New Schedule

My goodness, we're already done with five weeks of school!  This was a shake-up week.  After our fourth week, I did an assessment of sorts - a shift in our morning itinerary meant a bunch of changes.  I came up with a two stage implementation plan.  The first stage was this week, the second will occur after we return from a weekend jaunt to ND to visit my Grandmother and Aunt & Uncle.  Because of various times we have to be out of the house (co-op for everyone, piano lessons for the older two princesses, ballet for Princess L, speech therapy for Princess L, Awana, etc.) I have had a hard time figuring out a schedule.  I finally came upon the revelation that we have one of three different types of days.  So I figured out a schedule for each type of day and gave each one a color.  We now have either a red day, a blue day or a green day.  Each day's schedule is posted and that gives us a ballpark to work with.  Also, I've really felt the need to move science back into our regular school year.  My plans for the last two years have had us doing science during school breaks.  But the reality is that stuff comes up over breaks, and only about one third of my plans get completed.  Therefore, we didn't finish our curriculum for either of the last two years.  Well, God used this blog entry to help me figure out what to do.  Since DH decided he wanted to be a part of our Bible time and we moved it to the evenings after he gets home and eats, I have an extra half hour in the mornings to work with.  So here is what came of it.

2010_2011 School Daily Schedule 2

The oldest two princesses and I have a two hour group time three times a week.  We have a looping schedule with IEW (writing), science, spelling, MCT (language arts), and a memory work section.  For science we are continuing where we left off in God's Design For Heaven & Earth: Our Universe.  Our memory work will include the longer passages that our co-op is doing this year, learning all the states and capitols, and learning the presidents in order.  I have a list of the assignments we need to accomplish in each area and we work at one until we finish that assignment.  Then we move to the next subject in the loop.  I figure most weeks we should get through the loop about one and a half times.  Sometimes it will be more, and sometimes less, but I won't sweat it.  Since we will be finishing our non-looped subjects the second week of May, I figure we can use the other four weeks until the public schools are done to work on the looped subjects and finish them up. 

The other thing that I switched pertains to our TOG schedule.  Up to now, our first day has been Monday and our finish up day on Friday.  Princess E and I have tried to do our discussion times on Fridays.  But last year she never finished her AQ/TQ questions by Friday afternoons and discussion would get pushed off to Saturdays or even Sundays.  And then we were in a time crunch, and neither of us really wanted to do it then so we had bad attitudes.  It was getting to be too much.  Once again, God showed me what to do through another TOG blog.  Our week will now begin on Fridays.  I will sit with Princess E and go through the AQ/TQ questions and underline the key words.   We have started going through some of her reading assignments together and leaving post it notes with which questions are answered where.  (Thanks, Pam, for that advice.) I also have her trying to summarize verbally what the page or section is talking about.  She will have to do some reading over the weekends.  She will have to write out her AQ/TQs by Tuesday so that we can do discussion on Wednesdays.  Princess M will be sleeping, Princess S will be at piano, and Princess L can have her Jump Start Computer time - that way they are all occupied and not able to interrupt.  Then Thursday will be evaluation day, when we decide to use them.  Sometimes I just give them out as assignments to find the answers and turn in.  It depends how busy we are any given week.  We are starting the switch after our ND trip, however.  Too much at one time is overload.