Second Grade
Feb. 5, 2008

Bible & Doctrine		Classical Academic Press: Bible for Children and Westminster Shorter Catechism
English
	Penmanship	Rod and Staff: Penmanship for Christian Writing
	Spelling	Rod and Staff: Spelling by Sound and Structure
	Grammar & Writing	Rod & Staff:  Building Christian English
	Poetry Memorization	Year Two Poetry Memorization
	Literature	Historical Literature: 30 min; Fun Literature: 30-45 min.
Latin		Latin for Children Primer A
Math		Saxon Math and Singapore Math
History		The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: The Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance
		The Story of the World: Activity Book 2: The Middle Ages
Science		Apologia: Exploring Creation with Astronomy and Rod and Staff: God's World Science Series Science
Music		Piano with Patti

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How do you do it?

Heather,
Your schedule last year and this year can look a bit intimidating. I am curious as to how you got all this school work done. My children are 6, 4 and 1, exactly where you were last year. I am interested in knowing how much time in a day and how many days a week you spent on each subject. I am sure you divided things up so that your goals could be attained...I am mostly interested in how you worked it out practically in the day-to-day. And how did you occupy your youngest??? Thanks.

April

(www.aprilcurry.blogspot.com)

Anonymous - 8:41 PM - May. 17, 2007

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Hi April!

You know, it seems like a lot on paper, but in reality, it really isn’t! I find that organization is key though.

The first step I took was to map out the boys school subjects at the beginning of the year, so that I knew which ones they needed direct instruction with and which ones could be done independently. Although this schedule has been tweaked since I first posted it, this is a good starting place for how I figured it out: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/hrlabonte/172805/

Then take each subject and divide the number of lessons by the number of weeks that you school or by how many hours are required by your state or something similar. This is how I figure out how many times a week we cover each subject.

As far as different subjects go:

Noah (K4) has daily:
Bible & catechism (15 minutes) – We do this together as a family
Math (45 minutes)
Phonics & handwriting - Noah (15 minutes)

As you can see his actual seatwork, even though he is doing first grade math, is one hour. If he starts getting antsy at any point (like 4 year old boys are prone to do!), we do fun things to get the blood flowing again, like I stop in the middle of the lesson and make him do 25 jumping jacks or run in place for 30 seconds, etc.

John (1st) has daily:
Bible and catechism (15 minutes)
Math (45 – 60 minutes) – he is using Horizons 3 and Singapore 2b currently and actually does his lessons mostly independently. If he needs an explanation for anything, I’m only across the table working with Noah & he can ask away.
Poetry (10 minutes)
Grammar (15 minutes)

Three times a week he has spelling. This takes 5-10 minutes.

Twice a week in the afternoon (Mondays and Wednesdays) he has history which usually takes about an hour.

Once a week in the afternoon he has science (Tuesday) which usually takes 15-30 minutes.

Once a week in the afternoon he has health (Thursday) which usually takes 15-30 minutes.

Next year we will be dropping health and doing science on Tuesday and Thursday Afternoons.

If you add up our longest day, which has spelling and history, the actual seat work time is about 3 hours max! Next year we will be adding two programs (Latin and a writing program), which I am anticipating will bring our school day up to 4 – 4 ½ hours max. This is still much less seat work than the kids who go to school around here!

My now two year old, Jacob, (then one year old) is (was) a handful, but you do the best you can. It is really only 1 hour in the morning that I’m completely tied up with the older boys -- Noah’s school (K4) only lasts about an hour, then he’s off to play with him until John (1st grade) is done with school. In the afternoon, he’s out of the way with his afternoon nap. We use a combination of snacks/videos/crayons/puzzles/toys/whatever it takes to get him through that hour.

HTH!

hrlabonte - 8:09 AM - May. 18, 2007

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Thanks

Thanks so much. Sounds like it took a good bit of forethought. I share the same passion you do when looking at and getting new curriculum. Fun!!

Anonymous - 10:53 PM - May. 18, 2007

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hey

Looks great! I am wondering if I shouldn't have bought a science curr, instead of piecing one together? I always have to supplement things like history, science, math....do you think it's a sickness?

a-mothersmusings@blogspot.com

Sandi - 10:17 AM - Aug. 3, 2007

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Untitled Comment

You are so unbelievably organized! I love seeing how you do your schedules ( especially since I'm in WI, too, and I'm trying to meet the same requirements!) ;-)
You are an inspiration!!!

Blessings,
Michelle

foxvalleyfamily - 10:26 AM - Aug. 3, 2007

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You know....

I started off doing science "The Well-Trained Mind"-way, i.e. piecing it together, last year. It worked for approximately three weeks and I just found it to be too much work. I really function better doing all of this planning at the beginning of the year and then going on auto-pilot (and just doing the next thing in the book or on the list) when the school year starts.

That's not to say that you *need* to use a curriculum, but I have found it extremely helpful. :-) {grin}
~Heather

hrlabonte - 10:31 AM - Aug. 3, 2007

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LOL, Michelle....

The truth is I often feel as if I *have* to be organized to keep all of these plates spinning (homeschooling, my business, my husband's business, and being a wife & mother). It's more of a survival technique than anything else!!! By nature, I'm actually a very lazy person, and if I didn't stay on top of all of this chaos, I'd spend everyday surfing the internet or playing Star Wars Lego 2 on our Gamecube. LOL!

hrlabonte - 10:39 AM - Aug. 3, 2007

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