Daily Schedules

This is so interesting! Could those who are willing give us a little
breakdown of their schedule? It might give some of us some ideas!

I'll start. I have 7th, 5th, 2nd, and 1st grade and a 3 yo-- the three elder
children are doing LA pretty much as written. We start about 8 am with the
Bible portion, and I plan to be done with all the Language Arts (Writing,
Spelling, whatever it is) by about 9:30. We do History from 9:30-10:30 (give
or take) -- this is mostly just reading (I do some, they do some), and going
over whatever notes Dorian has included. Bit of review... whatever.
10:30-11:00 the kids take a recess. 11-12 we do Science (again a bit of a
lesson from LA, followed by reading, drawing, whatever). Lunch is 12-1,
followed by an hour of Math and an hour of self-directed reading (much of
which is history or science related at this point). So we are truly all done
by 3 at the latest. Now, those are our ALL-LA days. We have days where we
are forced into a half-day scenario because we have a learning co-op in the
afternoon or my 7th grader goes and babysits. On those days, we do some Math
and Language Arts, followed by PROJECTS!! That way we have a couple of hours
to do them. I should also explain that we are s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g each of
the first 3 units over 10 weeks apiece, going into more depth, following
rabbit trails here and there. My plan is to do the first 3 units this year,
the second 3 next year. I'm adding other little units in that interest us
(Christmas, Ancient China and Japan, and Science units on Weather, the
Arctic, perhaps Electricity). I'm thrilled with the somewhat less demanding
pace this gives us. We used to use Sonlight, which I did like in many ways,
but I was so DRIVEN to finish one book to get to the next!! LOL!! With this
pace, we REALLY take time for discussion, for extra reading, to stop and look
something up, etc. I know most gals wouldn't have a problem doing that
anyway, but I am so TASK oriented!! Is there a support group for that?

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Here are some emails sent in with samples of their daily schedules using AWOA. This list was compiled over the summer months of 2005. I asked everyone to tell their children's ages, the math program they are using (or have used), and a basic schedule. Pam in WI
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My children are (and grades they will be in Sept.): 16 son/11th grade, 12 daughter/7th grade, and 11 son/6th grade (but does same math as 7th grader)
We use Saxon with D.I.V.E. (the math tutor program that goes along with Saxon), we love Saxon because of the repetition (which is why some don't like it).
In the past, for math we've used: Modern Curriculum Press, Switched On Schoolhouse, and Bob Jones (with Home Sat).
5:30am: My dh and I get up, have coffee, and go for a one mile walk (and talk).
by 7:30am: kids are up, breakfast is done, and the morning rituals are done, and
it's time to start their chores
8:15am: dh leaves for work and kids are finishing up their chores. They can
have free time, if they get done before school
9:00am: school begins with prayer, Bible reading, and Social Studies
10:00am: snack (try to keep the snack around the unit we're working on
10:15am: Science, Spelling, Arts/crafts, and Grammar "homework" is assigned
12:00pm: lunch and break
12:30pm: math, grammar, personal reading, typing, and co-op homework(they attend a homeschool co-op on Fridays, which they take 4 classes each at)......this usually gives me time to help whoever needs it or time to catch up on that never ending pile of laundry and/or dishes Then when they are done with that they practice their AWANA (younger two) and do their Character Building (Plants grown up for the boys, Polished cornerstones for our daughter). We're usually done by 2:00/3:00pm (although our youngest son has been known to drag it out until 5pm............he's a day dreamer).

They have to do 20 minutes/day of P.E. Anytime after "school" they want. They can go for a fast pace walk, ride bikes, jog, go for a run, do laps in the pool......as long as it's 20 minutes non stop.................

Wow, that made me tired just thinking about it........ha/ha/ha!

Kim in WA
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We are in the Middle Ages right now, and here's a typical day (last Thursday) My children are ages 15ds, 14ds, 12dd, 11ds, 9dd & 9dd (identical twins!), 7dd and 3dd.

8:30 is when we begin our school day (usually) We have our "assembly" - pledges to flag & Bible, sing some hymns and prayer. Then we all sit down in the living room together, while the 6yodd colors and the 3yodd plays with Duplo blocks or something. (Believe it or not, this actually DOES happen - they all love listening to reading!)

