Our Family Chunk Clock

I listened to a wonderful seminar from The Homeschool Coach, Mary Ann Johnson, on Hecoa's free Not-Back-to-School Summit about the family chunk clock.  It was so amazing, I watched it again and took a LOT of notes and then also listened to the audio and printed out the handouts to make ours.  My daughter K has voiced to me before that she feels like she doesn't know what is next each day.  I knew that this would not only benefit me, but especially her!

How it works is, you divide your day up into chunks of things you do.  If there are days where things come up, someone gets sick, etc. (and they will!) this chunk clock helps you see a visual of what is important to finish that day, what you can skip and to help you refocus when you get off track.  You can listen to the audio on her website, just google the homeschool coach and family chunk clock.

We wanted a catchy funny name for our clock instead of the generic -- Family Chunk Clock, so we came up with "Got Chunks?" LOL! 

You may be wondering what is up with the weird names on each chunk.  Well, my daughter created each of those names to add some FUN to our chunk clock!  Here are the why's of each chunk:

• Snore No More - because we are not morning people and we must stop snoozing
• Moddy Time - She took Mo from Mom and ddy from Buddy (my son’s nickname) to show it was for me and Buddy (Z) to have time together.
• Hope Lu - She took Ho from homeschool, pe from P.E. and Lu from lunch!
• Kazm Time - Ka from K, Z is for her brother Z and M from Mom - since this is our time to do individualized things
• Chep Hour - usually 5-6pm, so an hour and she got Ch from chores and ep from prep (dinner).
• Foing Up - Fo from food (dinner) and ing from Washing (dishes)
• Chee - Ch from church and ee from Free(time)
• Spied - Spi from spiritual and ed from bed

I didn't put every detail in our clock (showers, time with husband, etc.) because I wanted to keep it simple and this is our guide to show us our natural flow and/or routine.

This has already helped K KNOW what is next and have a visual of how our day will go.  This also is helping me in the same regards and also to have my priorities highlighted, so I don't lose sight of what is important - God, School and Family!  It will also make a great conversation piece when friends visit!

Our Current Schedule

I haven't done one of these posts in a long time, here is the last time I did before my son was born and my life looks a lot different than that now!  

10:00 a.m. - Wake up; Make breakfast

10:30 a.m. - Breakfast

11:00 a.m. - Homeschool starts - Bible, writing, grammar

12:00 p.m. - Snack for my son & Recess; P.E.

1:00 p.m. - Lunch

1:45 p.m. - Pick up time

2:00 p.m. - Son's nap for 3 hours and this is when we homeschool spelling, history or science, math and reading

3:10 p.m. - My part in homeschool is done, daughter works independently until dinner; This begins my time to do whatever is on my to-do list for the day

3:30 p.m. - Snack

4:30 - 5:00 p.m. - Start dinner prep

5:00 p.m. - Son wakes up from nap

5:30 p.m. - Dinner

6:00 p.m. - Kitchen clean up

7:00 - 9:00 p.m. - Evening activities (different each night)

9:00 p.m. - Son's bedtime cereal and milk; we usually eat a snack

9:30 p.m. - Son's bedtime

Family Freetime

11:00 p.m. - Daughter's bedtime

1:00 - 2:00 a.m. - Bedtime for me

Homeschool time is 11-12 in the morning and then from 2-5 in the afternoon.  My daughter also has evening reading that she works in sometime before bed.  Total homeschooling for the summer is about 4 hours.  Once we get to fall, we will not have such a large break from 12 - 2 - that will be the time my daughter does Latin, Spanish and Logic (new subjects she will start in 5th grade), putting her at 6 hours of schooling.  My time spent homeschooling goes from about 2 hours down to less than one in the new school year!

Sometimes I wake up before my kids and I try to be as quiet as possible, doing something like reading the news on my Kindle.  However I've learned, whenever I get up, my son always seems to hear and gets up and doesn't get enough sleep and then he will be cranky all day - so I've tweaked my own schedule to try and sleep till he wakes up.  I would like to get back to going to sleep by midnight and waking at 8, but that would mean putting my son to bed at 8 and that won't work for our family.

