What do you think of my schedule?

[sagira]

Everybody here has already started school, but we're starting next week. Feel free to critique my schedule. I'm a newbie :)

Ds is 5, starting Kindergarten.

Monday-Thursday
We start at 11 AM and end by 1 PM
Of course if ds' attention span is longer and he wants to delve deeper into a subject or do an activity twice, we'll do that. But I want to whet his appetite for more, generally. CM short lessons :)

Calendar (5 min)
Math (15 min)
Poetry (5 min)
Penmanship (15 min)
Literature (15-20 min)
Phonics (15 min)
Reading (Ds reads aloud from basic prereaders or readers for 5 min)

Friday

Calendar (5 min)
Religion (15 min)
Natural Science (30 min)
Music (Piano lesson at home with me -- 15 min)

Sunday

Art (30 min)

Nature Walks 2X week
Habit Training throughout school year -- one habit at a time, using Laying Down the Rails

In January I plan to add My World and Globe, a gentle and short introduction to Geography concepts. I would add that on Friday, another 15 minutes.

I'll let you know how it works.

[lovelearnandlive]

Sounds great to me!! It sounds like you have everything covered, and your time frame sounds reasonable.

I'm a newbie, too. :001_smile:

[krazzymommy]

Everybody here has already started school, but we're starting next week. Feel free to critique my schedule. I'm a newbie :)

Ds is 5, starting Kindergarten.

Calendar (5 min)
Math (15 min)
Poetry (5 min)
Penmanship (15 min)
Literature (15-20 min)
Phonics (15 min)
Reading (Ds reads aloud from basic prereaders or readers for 5 min)



Hello! We are newbies, too. We've just started PreK with my son, so I'll let you know some things that are working/not working for us...but since your son is older, your schedule may be more appropriate. Just something to consider. :)

We do our opening (about 5 min.) and then we do phonics first. This requires the most brain power from my son, so I try to hit it early on. Depending on what kind of math you are using, I would probably bump the phonics up. We're using Saxon K, which is mainly just playing with manipulatives, making some graphs...nothing too intense. Is your literature time your read-aloud time? I save that for last and we normally do that for about 30 min. DS has no trouble sitting that long for books and would probably last longer, but I'm kind of done by that time. :)

Just some thoughts from our household. :) I think your time frame is good. We school for 1 1/2 hrs., but like I said, 30 min. is read aloud and 20 min. is arts/crafts. For my preschooler, it's working out great. :)

I've always heard the advice of putting the "hardest" thing early on, so whatever is the most challenging is what I would put first - math, phonics, penmanship....

HTH!

[gandpsmommy]

It sounds great to me. I love it that you are planning short sessions. We are starting our third year of homeschooling and we've found it to be a successful strategy for us. Good luck and have fun with kindergarten!

[LanaTron]

BTW, we haven't started our year yet. We are still finishing up last year. :D Our year officially will start sometime in September, and maybe as late as the first Monday in October.

Here's what my K/1st grader will be doing this coming year:

Daily individual work:
*1 page ETC
*Phonics Pathways (building to one whole page)
*Bob Books (sometimes, as she desires)
*Handwriting Without Tears (1-2 pages)
*Singapore 1 Math (no more than 1 exercise/day)
*Geography

All total, this will take her < 1 hour each day, probably < 30 minutes. Once she is reading, she will begin reading from Pathway Readers. And if her reading really takes off, we will add in the grammar parts of FLL and also do Writing With Ease level 1.

With one or all of her siblings she will do these as we come to them in our loop schedule:

*Ecoutez! Parlez!--oral parts only (although she may insist on doing the written portions, too)
*My World Science (red)
*Art or Art Appreciation or Music Appreciation

I read aloud to her during the older dc's reading time, and she listens in on a higher level read aloud with her siblings at bedtime.

Have a great home school year!

Yours,

[sagira]

We do our opening (about 5 min.) and then we do phonics first. This requires the most brain power from my son, so I try to hit it early on. Depending on what kind of math you are using, I would probably bump the phonics up. We're using Saxon K, which is mainly just playing with manipulatives, making some graphs...nothing too intense. Is your literature time your read-aloud time? I save that for last and we normally do that for about 30 min. DS has no trouble sitting that long for books and would probably last longer, but I'm kind of done by that time. :)

Just some thoughts from our household. :) I think your time frame is good. We school for 1 1/2 hrs., but like I said, 30 min. is read aloud and 20 min. is arts/crafts. For my preschooler, it's working out great. :)

I've always heard the advice of putting the "hardest" thing early on, so whatever is the most challenging is what I would put first - math, phonics, penmanship....HTH!

That's great advice. I was thinking of putting a break after Penmanship anyway. Takes quite a bit of effort for him at this point. Hmmm.. maybe I can switch and do this:

Calendar (5 min)
Math (15 min)
Poetry (5 min)
Penmanship (15 min)
BREAK (15 min)
Phonics (15 min)
Reading (Ds reads aloud from basic prereaders or readers for 5 min)
Literature (15-20 min)

This way he'll be fresh enough to do his phonics and be rewarded with cuddling and read-alouds during Literature. Thank you!

I'm always open to learning something new. Lanatron, your schedule looks good! I forgot to include Spanish! We have a CD-ROM, but I need to schedule it for Friday. Some tweaking is in order...!