8:45 Bible or Literature Passage. When we did Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, the Bible lesson was usually first. With this Middle Ages unit Dorian (the author) usually begins with the out-loud reading (because the book we are reading - or now listening to on tape - "The Door in the Wall" has great lead-ins to the Bible lesson!). There are vocabulary words for each chapter that is read, and then comprehension questions afterwards. We go over vocabulary and the comprehension questions orally. Then we do the Bible lesson, which gets it's start from the reading we just heard. We will be studying how the Bible came to us during this unit (and beginnings of the New Testament Church), and so we are memorizing the order of the books of the Bible right now. Also individual Scriptures that speak about the Bible itself. In the previous units, we memorized one longer passage over the course of the unit. (Like Psalm 139 when we studied the Body Systems). The units are planned for 30 school days, but we usually take 45 - 60 - very easy to take faster or slower depending on your child(ren).

9:15 Language Arts. Dorian gives a list of spelling words that usually are taken from the reading, and they write these in various ways over several days time. (Alphabetize one day, then break into syllables the next and so forth). There are "Student Pages" you can buy that have these on them. Yes, they are worksheets, but some of my children thrive on worksheets. Those who are rather ambivalent about worksheets don't mind them because they are not long, nor extremely complicated. And they are not just "busy-work."

9:45 Writing. The assignment they are currently working on is writing a friendly letter. I love how she takes the children step-by-step through writing. She doesn't just say "Write about. . ." Especially in the first unit, Ancient Egypt, she has them simply writing a list, them put it in chronological order, then write a sentence about each event, then editing, then re-writing, and so forth. It's all done over several days time so my non-writers haven't been too stressed out! When my twins were in 2nd grade, the writing part really was over their heads. I know some Moms would let them dictate to her, or other aids, but I didn't have time, nor space (There were 10 of us living in a 1000 sq ft apartment then - no attic, basement or garage!) for that sort of one-on-one. We just did a lot of it orally. They are picking writing up nicely now.

10:00 Science lesson. Not all days have a lesson, sometimes you just have them reading about a topic (books from the library). Right now we are beginning our study of plants, so they got to plant some seeds in peat pots that will later go in our garden (she said to start an herb garden, but we are doing tomatoes!) They are keeping a "Gardening Journal." I already had chives and parsley growing.

Just to interject something here about organization. Each of them have one notebook for each time period, with tabs for Bible (writing out the Bible verse is also their Penmanship), History, Science, etc. So when I say they have a "Garden Journal," that is simply notebook paper behind the Science tab. They write the date and what they did with their plants (When and what planted, how deep, etc, watered or not - some of them covered the pots with plastic wrap and poked holes to keep the soil moist). Each day when we begin the Science section, I have them write in their journals while I wait, or work with the 6yodd on hers (she copies or traces over what I write). If I simply wrote it as an assignment on the board, I was finding that some of them just "forgot" about it until it was days later and they couldn't remember what they did when!

10:30 History. Reading Dorian's commentary I read this out loud and we usually have some discussion.

10:45 Reading time. I always have on hand plenty of books about the Middle Ages from the library and some of our own (she has a list of suggested books at the front of each section).

11:15 Fine Arts. In this unit (Middle Ages)she gives you three options: A whittling project (can use soap for a younger child) or doing an "illumination," or studying the music of the time period. My daughters and one son chose to illuminate a Bible verse (calligraphy, pretty border, metalic gel pens for "gold leaf"), two sons want to whittle. You work on this throughout the unit. I went to the web and found some great sites for the illumination project. I also had one who did a 3-d castle out of cardstock from the www.papertoys.com site. Fun!

All of the above takes us from 8:30am to about 11:00 or 11:30, when we break for lunch. Then in the afternoon is when I give math assignments (some use Alpha Omega's Lifepacs, some SOS, oldest uses Saxon Alg 1/2), and work with the 6yo on her reading (100 easy lessons) and math (Miquon Math). They also finish up any spelling or other language arts, work on their fine arts project or something else from the morning. (Up until about a month ago the 3yodd napped in the afternoon - now she's awake and the older children take turns playing with her in her room.) This is when I finish supper, finish laundry, and do other household stuff, while also stopping to help with math or whatever. (I am also an early riser, so lots of household things get done before school in the morning).
Pam in Central WI
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We have 5th , 3rd & 2nd graders using AWOA. We start at 8 - 8:30 and do the lessons in order from the manual. We take a 10-15 min break at 9:30 for snacks, then dive right back in. We are usually done by noon. We fit in Horizons math about 3x/wk on “slower” AWOA days. Lots of our supplemental reading is done in the afternoon during QT. We also have a 5yo, 2yo & 3 mo old.
- Katie
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I have an 11 dd and 8ds.