My son gets 12 hours of sleep at night, my 10-year old daughter gets 10 hours and I try and get at least 8 hours.  All of these are for good health and the recommended times for the age/stage.  I recently watched a documentary study on obesity and there is substantial evidence that babies and toddlers that do not get AT LEAST 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep at night, are at risk for obesity, diabetes and heart disease later on in life.  I was surprised by this but I knew that 12 hours was good as my daughter slept for 12 hours until she was around age 5 and now sleeps 10 hours.  Sleep really does make a difference in children's behaviors and ours!

4th Grade Subjects Schedule & School Times

The Well Trained Mind gives an average time of 5 hours and 45 minutes for 4th grade.  So I decided to do an estimated time that it will take to do each subject and then a total time of schooling everyday - this includes reading, which for 4th grade is 105 minutes (1 hour and 45 minutes).  With reading it is a total of 6 hours and 5 minutes and without counting reading time, it is 4 hours and 20 minutes.  I'm not counting art, music and home economics because we only will be doing those once a week, maybe even on the weekend.  So we are pretty much on target!

*I'm trying out doing history AND science every day this year to "catch" up and be on track for 5th grade with the WTM recommendations.

Estimated Times per Subject per day

Bible - 15m

Reading - 45m morning/60m evening = 105m

Spelling - 60m

Grammar - 20m

Writing - 15m

Latin - 30m

Math - 40m

History - 40m
Science - 40m

Weekly

Art - 60m

Music study - 60m

Home Economics - 60m

Schedule

Here is my schedule as it is right now, it will probably change as we start and get adjusted and find out what works best for us.

 We are doing school 5 days a week and doing all subjects every day with the exclusion of art, music and home economics, which are done once a week.  Spelling is going to be a tricky one because we are trying to stay on track with Spelling Workout but also aim to finish all of the All About Spelling levels this year.  I'm not sure yet if I will alternate days or books.

• Bible - together for 15 minutes
• Reading - K reads independently for 45 minutes while I feed the baby, make breakfast, chores, etc.
• *If it is NOT Z's naptime - K does 40 minutes of math independently with the video teacher
• *If it IS Z's naptime - We do language arts for about 1 1/2 hours (spelling, grammar and writing)
• Latin - K does Latin independently for 30 minutes
• *During Z's afternoon 2-hour nap - history and science
• K reads for 1 hour in the evening after dinner

Homeschooling With a January Start

I was like most homeschoolers in the beginning and tried to mimic the public school schedule of a September start and a May/June finish.  However, this wasn't enjoyable for me or my daughter and we realized that for our family's schedule, a January start was a better fit.  This proved to be a great choice as it allowed us to take off a lot of time during the first few months of our newest addition, Z!  Not feeling rushed to hurry up but rather enjoy the transition of having a baby around has brought peace to our lives.

Having a January start suits my personality better because I love having a "new" year and a "new" start in homeschool!  It also prevents that February slump that have derailed a lot of homeschoolers because they are burnt out trying to keep up with the government schedule.  There is also the issue of taking time off from Thanksgiving to New Year's that allows us to enjoy the holidays with no stress of school.  We also have a lot of time to take off throughout the year and even summer if we choose, because schooling year-round is so flexible and it works with life's little (and big) surprises!

We are still finishing up 3rd grade until Thanksgiving and then we will start 4th grade in January.  Although, if people ask my daughter, "what grade are you in?" she will say 4th because according to the state, she is 4th grade and our curriculum is advanced compared to the public school's.  We also work mainly in levels in a lot of our subjects and we move right along from one level to the next - so there really isn't a time we start all new curriculum at the same time because WHO is on the same level in all subjects?  If you do that to a child, then you are fighting against their strengths and weaknesses and it will catch up with you soon or in a few years.  Knowing your child and what they need extra work in or what they can move forward in, is something a lot of homeschool moms overlook.  Hurrying to finish up all curriculum by a certain time will prove that you are only concerned about how YOU feel and not focused on your children's needs!

