The Doom of a Homeschool Schedule

A Homeschool Schedule

It was our final year of homeschooling. My daughter was in the 12th grade, and as usual, I made a structured time based schedule for her school day. It was very generous - she had two hours each for her two favorite classes, art and English. And as usual, I made a full-page poster of the schedule to hang on her door so that she could see it every morning before leaving her room. This schedule was wonderful for her. Below is her schedule.

• 6:00 Get Up
• 6:30 Exercise
• 7:30 Breakfast
• 8:15 Economics (1 semester)
• 9:00 Art III (2 hours minimum each day)
• 11:00 Japanese II (45 minutes minimum each day)
• 12:00 Lunch
• 1:00 English IV (2 hours minimum each day)

Structure versus Realism

At the beginning of every school year, I created a schedule similar to the one above. We could follow it as long as no one became sick. Each year around October and November some body would get sick, usually both children, so the schedule spirals out of control and becomes something like the altered schedule below.

A Typical-for-Us K - 7th Grade Altered Schedule

• Get up
• Eat
• Get Ready (clothes, teeth, hair, make bed)
• School (Typically the 3-r's because I deem the 3-r's as most vital to learning in general.)
• Lunch
  
• School (Typically science, history, arts or what is left)

No Problem, trust me, a loose schedule is workable. Don't let it make you crazy, or me crazy. I'm not crazy.

Of course I had the option of restarting the schedule, with or without modification, after everyone recovered and I usually did.

2007-08 Altered Schedule

Back to my daughter's final school year at home - She became sick as usual during mid to late autumn. We converted to "survival mode" and the list below became her schedule during the time she was feeling puny.

• Get up
• Eat
• Get Ready
• Economics, Art, Japanese, English
• Lunch fits in there somewhere - usually before English
  

Value of the Schedule

Despite not sticking to the schedule with precision, it still has value. If anything, it helps the kids to remember what to do between sneezes.

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Do Your Math - A Motivation

A Timed Schedule

Rules:
1. Finish in the allotted time and earn the 15-minute break.
2. If you do not finish math by 9:45, you do not get the break. Instead you will have to work through the break and math is over at 10:00 and the rest will be homework later.
3. Finish math before 9:45 and the break starts at that time and ends at its normal time of 10:00.

Two Sample Schedules with earned Break

A timed math schedule with a 15-minute break following the completion of math motivated my children. They would work very hard to earn their 15 minute break. If they could manage it, they tried to finish math fifteen minutes early to have a half an hour break.