In preparing for the new school year, one of the most important considerations to make is how to set up the daily schedule. A good schedule provides a balance between academic subjects, household chores, extracurricular activities, and leisure time. The flexibility of the homeschooling schedule can provide a temptation to commit to so many extracurricular activities (sports, musical instruments, drama clubs, etc.) that there is little or no time left for academic subjects or family time. It is important to remember that by homeschooling we are educating our children for life. No one wants to be the proud parent of an Olympic athlete or world-class musician who cannot write his name or do basic arithmetic.
In planning a good schedule, one needs to start by making a list of all the things he wants or needs to incorporate into the schedule. These items should be prioritized, and one must be willing to cut out the less important items that just do not fit.
Start by setting out the activities which must be done every week: preparing and eating meals, washing dishes, laundry, grocery shopping, etc. These activities have to be done and any practical schedule needs to account for them. Many families start out the year optimistically with a schedule only to find that they are unable to keep up with it, often because they have forgotten to include the ordinary, everyday jobs.
After listing the daily chores, add the other activities that are non-negotiable: daily Mass, doctor’s appointments for children who have health problems, therapy for children who have physical disabilities or learning issues, travel to and from work, and work time, for high school students who have part-time jobs. These are often activities over which one has little or no control regarding the time of day in which they happen. If any or all of these need to be incorporated, some extracurricular activities will probably have to be cut out and one may need to get creative with when and how to do particular academic subjects.
Then list the subjects and school time each student will need. The Mother of Divine Grace syllabi all list the amount of time that each subject should take. In addition, the grade school syllabi come with sample daily and weekly schedules. In K-2nd grades the student needs about 1- 1 1⁄2 hours a day of academic time. In 3rd-5th grades the student needs about 2-3 hours a day of academic time. In 6th-8th grades the student needs about 3 1⁄2-4 hours a day of academic time. And in high school the student needs about 5-6 hours of academic time. This academic time is essential and needs to be considered as such. One cannot expect a student to keep up with the assignments in the syllabus unless he is given enough time to complete them. Sometimes one thinks that his children are unable to manage the assignments; it may appear that the syllabi are too hard, the assignments are unreasonable, or the children
are incapable. However, it may well be that the children are so busy with a job, playing basketball and soccer, doing Irish dancing, practicing piano and violin, taking part in theatrical productions and political debates, babysitting for mom when she runs errands, and other such activities, that they cannot give the necessary time to their subjects. All the extracurricular activities mentioned above are good and worthwhile, but they should not be done at the expense of school.
After noting the daily chores, necessary outside activities, and school time, put down extracurricular activities. This is where one has flexibility in his schedule when it comes to choosing what to do. But if there is a lot going on in the first three categories, there won’t
be as much time to give to extracurricular activities. It is a good idea to talk to the children about the extracurricular activities that they are interested in. They can help prioritize the extracurricular activities in the event that some need to be cut out.
Once everything to be done is listed, make a rough chart for the week. Put down seven days (if the weekends will be used for some of the activities) or five days (if just scheduling the workweek). Divide each day into parts (either by the hour or half hour).
Now, pencil into the chart the activities which have to be done each week and must be done at a particular time, such as daily Mass,
breakfast, doctor’s appointments, therapy, student’s jobs, etc. Don’t forget to allot time for travel and traffic. Then pencil in the daily chores and divide these among all the members of the family: making and washing up after breakfast and lunch, doing and folding laundry, setting the table for dinner, making dinner, tidying up the play and school areas before dad gets home, etc. When penciling these in, keep in mind that no one person can do everything; neither an adult, nor one or two of the children. The daily chores need to be divided up amongst all the children except perhaps the very youngest. My sister’s four year old insisted that she be the one who set the table each night and she took great pride in doing it.
Next pencil in the school subjects. Here one may need to be creative, and one definitely needs to divide the school time for each child between time spent with mommy and time spent on his own. Younger children will need more mommy time, while older children can do the majority of their subjects on their own. Nevertheless, all students need some time with mom during the week, particularly for religion discussions. Make sure that time for these discussions is included in your schedule. Sometimes these discussions can be done in conjunction with other activities, for example, one can discuss religion questions with a student while folding laundry or driving to music lessons. If there are toddlers or babies who need time and attention, try to include them in the school day when possible and when that is not possible, apportion the “babysitting” among all of the children in the family. One can’t expect the oldest child to spend all morning watching the baby and still get all of her school done. Since the younger children have shorter school days than the older children, schedule the older children to work primarily on their own in the morning, and during that time focus on working with the younger children. Then in the afternoon have the younger children play with the toddler and baby, and focus on the helping the older children.
Once all the subjects have been penciled in, look at the amount of time that is left. This is time that the children can spend on extracurricular activities. If one only has an hour left in each day, then there is only an hour for extracurricular activities. This means that one probably can’t schedule more than one extracurricular activity that day. If sports practice, or music lessons, that will take more than the allotted time for that day need to be scheduled, some of the subjects for the day may need to be moved to the following
day. Just keep in mind that extra subjects in one day can be hard on students. The MODG syllabi generally give the student all or most of Friday off. This would be a good day for extracurricular activities. However, if one takes extra time off earlier in the week, all or part of Friday will be needed to catch up on those subjects.