Try it out - I know you will like it and the first year you switch, you get an added 5-6 months onto your grade.  As Susan Wise Bauer has stated in one of her lectures, "Homeschooling the Real Child," you don't have to do a 12-year school, you can do a 14 or a 15-year one and have your child finish when they are 20 because usually they aren't even mature enough until then anyway for what they want to do in life.  I'm considering that by adding on a year or two in high school, so my daughter can not only get more credits and college-level work, but she can have more time to learn, time for hobbies and score high on the ACT and SAT to earn a scholarship to pay for college.  Why rush and have your child be mediocre when you can homeschool and have them be in the top percentiles by adding on to their learning?  Why the rush?  Slow down and enjoy seeing your children ENJOY learning!!

Homeschool Block Scheduling

There are many ways to do block scheduling:

• Day-long - this gives you hours to work on one subject and to finish the lessons for the entire week in that one day.  Math on Mondays, language arts on Tues/Wed, history on Thursdays and science on Fridays.
• Week-long - Do math the first week of the month, language arts the second week, history the third, science the fourth, etc.
• Month-long - Do math for entire month, then language arts for the next month, history for the 3rd month, science for the 4th month and repeat.
• Semester-long - Do math and history half the year and then language arts and science the other half of the year.

Block scheduling tends to work better with middle and high school students, but some mature elementary students can have success with this type of scheduling.

*Updated - 3rd Grade School Year Calendar

Since we took about 3 months off for the new baby AND took off time during my pregnancy in the last 3 months due to complications - we have only completed about 8 weeks in most subjects.  That leaves us with roughly 28 weeks of schooling left to complete the curriculum.  I did some yearly planning and here are the numbers:

Schooling to finish by August (starting 4th grade in September):

1st Trimester of 12 weeks = Feb. 4th - May 3rd (taking a week off for Spring break)
Spring break = April 15-19
2nd Trimester of 12 weeks = May 6 - July 26
Last 4 weeks = July 29 - August 23

This schedule gives us a week off at the end of August before we start 4th grade in September.  We want to take some time off in summer and this schedule, won't allow that, so we are going to do what I had mentioned on this blog before - schooling from Jan. - Thanksgiving.  A lot of homeschoolers follow this yearly schedule because it just works better!  I like having a fresh grade with a new year - it just feels that much more newer.  So this will be our new schedule and I'm loving the time off we have this!!

Schooling to finish by Thanksgiving (starting 4th grade in January):

School from Feb. 4 - Nov. 22
Total weeks during this time = 42 weeks
Weeks we can take off with this schedule = 14 weeks (that is 70 days off!!)


So as you can see, the 2nd schedule would allow us to take off during the summer if we wanted to or just take off whenever we feel like it to go on trips, playdates, etc.  The 2nd schedule allows time to adjust to having a baby this year while homeschooling.  The first schedule will limit us and have us schooling all through summer.....ugh!  I'm excited about this new change and how less stressful it seems to me - that is the best part of homeschooling - it works with LIFE! ;-)

Daily Schedule - Free Printable

I made a blank daily schedule for homeschool and/or homekeeping, enjoy!

Daily Schedule Blank

Homeschool Planner Free Printables & Video

I did a short video today of what my homeschool planner is looking like so far.  I showed a lot of free printables and listed where to get them below, plus some more that I haven't used yet.  The main one was free at one time, or at least I got it free somehow (maybe a giveaway or something?), but now she charges $20 for the planner.  I LOVE it because it was almost like the ones I was using that I made myself, but it allows you to prefill and save on the computer and then print.

