heartofdakota.com

Hi I am new to HOD.
A little back ground this will be our 5th year homeschooling. We have a fairly large homestead with quite a few animals. My dh travels out of town 5 days a week and has since we began home schooling :/. This to say I and the kids have a lot of responsibility on top of school. We really like to get school done early(before lunch) and then do chores, and have free time in the afternoons. I would like to be able to group as much as possible together or at least maybe be doing the same subjects at the same time, though not sure how with the oldest so far apart?
This year I have a ds in 1 st doing Beyond(Both Pages), also have a dd in 3rd (first page in Beyond, 2nd page in Bigger), with emerging reader set. Then I have a ds is 6th grade with Creation to Christ, Drawn into the Heart of Reading 4/5, and History Extension package.
Add in Karate practice for all three, and Guitar practice for the oldest.
My youngest is a busybody has a hard time sitting still(could be classified as ADD by many) and not having at least one person "play" with him at all times. My DD is a major struggling reader, who fights school. And oldest wants to participate in the youngsters school instead of his own independent stuff, would be much happier if I worked through everything with him.
I can't wrap my mind around how to schedule our days. I do know I would love to use excel to be able to print out, mark off and file for records.
I really want this school year to flow well. I tend to get worked up and frustrated trying to fit it all in. Instead I want to have fun learning and enjoy the kids each day!
I would appreciate any and all ideas. THANK YOU!
Kristy

Whew! You do have a lot on your plate! We're not running the exact same guides as you, but I struggled for quite a while to come up with a workable schedule for our 3 guides, and the thing that finally worked for me was to use post-it notes. It's a suggestion I found on this board-write on a seperate post it each subject for each child, along with how long it takes to complete, and whether it's a subject that needs you, or they can do it alone, or partially alone (T,S,I are the codes that HOD uses.) Then set blocks of time, like say 30 mins and find a kid that you can work with for that length of time-maybe you could do your Beyond History, Rotating Box, and Bible in that setting. Then find some things that your CTC child can work with alone for that length of time-maybe his History or Science...then switch and work with another child. If you don't have enough independent subjects to keep your youngers busy while you work with your 6th grader, have them read a fun library book, or complete a chore, or build something with legos...I don't know. It just helped me to think in blocks of time and then to use sticky notes that I could look at and move around into those blocks of time until they meshed together right.

Some find it helpful to meet with the oldest child 1st thing in the morning-if you could get him up earlier than the other kids and go over his things to work on alone while you're doing school with the others, then you'd set up meeting times with him-maybe after he's done with his independent work to cover the narrations or look at notebooking pages. Either one or two other meeting times.

Some find it more workable to start with the least independent child-the youngest usually-and move up the ladder to the most independent. That's more how we do it, but we're not in CTC yet. I start with my LHFHG while Beyond child reads for fun, or works on copywork and Preparing dd starts her independent work. Then I give LHFHG ds a short recess break (usually to eat some cereal or toast and fruit) while I work with Beyond ds. Then he's on recess too while I work with Preparing dd on History and Bible and Poetry (her T boxes). She usually takes a short break and then I go back and finish up LHFHG and Beyond and dd completes any S work or I boxes that aren't done yet. Last I finish up with her Language Arts box and we're done for the day-normally by 10:30 if we can get started right away at 7.

There are a few ideas to get you started, hopefully. Did you get a chance to look at the sticky thread at the top of the Main Board that talks about schedules? There are lots of people's ideas on there.

Have you considered perhaps doing Beyond as written with the first and third graders and then doing emergent readers with the third grader? Then next year they would both do Bigger as written except you might add in the extensions for your fourth grader. I did Bigger with extensions last year with a fourth grader and it was a great year. You know your kids needs and how well they work together, do you think that would that help you?

Another idea I had going along with pp's comment on post it notes is a scheduling guide called MOTH - Managers of Their Homes. It uses a grid to set up a detailed schedule for everyone in the home. I am not super successful with it because I hate schedules, but I know people who love it.

Could you hold a meeting time first thing in the morning with the oldest and go over the work you would like him do independently and get him started on that before anyone else gets started? Maybe then get the others going on some of the less interesting tasks so your oldest is trying to listen in, such as writing, cursive, grammar, spelling, math. That way if he wanted to listen in on the readings he would already have alot of the independent work done.

I don't know if any of this helps you, but these are the first ideas that sprang to mind. <hugs> The ladies on here are super helpful and once you find your groove, things get so much better.

[quote="mom23"]Whew! You do have a lot on your plate! We're not running the exact same guides as you, but I struggled for quite a while to come up with a workable schedule for our 3 guides, and the thing that finally worked for me was to use post-it notes. It's a suggestion I found on this board-write on a seperate post it each subject for each child, along with how long it takes to complete, and whether it's a subject that needs you, or they can do it alone, or partially alone (T,S,I are the codes that HOD uses.) Then set blocks of time, like say 30 mins and find a kid that you can work with for that length of time-maybe you could do your Beyond History, Rotating Box, and Bible in that setting. Then find some things that your CTC child can work with alone for that length of time-maybe his History or Science...then switch and work with another child. If you don't have enough independent subjects to keep your youngers busy while you work with your 6th grader, have them read a fun library book, or complete a chore, or build something with legos...I don't know. It just helped me to think in blocks of time and then to use sticky notes that I could look at and move around into those blocks of time until they meshed together right.

Yes! I LOVE the idea of using sticky notes and timing things then setting up a schedule. I just jumped in today seeing how things would work with all three in the room. So I am getting some ideas, the sticky notes and times will make a huge difference and help tons! THANK YOU! I also think working with my youngest first(he is the first up) will work out well. And then move up the ladder.

netpea wrote:Have you considered perhaps doing Beyond as written with the first and third graders and then doing emergent readers with the third grader? Then next year they would both do Bigger as written except you might add in the extensions for your fourth grader. I did Bigger with extensions last year with a fourth grader and it was a great year. You know your kids needs and how well they work together, do you think that would that help you?

Could you hold a meeting time first thing in the morning with the oldest and go over the work you would like him do independently and get him started on that before anyone else gets started? Maybe then get the others going on some of the less interesting tasks so your oldest is trying to listen in, such as writing, cursive, grammar, spelling, math. That way if he wanted to listen in on the readings he would already have alot of the independent work done.

I don't know if any of this helps you, but these are the first ideas that sprang to mind. <hugs> The ladies on here are super helpful and once you find your groove, things get so much better.

You know what that would help a lot to just do beyond for both of them at the same time. She participates in that science anyway. Neither of them are quite ready for Bigger Science yet. Then I could do the Language Arts, Math and Emerging Readers with 3rd grader. This simplifies things
Also I definitely need to hold a meeting with 6th grader first, he is really bad about wanting to stop me in the middle of teaching the other tow and ask questions. Is super hard to switch gears and keep the younger from wiggling and distracting!
Thank You!

Great ideas here already! We LOVE the meeting time at our house, and I depend on it to make sure I am actively doing my part of teaching and checking work consistently (I fell down on this at times before we started the meeting time ). Here is a post where I described in detail the meeting time concept, in case it may help...

Adding a meeting time or two:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12668

In Christ,
Julie