My Daily Schedule

 

Britta McColl  

Endorsed SWR Trainer

 

Time	Task
8:00	Bible – mom or dad read aloud
8:20	Bible – you read/memory work
8:30	Sing-hymns/rounds/Latin songs
8:40	Read aloud -kids draw in Nature Journal
8:50	Copybook-Bible verse/Latin/ or poem
8:55	Latin-Latina Christiana I
9:00	Kids- Empty dishwasher and recess
9:30	Math (MUS & RS Math) Scott/Linnea
10:00	Spelling (SWR)  Scott/Linnea
10:30	History notebook  Wed/Thurs-Ben/Bruce
11:00	Spelling (SWR) Ben/Bruce
11:30	Math-MUS Ben/Bruce
Anytime in AM	Silent Reading (History/ Science/ Literature) They go off and read while I work with the others.
Anytime	McCall-Crabbs  Wed/Fri
12:00	Lunch
	Lunch Clean-up
1:00	Kids play in backyard or nature walk
2:00	Silent Reading (History/Science/ Literature)
2:45	Practice Piano
3:00	Run laps
3:15	Typing Instructor-2 days a week
3:30	Schools out--Play anything
4:30	Children/Mom Clean Downstairs

 

I am putting this schedule up because a lot of people ask me about my schedule.  I am not saying that this need be the schedule for your homeschool, but just letting you know what is working well for us.  Each family is different and we all have a unique call from the Lord in our lives, so please set your own schedule according to your call.  But within that call remember that children work well with a regular schedule.  They know what to expect each day.  By helping them regulate their life now, you are giving them life long skills of getting up at a regular time and completing regular tasks.

 

The times on this schedule are approximate.  We school 5 days a week but there are only 4 squares for each child because that’s all the space we had.  They mark each square like a tally mark with four marks and then a slash across all 4 marks on Friday. We generally wake up around 6:30 to 7:00 am and start school at 8:00 am each day.  Sometimes we don’t get our morning work done until about 1:00 PM or later and lunch is pushed back.

 

In the first hour of the morning we cover many subjects with about 6 of the children ranging in ages 4 to 14 all at the kitchen table.  If you look closely, you will see that we cover Bible, music, art, Latin, and science (nature study) all during this morning time of only one hour.  We also have a before bedtime read aloud which is not listed on this schedule.  I choose from a variety of read alouds in the category of missionary stories, biographies of great composers, literature, to nature and science readings. Next fall we plan to read aloud Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan in the morning.  Each child will act/read an assigned part in the play.  I also plan to add picture study, in the Charlotte Mason fashion for the morning hour next fall.

 

This streamlined schedule reflects our work in early fall and late spring.  I have a lighter schedule during these times because I want to be able to spend more time outdoors with the children.  When it gets colder outside around mid October we add on more subjects such as grammar (Beginning 
Grammar Readers by Wanda Sanseri or Easy Grammar by W. Phillips) and Geography (Modern Curriculum Press, GeoSafari etc.).  In addition, the schedule does not reflect the work my oldest high school age students are doing. They have their own schedule and work that I help them with as needed.  The written schedule reflects the work of the children ages 4 to 10 at this writing who are still being taught with SWR.

 

By the end of this year all my kids (ages 6, 7, 9, and 10) doing SWR were up to 40 words per week.  I review phonograms, dictate 10 new words a day, do any called for chart work, and quiz on those same ten words plus a few extra words immediately after the dictation.  If there was a chart that day, select chart words appear on the quiz.  This means they get 10 new words Monday through Thursday, for a total of 40 new words each week.  On Friday I give the test on the 40 words.  In nice weather we sometimes sit at a table in our backyard for spelling and I confess we watch birds in between spelling words.

 

We are able to complete our SWR work in about 30 minutes each day, sometimes a bit less, sometimes a bit more.  One time my 8 and 9 year-old boys wanted to see how fast they could complete 10 words from dictation with a 10 words quiz.  As they worked their very hardest at their List M WISE words, I timed them, and they were able to complete this task in only 11 minutes!  But on the average day-especially if we have some chart work, they usually stretch out their SWR work into 30 minutes.  I remember our first year with SWR.  I had heard that some people could get their SWR work done in only 20 minutes and I felt so discourage as our SWR work often took 45 minutes or more to complete.  What was I doing wrong?  Nothing, really.  It was just that learning this new system was taking us all some time.  I also learned to pace our work better.  In subsequent years I would break up the Consonant-Vowel Reference Page into three days for my youngest learners.  As the years have gone on my kids write faster and they know the SWR system so well that they can reason through a dictation much faster.  So, if you are that beginning mom and feeling discouraged, take heart!  It does get quicker each month and year.  You are building a foundation of stone that will last through the ages and enhance every subject area of study for your children.