Free monthly menu planner
http://www.noordinarymomentsblog.com/2012/01/monthly-menu-planner-editable-pdf.html

Free Yearly School Calendar (one you can highlight/label)
http://fivejs.com/free-printable-school-calendar-2012-2013/

Free Homeschool Planner Printables
http://highland.hitcho.com.au/Forms.htm
http://homeschoolcreations.com/index.html
http://fivejs.com/category/homeschooling/free-study-charts-worksheets/homeschool-planning-free-study-charts-worksheets/
http://donnayoung.org/forms/
http://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/gettingorganized/printable_planner.php#.UCVqpqNmOSo

Other Free Homeschool Planner Printables I haven't used
http://moneysavingmom.com/2011/07/free-downloadable-homeschool-planners.html
http://carianthony.blogspot.com/2011/07/free-homeschool-daily-planner.html
http://home.comcast.net/~askpauline/hs/homeschoolforms.html
http://oklahomahomeschool.com/forms.html
http://www.printablehomeschool.com/
http://www.hslaunch.com/mypage/files?csearch=Organizational
http://homeschooling.about.com/od/schedulingforms/Homeschool_Scheduling_Forms.htm
http://homeschooling.about.com/cs/recordkeeping/qt/reckeep.htm
http://www.holdthatthought.com/free.php
http://freehomeschoolresources.info/free-resources/printable-homeschool-forms/
http://peacecreekontheprairie.com/large-family-homeschool-forms
http://eclectichomeschool.org/resources/downloads/default.asp
http://new-bintexas.webs.com/freecurriculumplanner.htm
http://www.quickstarthomeschool.com/freebies/homeschool-forms/
http://thelifeinbloom.wordpress.com/printables-3/

Online Free Homeschool Planners
http://www.homeschooltracker.com/tracker_basic.aspx
http://www.homeschoolskedtra

3rd Grade Daily Subjects Schedule & School Times

I wanted to show you all how I plan what we do each day, how many days we do each subject and the estimated times for the school day.  You can view our yearly schedule and how I laid out the 36 weeks and time off here: http://www.cambridgeshireacademy.com/2012/07/3rd-grade-yearly-schedule.html

First, I plan how many days of what subject we need to do each week.  This is all according to how many lessons were in each book and then doing the math to figure out what we needed to do to finish within 36 weeks.

Days per Week per Subject

Bible - daily

Reading - daily

Spelling - 4 days

Grammar - 3 days

Writing - 4 days

Cursive - 3 days

Latin - 3 days

Math - 4 days

History - 2 days

Science - 2 days

Art - 1 day

Music - daily practice; 1 day of composer/orchestra/instrument study

Home Economics - 1 day

Then, I sort them into a daily plan:

Daily Subject Plan

Monday - Bible, Reading, Grammar, Writing, Cursive, Spelling (both), Latin, Math, History and Music practice

Tuesday - Bible, Reading, Grammar, Writing, Cursive, Spelling (both), Latin, Math, Science and Music practice

Wednesday - Bible, Reading, Grammar, Writing, Cursive, Spelling (both), Latin, Math, History and Music practice

Thursday - Bible, Reading, Writing, Spelling (AAS only), Math, Science and Music practice

Friday - Bible, Reading, Art, Home Economics, Music, Projects and Music Practice

K's heavy days will be Mon.-Wed.  Thursday is lighter but she has music lessons that day, so really it is full as well.  Friday is more of a fun day with art, crafts, home economics and history projects.  However, every weekday she will be doing bible, reading and music practice.  The weekends are free days or occasionally we will use Saturday to make up for a day we may have took off during the week due to appointments, sickness, etc.

As you can see, we only need to do grammar, Latin, spelling (Spelling Workout), and cursive 3 days a week.  We do writing and math 4 times per week and then history and science twice per week, alternating days.  You may notice that some days say we do both spellings, this is because we do 2 spelling programs: Spelling Workout and All About Spelling.  We can't seem to let go of either, so we just work them in.  We plan on finishing all the levels of All About Spelling by the end of 4th grade, and then we will continue on only with Spelling Workout from then on out.

Next, I plan in time per subject needed.  These are estimates as I don't know yet how fast or slow K will work in these new curriculums.

