Duck Soup is giving away a book! If you are a homeschooler, visit her blog to find out details. The deadline is soon: 9:00 P.M. eastern time on Thursday, November 15th.
The Story
It was our final year of homeschooling. My daughter was in the 12th grade, and as usual, I made a structured time based schedule for her school day. It was very generous – she had two hours each for her two favorite classes, art and English. And as usual, I made a full-page poster of the schedule to hang on her door so that she could see it every morning before leaving her room. This schedule was wonderful for her. Below is her schedule.
- 6:00 Get Up
- 6:30 Exercise
- 7:30 Breakfast
- 8:15 Economics (1 semester)
- 9:00 Art III (2 hours minimum each day)
- 11:00 Japanese II (45 minutes minimum each day)
- 12:00 Lunch
- 1:00 English IV (2 hours minimum each day)
Structure versus Realism
At the beginning of every school year, I created a schedule similar to the one above. We could follow it as long as no one became sick. Each year around October and November somebody would get sick, usually both children, so the schedule spirals out of control and becomes something like the altered schedule below.
A Typical-for-Us K – 7th Grade Altered Schedule
- Get up
- Eat
- Get Ready (clothes, teeth, hair, make bed)
- School (Typically the 3-r’s because I deem the 3-r’s as most vital to learning in general.)
- Lunch
- School (Typically science, history, arts or what is left)
No Problem, trust me, a loose schedule is workable. Don’t let it make you crazy, or me crazy; I’m not crazy. Of course I had the option of restarting the “structured” schedule, with or without modification, after everyone recovered and I usually did.
Spiraling Spiraling Spiraling Spiraling
2007-08 Altered Schedule
Back to my daughter’s final school year at home – She became sick as usual during mid to late autumn. We converted to “survival mode” and the list below became her schedule during the time she was feeling puny.
- Get up
- Eat
- Get Ready
- Economics, Art, Japanese, English
- Lunch fits in there somewhere – usually before English
Value of the Schedule
Despite not sticking to the schedule with precision, it still has value. If anything, it helps the kids to remember what to do between sneezes.
The irony of all of this is that the book prize is an unschooling book. 😆 Ducky has a great sense of humor!
Okay Duck Soup, enter me in your drawing please. 
Donna Young
I wondered if someone (besides me, that is) would laugh at the prize to my “post your homeschool schedule” contest! 😆
Holly’s altered schedule is da’ bomb. Thanks for entering, Donna!
I noticed the book also. 😆 I kept thinking, I already unschool, the only structure we really have is on Monday. Then everything else worked around tantrums. 🙄
Applie, that was funny!
I too like your schedule, Donna.
Hello Donna.
Are you, by any chance, using Rosetta Stone for your Japanese II? What made you choose Japanese? We have Rosetta Stone for German I & II.
Hi Robin,
We use Rosetta Stone. Holly picked Japanese and I’m not sure why except that possibly because she used to want to live there.
Hi Donna,
I was wondering if you might address the topic of setting up files.
Organization is not my strong suit and with 20 years of homeschooling under my belt I still haven’t come up with a workable system that allows me to find what I need when I want or need it.
I have four file drawers filled with papers and many discs for my computer.
The kids are 7-16 so there is not a lot that can be purged right now.
What works for you?
Thanks,
Theresa
Theresa that is a good question. I’ll have to get back to you on that.