 

Q. What do my other children do while I am teaching one group with SWR?

 

A.  Play, read, or make something!

For example, when I am working with Scott and Linnea, Ben and Bruce are either doing silent reading on their own—usually in their room, or building legos, watching grasshoppers hatch from their eggs in our backyard, doing a science experiment or making a “paper world.”  When I am working with Ben and Bruce, Scott and Linnea are reading or building legos or making something.  In five minute snatches of time I am also teaching Fiona, age 4, her phonograms and how to write letters using large motor.  For more on this go to:

 

SWR and Preschoolers (And non-reading beginners!!!)

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/74652/

 

 

SWR Cursive Sandpaper Letters—New release!

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/310294/

 

 

How do we fit in history, literature, and science?

 

I do some read alouds (Apologia- Elementary makes great read alouds!), but mainly my children read living books on their own in the subject areas of history, literature, and science.  My high school aged students also have some traditional texts in science (Apologia, top choice!)  All the children who are fluid readers have two “silent reading times” in the morning and afternoon which they do independently.  Starting at about 2^nd   grade- 3^rd grade on up all the children read at least one living book of novel length per week in the category of history, science, or literature.  I make up each child’s book list in the summer and they follow it through the year checking off each book they read as they go along.  In the afternoons I snuggle up under the covers with the youngest kids who are not yet independent readers and we “trade read” books together.  I read a page, and then they read a paragraph or page (depending on their ability.)

 

As you see, our schedule is light in the afternoon allowing for plenty of time outdoors to play, gardening, or going on a nature walk.  I do the main teaching in the morning and by afternoon the learning is informal or the child learns by reading a book on their own, making something on their own, or by helping me pack boxes or with a baking project or sewing project.

 

Whatever method you choose to school your children with, I highly recommend that you provide them with a corner stone of Bible and a heavy dose of “living books” for their reading as well as time to explore their own interests.  Children who are taught with SWR will have the skills to read a wide range of books with ease.  As a result of being taught with SWR and surrounded by living books, my children love to read and are self learners.  They read outside of their required reading in their areas of interest. My 9 year old does extra reading on the topic of horses and my 10 year old loves to read about bees or any kind of living creature. My 14 year old is currently reading the unabridged version of BeoWulf and a Shakespeare play (both unassigned) for fun! He has studied Greek and Latin, and wants to study Italian next year.  My oldest son is about to graduate from homeschool and told me he wants to keep on learning, and if I could provide him with some more books when he is done, he would read them.

 

Don’t Put the Cart Before the Horse!

 

The biggest hindrance I see to success with SWR is not following the suggested schedule for grade level on page 64 of SWR.  There is a chart that suggests 10 new words a week for Kindergarten, 20 new words a week for 1^st grade, and 40 new words a week for 2^nd grade on up.  Some people are at their 3^rd or 4^th year with SWR and still at only 20 words a week and their children are not spelling and/or reading well. 

 

Some moms tell me that their kids cannot handle 40 words a week.  They are fussing at this load.  In this case I say, that the child needs to gradually be built up to 40 words and see that the mom will not waver on this.  Once they get the idea that this is "the program" they will follow along.  I look at the building up to 40 words as a type of physical conditioning.  Naturally we can't expect a child to run a mile without gradually conditioning up to it, but we can practice little by little at a regular time each day and build this ability to run far or "write 40 words a week."

 

I interact with some of the most devoted moms who want to give their children the best education.  There are SO MANY valuable things to teach our children, but in the course of choosing, I find many hard working moms are getting ahead of themselves by teaching a foreign language* or detailed facts about history or science (at 2^nd grade) long BEFORE their children have mastered the English language. These other activities have greatly reduced and modified their time at SWR.  This is the "cart before the horse" as I see it.  Time spent doing SWR as it is laid out will pay back 100 or 1000 fold! Yes, foreign languages and history and science are very important, but if you build from a solid foundation (SWR), these subjects will be more quickly taught at a slightly later date.

 

*A bit more about teaching foreign languages to young learners.  I would like to qualify that I mean to avoid teaching the written form of a foreign language in a child’s youngest years.  Naturally there is also a window of opportunity for hearing and speaking a foreign language and by all means, please expose your young learners (babies on up!) to the oral form of a second language if you are easily able to do so.  And especially if you are a bilingual family—keep both spoken languages fresh on the tongue!  Simply wait a few years until English is mastered through the steps in SWR to introduce the written form of this second language.