Estimated Times per Subject per day

Bible - 15m

Music Practice - 25m

Reading - 30m morning/60m evening = 90m

Spelling - 30m; 20m on AAS only day

Grammar - 20m

Writing - 15m

Cursive - 10m

Latin - 30m

Math - 30m

History - 90m
Science - 90m

Art - 60m

Music study - 20m

Home Economics - 30m

Finally, to get a daily time estimate, I plug in these estimated times per subject above into each day to estimate those days school time:

Daily School Time Estimates

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday - 5hr 45m

Thursday - 4hr 45m

Friday - 4hr 20m + any project times

We will be pretty much aligned with the estimated times in "The Well Trained Mind" for 3rd grade, which is 4hr 52m per day.  Those times DO include reading, an hour of which is done in the evening after dinner. 

3rd Grade Yearly Schedule

This is just an idea of what I'm aiming for this year, but I doubt we will stick to this entirely as I have a baby coming by the end of November.  Having a newborn with an almost 9-yr old homeschooling will be a whole new world to me, so I'm giving myself a few months after the baby comes to adjust before we resume homeschooling.

My plan is to school in 12-week blocks with a break between.  We also are only doing 4 days a week of the basics and using Friday for art, crafts and history projects and/or field trips.

36 weeks of schooling - 4 days a week = 144 days +36 Fridays of art/projects = 180 school days

Aug. 20 - Nov. 9 = 1st Trimester 12-week block

3-Month break for new baby

Feb. 4 - April 26 = 2nd Trimester 12-week block

1-week Spring Break

May 6 - July 26 = 3rd Trimester 12-week block

Summer Break

I like to school in 12-week blocks, just makes it easier for me to plan. The average homeschooler schools 36 weeks per year, which divided by 12, gives us 3, 12-week periods. Once you have settled on how many weeks you want to school, you can then go through your curriculum and take how many lessons there are and do the math, to figure out what you need to do per week and day to finish in time. I've included our daily subject schedules and school times in another post:

http://www.cambridgeshireacademy.com/2012/08/3rd-grade-subjects-daily-schedule.html

Even though we are taking roughly 3 months off for the baby, my daughter will still be doing bible, reading, music practice and math fact cards a few times a week to keep them fresh.

*New 2nd Grade Daily Schedule

We are trying out something new with our schedule and its really a trial to see how it goes.  At the end of the school day when it's time for history or science, we are exhausted.  The thought occurred to me yesterday about doing a history/science day and only doing those subjects on that day.  Since we school 4 days a week right now, I'm going to use the free day for history and science.  This will actually free up time on the other 4 days (1 hour each day!) of schooling.  So shorter days 4 days of week sounds great to me.

We are also adding in Geography/Map Skills because I've found some great lapbooks and material that covers things K hasn't learned yet and not sure when she will learn.  Things like longitude/latitude, directions, etc.

Here is our new schedule:

Mon-Fri
Bible
Reading - 30m morning; 60m evening

Mon, Wed and Friday
Spelling - 40m
Grammar - 10m
Writing - 10m
Cursive - 10m
Math - 40m
Geography/Map Skills - 20m

Tuesday 
History - 90m
Science - 90m

Weekend
Art - 1 hour
Home Economics - 1 hour

Daily (Sun-Sat)
Piano practice -10m
Violin practice - 10m

Husband Helps
Bible
Reads classics
Music

2nd Grade Daily Schedule *Updated

Mon-Fri
Bible
Reading - 30m morning; 60m evening

Mon-Wed and Friday
Spelling - 40m
Grammar - 10m
Writing - 10m
Cursive - 10m
Math - 40m

Monday and Wednesday
Science - 1 hour

Tuesday and Friday
History - 1 hour

Weekend
Art - 1 hour
Home Economics - 1 hour

Daily (Sun-Sat)
Piano practice -10m
Violin practice - 10m

Husband Helps
Bible
Reads classics
Music

*New - 2012 2nd Grade Yearly Schedule

You can read about how we restructured our homeschool to start in January here.

2012 2nd Grade Yearly Schedule

Start - January 9th
End - November 21st

No School for my Freezer Cooking Weeks:
March 19-23
June 18-22
September 17-21

Total Schooling Weeks Left = 43 weeks

*Take days off whenever we feel like it throughout the year.

