Thursday, August 19, 2010

Charlotte Mason Scheduling


Uncharted waters. We're attempting something new this year. It takes a bit of planning but I think I have us all straightened out on the path to following Charlotte Mason's way of learning. Exciting times! 

MONDAY-THURSDAY
9-915 am - Scripture Memory
915-945 am - Math
945-10 am -(M/W) Dictation, (T/TH) Hymn Study
10-1030 am - (M/W) Science, (T/TH) Copywork
1030-1045 am -RECESS
1045-11 am - Bible
11-1130 am - History
1130-12 pm -  (M) Poetry/Music Study,(T/TH) Latin, (W) Geography
12-1230 pm - (M/W) Typing/Foreign Language, (T/TH) Grammar
1230-1245 pm - Piano
1245-145 pm - Lunch/Literature (reading aloud)
145 pm - ?? Assigned Reading

This evens out to about 22 hours of school work for the week. For the amount of weeks we're taking off, I need about 33 hours a week. Counting Fridays, evening reading/games, weekend activities and church, I'm sure we'll be able to count an other 11 hours. Our state requires 1000 hours so I don't have to worry about how many days we're in school.

FRIDAY
My plan right now is to alternate GAME Days and ART Days. Game days will be spent playing math games, word games, Yahtzee, Life, WordUp, Smath, etc... Whatever is in the game closet.  Art days will be spent learning about a new artist, attempting their type of art, learning about new techniques, supplies, etc... On either of these days we might go on a field trip to a game place (such as miniature golf, arcade, laser tag, marble factory, bowling, swimming, etc...). Art days we might take a class, meet friends for an art day, or go to a museum. Any number of additional field trips could happen for history and or science as well, on this day.

Subject Details:
Scripture Memory. I'm just winging it here. The bible is so big and so good, I'm just picking favorite passages right now such as Lord's Prayer, Ten Commandments, Beatitudes, Love chapter: I Corinthians 13, Psalm 100, Psalm 23, a lot of Proverbs, Romans 12, the Christmas chapter: Luke 2:1-20, and so on. 

Copywork/Dictation. I'll pull from various books, the bible, poems, etc... for this content. There's a good article here about dictation with links at the end.

Bible. I used this link for daily stories, alternating old/new testament.

History. We're starting with The Story of the World, Vol. 2 about the middle ages, and going out from there. I'll share a list of the books we have on order through the library and ones to order, later.

Science. Since we get bored quickly on one subject I'm ordering quality books from the library (some bios on scientists) and will supplement with similar books. Not sure is we'll do a notebook this year on our science studies or now. I'll share my list of books later too.

Literature/Assigned Reading. I'm compiling a list for the year. Literature will be us reading a book together (right now we're working on the Hobbit)  and Assigned reading will be things she can do on her own. With literature we'll be sure to do some narration in written or verbal form.

MATH/LATIN - I'm still deciding on a math book/program or whatever. We still have some catching up to do from last year, namely percents so that will keep us busy for a bit. Latin is a new subject to me. I've been researching but don't know what is the best program out there. I've ordered a few books from the library so we'll see if those help get us started. 

That's enough talking for now. There's more to share about this process; its a different way of thinking. Kind of feel like you're juggling but they say (whoever 'they' are) that it seems so simple once you get going with it that you think you're doing something wrong. I'm hoping for that. I'm tired and done with the years of feeling frustrated and inadequate as a teacher.

** The girls are making up a batch of Ginger Snaps for grandpa for his birthday. We're eating lunch with him tomorrow to celebrate. We also have a windfall of 10 lbs of tomatoes so its time to start canning salsa. I'm off to supervise! **

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am one of the "they say" people. We finished our first week of school back in 2007 and I was certain I must be doing something wrong. Surely it could not be that easy? Once you get the hang of it, it's definitely much simpler.

I had already planned a blog for tomorrow about why I feel so blessed homeschooling and how it was because of Charlotte Mason. Now I am even more inspired to finish it. :-)

Anonymous said...

Oh, and I realized you are doing a 4 day school week. Duh! Your days would be a bit longer then. :-)

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