Our schedule is pretty relaxed, we start school at 9:00 and do math (horizons for both) daily grams and penmanship all in a row, they then get about a 1/2 hour break, it usually happens about 10:30 or so, this is when our "chores" get thrown in, laundry, empty the dishwasher, feed the dog sort of stuff.

We then do AWOA until about lunchtime, we do not do any of the projects until after lunch and some days we are still reading after lunch but we seem to get through a big share of it. We then have lunch, and finish up, we are done by 2:00 at the very latest with a very rare art project being worked on later, my kids have to do some extra silent reading of their choice, this is done for about 1/2 to 45 minutes before bed. We do it exactly in the order Dorian has it written out, except for any hands on project and I think she almost always has those listed last.

We have quite a bit of outside activities during the afternoon, (sign language and a formal art program, gymnastics, piano lessons, etc) we made a decision to only do the first three units (egypt, Greece and Rome) so we did spread it out, we tried to finish most days as a whole day, just didn't do AWOA on some of the busy days and we did a month long Advent study in December. We did do math and grammar everyday, no matter what.

Sally
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I have two school age children: a fifth grader (age 10) and a third grader (age Cool. We also have a 4 yo old doing some preschool work and listening in.
We are using Mastering Mathematics for math.
We have been working 3 days a week since the beginning of July (we'll bump it up to 5 days this week) and this is what works best for us so far.

8:00 or so (after breakfast) The kids start with independent work. I write out their schedules on thier white boards the night before or early in the morning. They have math, Daily Grams, Easy Grammar, typing, handwriting and spelling they can do on their own. After I am done with my chores and have gotten the 4 year old settled, I join them ( or call them back if they have taken their stuff elsewhere) -- this is usually close to 9:00. We have our opening events -- prayer, pledge and singing. Then we go over Bible memorization, go over vocabulary and do either the literature reading and questions OR the writing assignment. We are taking 2 days to do each day. When we do the writing assignment, my 3rd grader dictates his paragraph to me and then part of the paragraph becomes copywork for him. After this together time, the kids continue to work independently. They'll have a short snack/ play break sometime in the morning. After lunch, we do either science or social studies. The kids also have silent reading time in the afternoon. We will be adding Spanish to the mix with Rosetta Stone and reading children's books in Spanish. The computer work they can
fit in their independent work time however they wish. The reading we will most likely do in the afternoon.

Michele in NC
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Hey everyone, this group is incredibly informative! I'm off and running tomorrow morning with our first day on Ancient Egypt. We're following the public school calendar and tomorrow is the first day of school.

In addition to doing AWOA, my dd will be doing math on the Florida Virtual School network. Plus, we'll be using all the wonderful resources offered here in Miami.

8-8:30 am Drop off younger kids at school
8:45-9:15 Lang. Arts/Reading
9:15-10:30 Lang. Arts/Grammar/Writing
10:30-10:45 15 min break
10:45-Noon FVS Math
12-12:30 Lunch
12:30-1:00 Social Studies/Geography
1:00-1:30 Science
1:30-2:00 on M, W and F Keyboarding/Mavis Beacon

One or two days out of the week we'll do art, photography, music, cooking or take a field trip to enhance the curriculum.

Both dd and I are excited about starting the school year!

Thanks to everyone for all the info, support and resources shared here.