January Homeschool Year Start

I've read others who start a new school year in January and it really peeked my interest.  After reading how they do it, brainstorming how we would do it, I decided that it was a good fit for us!  So we restructured our homeschool schedule and are putting the starting place at January 9th.  We plan on taking from Thanksgiving through New Years off every year, since those are our busiest times, it just made more sense.  I also find September too busy outside in the garden to "start" a new grade, it just doesn't work for me!

I also like the fact that you can use one calendar to do your planning.  So we are starting second grade on Monday, yes we are already a couple of months ahead but now we can slow down and enjoy more projects and experiments.  I don't like taking off 3 months in the summer because children forget too much in that length of time, so we are just planning to take off days when its sunny - being in the rainy Northwest, those are not a guarantee and we want to enjoy when they come in the summer!  Even on those "days off," we may still be doing 'school' with nature walks and such - life is a learning adventure!

I'm planning in weeks off for my freezer cooking throughout the year, but I only do freezer cooking 4 times a year and one of those falls within our December break.  So, we only need 3 weeks off this year for my freezer cooking.

Here is our schedule for the years to come, although I'm not married to this thing and we will change it to what we feel like - that is the great part about homeschooling!

2012 - 2nd grade
2013 - 3rd grade
2014 - 4th grade
2015 - 5th grade
2016 - 6th grade
2017 - 7th grade
2018 - 8th grade
2019 - 9th grade
2020 - 10th grade
2021 - 11th grade
2022 - 12th grade

It feels so weird to write 2022, wow!  To think that my baby will be finishing high school in 10 years is sad, it seems so short.  I was listening to an audio by Susan Wise Bauer and she was saying how you don't have to do school 12 years, you can do it 14 years if you want!  If my daughter wants later on, we could do a 5-6 year high school, instead of a 4-year one, allowing her more time to finish her learning.  Who knows, but I love having the option!

2nd Grade Daily Schedule

Mon-Fri
Bible - 20m
Reading - 30m morning; 40-60m evening

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday
Spelling - 15m
Grammar - 15m
Writing - 10-20m
Math - 30m

Monday & Wednesday
History - 1 to 1 1/2 hours

Tuesday
Science - 1 hour

Thursday
Piano & Violin Lessons
Music - 20m

Friday
Science
Art
Projects
Home Economics

Daily (Sun-Sat)
Piano practice -10m
Violin practice - 10m

Husband
Bible on weekends
Reads classics in evening

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is how I plan to order each morning session:

Monday - Bible; Spelling; Grammar; Writing; Reading; Math; History

Tuesday - Bible; Spelling; Grammar; Writing; Reading; Math; Science

Wednesday -Bible; Spelling; Grammar; Writing; Reading; Math; History

Thursday - Bible; Music; Piano & Violin Lessons

Friday - Bible; Science; Art; Projects; Home Economics

2011-2012 2nd Grade Yearly Schedule

We are schooling for a total of 32 weeks.  I've divided the year up into 3 trimesters, taking 3 weeks of December off and 2 weeks of March for spring break.  We plan on starting 3rd grade work in June, but may extend 2nd grade throughout the summer if we take more breaks throughout the year.

1st Trimester Start: September 19th
Trimester Ends: December 9th
Total Schooling - 12 weeks

3 weeks of December OFF

2nd Trimester Start: January 2nd
Trimester Ends: March 16th
Total Schooling - 11 weeks

Rest of March OFF

3rd Trimester Start: April 2nd
Trimester Ends/School Year Ends: June 1st
Total Schooling - 9 weeks

Tentative 2nd Grade Schedule

Here is our tentative schedule for this 2nd grade year:

8am - Me: wake up; dress; coffee; bible and prayer time

9am - K: wake up; we eat breakfast and K practices her piano and violin

10am-1pm - Homeschool for 3 hours (detailed schedule of this time in another post)

1-2pm - Lunch and Recess (play outside or inside)

2-4pm - K's quiet time and my free time for exercise, cleaning, etc.