Once everything is penciled in, discuss the schedule with your children. Older children may have strong opinions about when they will do certain subjects. Of course they need to fit in with the rest of family, but if it is possible to accommodate their desires, do so, as it is easier to work with them than against them. Make any last minute adjustments and then finalize the schedule. You can use the computer to print up schedules for each child or make a large family chart. Post the schedules in a prominent place (i.e. on the refrigerator or the blackboard) and if necessary provide a way for you and the children to check things off as they have been completed. This helps you to keep track of where you are in the day and what is still ahead.
Tips for Staying with the Schedule:
1. Stick to the allotted time for each subject. If children struggle with one or two subjects, they often end up getting behind in all of their subjects. It is much harder for a student to get back on track when he is behind in every subject than if he is just behind in one or two subjects. For this reason, if 1 hour has been scheduled for math, but at the end of the hour the student is only done with
1/3 or 1/2 of the lesson, he still needs to stop. If he doesn’t stop, but rather uses up his history time to do more of the math, he is likely to end up behind in both history and math, and in any case he will be behind in history. If the math is regularly taking up two or more periods of time, then the other subjects will never be done.
2. Schedule some homework time each day or week, particularly if your children often get behind in their schoolwork. An extra 1⁄2 hour or hour at the end of the school day gives the student an opportunity to complete assignments (especially math or Latin assignments) that he could not get done in his earlier scheduled time. This also provides the student with an extra motivation. If he can get all of his work done earlier in the day, then he has this “homework” time available as free time.
3. Have the children help with the correcting. At the end of the day and the week there will be a fair amount of work to correct. Each child should be doing one math lesson a day and subjects like science and religion tend to have quizzes or tests periodically. Religion and history also have essays and papers which need to be read. If there isn’t a lot of time, some parents just skip much of the correcting. But this can cause trouble for the student; if he is missing problems in math, he needs to be told. He will need to review those concepts and rework the problems. If he is learning to write, he needs constructive criticism on each composition. If no one tells him to improve his paragraphs, or his grammar, or his spelling, then he probably won’t – or it will take him much longer to work it out on his own. Some things, like math lessons, can be corrected by anyone, but one must be careful about having the student correct his own work. By providing him with an answer key either during or after the lesson, one is also providing him with an occasion of sin. However, a 6th grader can mark the incorrect answers on an 8th grader’s math lesson and visa versa. Then each can go through his own lesson and re-work the incorrect problems. Mom or dad then only need to check the re-worked problems. If the student has missed a problem the second time around, go over it with him. Your children can probably help with correcting each other’s science, grammar, spelling and Latin quizzes and test. However, mom and dad are the only people who can correct essays or papers. Make a bin or folder where the children can put their essays as they are completed. At the end of each day or week (depending on your schedule) the papers in the bin can be corrected.
4. Use certain activities as motivation. Children usually respond well to motivation and incentives. When I was in 4th or 5th grade I really wanted to take gymnastics. My mom looked into it and found that the gymnastics classes were on Thursday afternoon. She made a proposal to me: if I could get all of my school done for the entire week by Thursday at noon, then I could go to gymnastics that afternoon. I never missed a class! Later I found out that there was another class on Tuesday afternoons. This time I made the proposal: if I could get all of my school done for the entire week by Tuesday at noon, I could go to both classes. I have to admit, I rarely made it to the
Tuesday class, but I had an incentive that helped me to get my school done. As long as my interest in gymnastics lasted, I had no trouble getting my school done by Wednesday or Thursday and was able to enjoy having Fridays off!
5. Don’t waste the time spent in the car. This can be a perfect time to get things done that tend to be put off and might not be done otherwise. For example, on the way to morning Mass say the rosary with all of your children and on the way back listen to classical music. This way everyone says the rosary and everyone does music appreciation together. On the way to the doctor’s office or therapy discuss religion or literature with one student. Children can do their history readings in the car, or everyone can listen to a book on tape.
6. Re-evaluate the schedule after a few weeks. If the schedule has not been successful, look at the amounts of time allotted for everything. Is there enough time for essentials? Is the day starting late because breakfast can’t be eaten and the dishes washed up in the time given? Or did the schedule not take into account traffic and thus one finds that he must leave earlier and earlier for soccer practice, thus cutting into school time? Re-adjust the schedule and keep in mind that something may have to be cut out. It is better to do a little less and get it done, then to spend an entire week trying to catch up to an overly busy schedule.
7. Scheduling can be hard, but it is helpful to remember that children learn by example. By making a schedule for the entire family and helping each child to stick to his schedule, one is preparing them for life. When they are in college, they are going to need to learn to balance their study and recreation time. If they have already seen the importance of making time for the religious and academic
life, they are more likely to make time for them on their own. Helping a child stick to a schedule makes it much more likely that he will stick to the schedules that he makes later in life.