needed the most help, before we moved on to doing school with all subjects daily.
I did notice my son excelled greatly. I do give credit to most of his progress so far to doing one who subject at a time until it was done.

[Donna T.]

I teach Language Arts (handwriting, spelling, grammar, copywork, memorization work, vocabulary, and reading) and Math everyday. We also do read-alouds everyday.

Otherwise:

Monday, Tuesday, and Friday - history, Bible, and related projects.

Wednesday and Thursday - science, related projects, and art.

[woolybear]

I guess I need to think this over some more,but listening to all of you I am thinking of doing basic skills daily and the other subjects perhaps once a week. What I've been finding is that since I love history and my older ds does too, we do a lot more of that. By the time we're done no one has much patience left for science,art, or any of the other subjects. I know my younger ds would really like more science and it seems to keep getting short changed. Perhaps with more focus on a single day (and pushing history to the back burner for at least a day) we'll be able to do a more satisfying job with it.

Thanks again,it really helped reading everyone else's thoughts.
Kim

[elegantlion]

We tried that for about two weeks and it BOMBED badly!! What we did instead was do the normal schedule Mon-Thur and on Friday focus on those subject that were getting missed.

[kdeno]

As I write my quarterly report I would like to see our homeschool covering less but mastering more. I would like the children to be retaining more. I would like to delve deeper into fewer topics. I think we need more character and Bible focus, yet I desire more academics. If only we could focus on one subject per week (this doesn't include skill areas like math) science week, math week etc. I know this is unrealistic. I am trying to fininsh HOD Beyond Little Hearts so we can do a Time Travelers Unit study. Hsing is a journey!

Kari