4-5pm - I get ready for evening activities; K practices piano and violin

5pm - Prepare dinner; K sets the table

5:30pm - Dinner

After dinner is my time to clean house, do laundry, bake goodies, read and practice piano.  For K, she can also do as she pleases if her chores, evening reading and math are done.

10pm - Hubby does Bible and reading with K

1030-11pm - K: bedtime routine and sleep

12am - My bedtime routine and sleep

Revised - 1st Grade Summer Schedule

We are changing things up in preparation for completion of curriculum by August 26th.  We are taking 2 weeks off, starting next week and then K will be off school after Aug. 26th until Sept. 19th.  Hubby has taken over the Bible reading and we now have someone else going to do the piano lessons and also violin lessons.

Here is how my tentative days are going to look in the last 5 weeks of schooling:

Everyday
Practice piano and violin
30m assigned reading
40m evening reading

Mon-Wed

Prayer

1st Hour
History or Science

2nd Hour
Grammar - 15m
Memorization - 5m
Writing - 10m
Spelling - 30m

K's Independent Work (without me woohoo!)
30m assigned reading
40m evening reading
Math fact cards
SWO B
Writing Copywork

Thursday
Piano & Violin Lessons

Friday
Homeschool Group
Leftover History and/or Science work
Projects
Art and Home Economics

Weekends
OFF

Nate (husband)
Reads Bible & classics to K
Possibly taking over science

Summer Schooling Schedule

We have 12 weeks of school that we are doing from May till the end of August and here is our tentative daily schedule - notice I said "tentative" because although this is my goal - life happens LOL! =0 

Mon-Wed

In Bed
Prayer
Bible - 10m

1st Hour
Reading - 30m
Grammar - 15m
Memorization - 5m
Writing - 10m

40m
Math - 20m
Spelling - 20m

2nd Hour
History or Science - full hour

Thursday
OFF

Friday
Prayer
Bible - 10m
Homeschool Group
Reading -30m
Leftover History and/or Science work
Projects
Art, Music and Home Economics

Evening Work
30m evening reading Mon-Fri

Weekends
OFF

Nate (husband)
Reads classics to K
Family prayer & Bible teaching
Teaching K piano

Planning - Completion Dates for End of 1st Grade

We are schooling year-round seeing how we took so many months off and had a family emergency trip, so we are just going with it and schooling through summer.  We will start 2nd grade around the second week of September.  We are taking off this coming week because its my 3-month freezer cooking week.  So we have 14 weeks to work with and we may have a vacation in there too and time off, so I'm only scheduling for 12 weeks of school to be safe.

Here are our plans to finish 1st grade:

Bible - we will finish the entire Golden Children's Bible by the end of summer and start our new Bible curriculum in Sept.

Reading - K has almost finished her entire 1st grade "assigned" 4th grade level book list!  She still reads in the evenings "easy" below-level books and we will continue this all through summer - we don't take off from reading.  We will start her 2nd grade assigned book list in Sept.

Grammar & Vocabulary - we already finished 1st grade grammar but I wanted to continually review so K doesn't forget anything, and I've found that Rod and Staff's English 2 is awesome review and extra practice!  We are also using the last unit in the book, Unit 6, as a separate course - Vocabulary.  It is teaching K alphabetical order and how to use a dictionary.

Spelling - K will finish Spelling Workout B by the end of summer and we also plan to start All About Spelling 2 soon and finish that by the end of summer.  So we will start SWO C and AAS 3 in Sept.

Writing - we have 10 weeks of writing left, so we will finish WWE 1 by the middle of July and K will continue to do copywork from the Bible until we start WWE 2 in Sept.

History - We have 14 chapters left in history and doing 1-2 chapters a week will have us finishing on time and going right into SOTW 2.  We really enjoy history and like taking our time through it reading library books and doing activities and watching related videos.

Science - We have some of the Human Body left to finish but we are already into Plants right now and will finish that soon and study animals.  We will finish all these by the end of Summer.

Math - We will finish 2nd grade math by the end of Summer and continue on with 3rd grade math in Sept.