We are getting ready to start our school year in July! Our summers in the South can be so hot that most of July and August we can't go outside anyway so the past two years we have taken most of April and all of May and June off for our 'summer break'. It has worked great for us. We can spend the mild days outside playing, camping, taking field trips, and going on vacations before the summer crowds! Another thing I love about homeschooling - flexibility! We get to school around our lives, not live by the school schedule!
This year I am going to try something new - loop scheduling. I've thought about it before, but just never given it a real try. I think this year I will really need to try to stick to it because we have so many extra things we want to do. By extra things, I mean things other than math, science and English, but still important things that I want to include. Last year however, I had a hard time balancing the core subjects and the extra stuff. We would spend to much time on extras and then not have time for the core stuff or vise versa. It seemed like something was always getting left out. I feel like a loop schedule will correct that. At least I hope it will!
To create our loop schedule the first thing I did was make a list of EVERYTHING (that I know of so far) that I wanted CJ to work on this year. My list looked like this:
Math, Memorizing Multiplication Facts, History, Geography, Literature, Writing, Reading Comprehension, Grammar, Spelling, Vocabulary, Typing, Science, Life of Fred, Poetry, Presidents, Logic and Art.
Then from that I listed everything I thought needed to be done everyday at the top and everything else went on the loop list. So then I had:
Daily:
Literature
Math
History
Science
Grammar
Writing
Loop:
Reading Comprehension
Critical Thinking/Logic
Geography
Life of Fred
Spelling
Vocabulary
Presidents
Typing
Poetry
Art
Some of the daily subjects may end up not actually needing to be done daily because they are done through co-op classes and I'm not sure yet what the assignment schedule will be like. But I want them on the daily schedule since the work will have to be done on time in order to turn in at co-op. I don't want it stuck in a loop.
Next, I had to figure out how the schedule was actually going to work on a daily basis. First, I decided our school day was going to be 9am - 3pm, with an hour for lunch 4 days per week. Why 9-3? Well, we aren't early risers so I don't expect us to be ready start before 9am and I figured with a loop schedule there needs to be a clear stopping point since there is no set check list of things that need to be done each day. Last year I used a checklist, some days we would be done by noon. Some days we wouldn't get done until 4pm. And most days we never got to everything on the list, so things always felt incomplete. There was little consistency and CJ would get a little stressed over not knowing from one day to the next when his school day was going to be finished. So, I just picked 3pm, it seemed like a good time to stop. I have always used a 4 day a week schedule. The 5th day is our co-op day and when co-op is not meeting, it's great to have a catch-up / movie / documentary day. I also had to figure out when to move on to the next thing on the list. My final schedule looks like this:
Daily:
Math (Teaching Textbooks)- one lesson per day
Literature (IEW Reading Roadmaps) - read aloud everyday, at least one chapter (about 20-30 minutes), with monthly lessons
Grammar (Jr. Analytical Grammar) - follow lesson plan w/curriculum
History (History Odyssey) - co-op class
Science (Physics) - co-op class
Writing (IEW) - co-op class
Loop:
Reading Comprehension (Reading Comprehension Grades 5-6 Workbook) - one lesson
Critical Thinking/Logic (Building Thinking Skills Level 2) - one lesson
Geography (Trail Guide to US Geography) - one lesson
Spelling (Spelling Workout Book E) - one lesson
Life of Fred - one chapter
Vocabulary (Word Wise 4) - one lesson
Presidents (notebooking) - complete one step
Typing (Typing Instructor for Kids) - one lesson
Art (various things) - 20-30 minutes
Poetry (Read and Understand Poetry Grade 5) - one lesson
After we go through all of the daily lessons and do any homework that needs to be done for co-op classes, we move on to the loop schedule, either completing one lesson or a time limit for each subject, and just work through it until the school day is over. The following day, after daily lessons are complete, we start from where we left off the previous day on the loop schedule. Does that make sense? For example, if on Monday at 3pm we are working on Spelling, then Tuesday, after the daily stuff is done, we will start on Life of Fred. I think this schedule will make me and CJ happy! He will have his list to follow so he knows exactly what needs to be done and he will know when he can be done for the day. I will be happy because I know that eventually everything will have a turn to be worked on! And then main reason I will be happy... CJ will be happy! Our days always go better when he is happy!
Have you ever tried a loop schedule? What does your daily schedule look like?
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