 

For instance I am teaching my youngest children (ages 4 on up) Latin through singing and we orally do the Latin flash cards of Latin Christiana 1, but wait until the children have at least a mastery of WISE S or above before they do any written work in Latin.  Since I am following the suggested guidelines on page 64 of SWR, my children don’t have to wait long to start the written form of a second language.  Last year my 3^rd and 4^th grade boys were able to start the written portion of Latin because they had a mastery of List S in the WISE Guide.

 

 

Wanda Sanseri, author of SWR, writes:

“Children have a natural prime time when they can most easily master this material.  The longer you wait the harder it will be to teach, the more you will need to undo, and the less likely it will become truly second nature.   The optimum window for implanting this type of thinking is small.   Ideally the student will master all the WISE words by fourth or fifth grade.   This needs to take priority over a host of other subjects that can be delayed with little damage.  We recommend as soon as possible teaching 40 new words a week.  The dabblers decide that 10 or 20 words a week will do nicely.   When someone tells us that they have been doing the program for one, two, or three years but are not seeing the progress, we can pin-point the reason why with one basic question.   "How far have you gotten in the program?"  Consistently they are way behind the recommended schedule.   A little dab here and there will not give you the results you crave.  Please make SWR a major educational priority.      Teach this with commitment, resolution, and joy.   You will be glad that you did.”  (End of quote by Wanda Sanseri.)

 

 

Q. When should we start writing?

 

A.  Day one!  J  Your children are writing when they complete their first phonogram with large motor.  Expand this to writing their first word “top” and then expand into sentences.  Do as much writing as possible as a part of their SWR work.  When I scanned both the book SWR and WISE Guide I found dozens of writing exercises.  Since these are a direct outgrowth of SWR you can maximize your efforts and improve their mastery of the words in WISE.

 

I  see a lot of people spending time and money on writing programs for children who are behind in SWR.  They may have only a mastery of List J or K WISE Guide but will be spending an additional 30-40 minutes a day on some detailed writing exercise.  

 

This seems a terrible waste of time and efforts to me.  I'm not saying don't write at all if you are only at list J or K.  Yes, of course write sentences from the WISE words (do the many enrichments on writing in WISE) and perhaps keep nature journal or write a few sentences about a book you like, but I mean in the early years go easy on major writing curricula that require a lot of time and money.

 

Nature Journal Bundle

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/339336/

 

Your efforts would be better spent getting your child to a mastery level of a higher list in the WISE Guide.  Then they would have a larger pool of words to write from with ease.

 

Laura Ingalls Wilder in THESE HAPPY GOLDEN YEARS didn't write her first composition until she was 16 years old.  She spent the previous years learning reading, and writing, and arithmetic and her first composition was a great success according to her teacher!  And of course she went on to become a famous author. 

 

Now I wouldn't go as extreme as waiting till a child is 16 to refine composition skills, but I would certainly wait until they were quite high in the WISE Guide on mastery.  (I'm not sure I'd set a required level, but somewhere around WISE Section R or S for mastery seems like a fair bench mark for a highly demanding writing curriculum.)

 

I really like the Charlotte Mason way of teaching composition (a natural outgrowth of reading and narration) along with the recommendations at Step 33 of Spell to Write and Read.  With these two combined and a high mastery in WISE Guide you could save a lot of time and money, while spending the early years most wisely in building spelling and reading skills through regular work in SWR.

 

Again, each family has a unique call and needs to prayerfully decide together how to arrange the details of their schedule.  I couldn’t resist sharing a few of my observations and thoughts about where to best place SWR in your children’s education.

 

Wishing you great joy in your endeavors to train a generation of God seeking life long learners!

 

 

 ©Britta McColl   

Morning Star Learning

Endorsed SWR Trainer

Mom to 7 exuberant children

www.morningstarlearning.com

 

 

I am continually growing as a mom/teacher.  Our school seems to be a mix of Charlotte Mason and Classical at this time, with the heaviest leaning toward Charlotte Mason.

 

Recommended reading:

 

A Charlotte Mason Companion- Karen Andreola

 

Disclaimer:  Though I love every other part of A Charlotte Mason Companion, I do disagree with the Charlotte Mason method of teaching spelling and reading!  Stick to SWR for these topics!

 

The Original Home Schooling Series Charlotte M. Mason

 

Pocketful of Pinecones-Karen Andreola

 

Real Learning by Elizabeth Foss

 

For the Children’s Sake-  by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

 

Combining Charlotte Mason with Classical Education methods

http://home.att.net/~bandcparker/methods.html

 

Visit: http://amblesideonline.org/WhatIsCM.shtml

 

Books on a Classical Education:

 

Teaching the Trivium  Bluedorn

 

Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education by David Hicks