Blessings,
Liz Mills
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I have two children- a 14y/o son and a 10 y/o daughter.
Now for the math question. Okay for up through 6th grade we use Horizons Math from Alpha Omega, both children like math and pick it up quickly. The Horizons math is fast paced and is considered to be Spiral learning, which has worked for both of my kids so far Smile We then tried Math U See for our son for seventh grade and it didn't work for us, at that time my husband wanted to start doing the math with him and neither liked learning it all over differently. I think Math U See is a great curriculum but it just didn't work out for us. We began using Abeka for Pre-Algebra and will continue to use it for Algebra I, after that I am not sure, we will analyze it at that point. I should add that my husband works with our son in the evenings or weekends and then gives him homework for him to do during the school day. It seems to work for now Smile
I am attaching the daily school schedule that we follow, it helps if we have specific time frames for each subject, not that we don't ever go off schedule, if the interest directs us otherwise, but it helps us to keep on task when necessary. The kids know that if they aren't diligent in getting their work completed that they use their free time to complete it. I spent too many years begging for school work to be completed so we could be done with the formal part of school everyday. We seem to be able to complete everything without too much catch up work later.
Blessing to you
Crystal Lewis
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(Crystal had this all in a neat chart that, unfortunately, did not "translate" well to this message board. Hope this is "readable" for all! Pam in WI)
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7:00 am Crystal (mom) Wake Up
7:05 am Crystal: Make Bed
7:10 am Crystal: Breakfast w/Brian
7:30 am Crystal: Shower/Get Dressed
7:45 am Crystal: Quiet Time
8:00 am Wake Up Kids
8:05 am Crystal: Miscellaneous Chore / Zachary (14yo) & Jessica(10yo) (children) Make Beds
8:10 am Zachary & Jessica: Shower
8:25 am Crystal: Make Breakfast / Zachary & Jessica: Get Dressed
8:30 am Zachary & Jessica: Eat Breakfast
8:45 am Crystal: Miscellaneous Chore / Zachary: Unload Dishwasher / Jessica: Empty Trash Cans
8:50 am Zachary & Jessica: Quiet Time
9:00 am All: Bible/Literature
9:30 am All: Writing
9:45 am All: Spelling/Vocabulary
10:00 am Crystal: Work with Jessica on Math / Zachary: Spanish
10:30 am All: History/Geography
11:00 am Crystal: Work with Zachary on Math / Jessica: Spanish
11:30 am All: Grammar
11:45 am Crystal: Fix Lunch
12:00 pm All: Eat Lunch
12:30 pm Crystal: Laundry / Zachary: Feed Dog / Jessica: Clean Up/Load Dish.
12:45 pm Crystal: Plan Dinner / Zachary: Empty Trash / Jessica: Sweep Kitchen
1:00 pm Crystal: Work with Jessica on Science / Zachary: Computer Skills
1:30 pm Crystal: Work with Zachary on Science / Jessica: Keyboarding
2:00 pm Crystal: Do Reading with Jessica / Zachary: Independent Work
2:30 pm All: Fine Art
3:00 pm Crystal: Computer Time / Zachary & Jessica: Free Time
4:00 pm Crystal: Start Dinner
5:00 pm Zachary: Read / Jessica: Set Table
5:15 pm All: Eat Dinner
5:45 pm Crystal: Laundry / Zachary: Load/Run Dishwasher / Jessica: Wash Dishes
9:00 pm Zachary & Jessica: Tidy Up Room
9:30 pm Zachary & Jessica: Get Ready for Bed

Hi Everyone,

I am posting a "new and improved" revised, second edition of our daily schedule (see how flexible AWOA is?) Laughing This is what is working best for us this year:

8:30 - Assembly: Pledges, hymns, prayer
8:45 - 9:30 - Five children do Math, 2 on the computer, others in workbooks, one takes the 3yo (almost4) to play somewhere, I work with 2nd grader on her Math/Reading.
9:30 - Begin AWOA as written in book, working until noon
12:00 - Lunch and chores until 1:30
1:30 - Back to school, finish whatever didn't get done before lunch and children work on individual stuff.
3:00 - "Formal" finish if not done already.

BTW, our 3 boys (15yo, 14yo & 11yo) all get up at 5:30 to do farm chores (bottle feeding 6 calves, feeding 4 hogs & 12 chickens, watering all animals, feeding 5 older steers). The girls (12yo, 10yo twins, 7yo, 3yo) all get up at 6:30 (um, well, the 3yo gets to sleep until 7:30), read their Bibles, have breakfast, do chores and get ready for school. I am ususally up at 4:45am to make sure the schedule keeps on track. We drink a LOT of coffee around here. Wink

We probably do 5 AWOA days in 6 days, just because sometimes things come up (think "loose steers and RODEO"), but pretty much we are staying on schedule.

Blessings to all!
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Pam in WI, bride of Rob, Mama to 8

As for us,we live in a mobile home and the room is limited.Space is far and few between.
We have a shelving unit and there we have all our books that we are using,might use,and have used and do not want to part with.
We school mostly in the living room and the kitchen.She sometimes takes her stuff back to her room to work on there too.
I try to take advantage of all little bit of free space in here-which is NOT alot.
We are praying for a bigger place.Lord knows that we need it.....
I envy- not covet- you all with houses and plenty of room.I can only pray........one day............