schedule modifications for middle school guides?

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ChandraJ650
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2021 4:42 pm
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schedule modifications for middle school guides?

Post by ChandraJ650 » Mon Dec 29, 2025 2:14 pm

Advice invited. I am feeling the struggle...

I'm trying to streamline my homeschool timetable/schedule. With IEW writing and Saxon Math (evens or odds) as our chosen writing and math, everything overall takes SOOO long. We have from 7:30 AM until 12:45 daily to fit in everything including lunch before I have to drive my 7th grader to the Jr high for her one obligatory class 🙄 so she can play on the girl's soccer team after school. She won't get home til after 4:30pm every day. I've also had to add a full morning 7:30-12:45pm on Fridays to get to everything. It's all just too much.

So I've been researching alternative schedules. I would like to consider a block schedule for the future but there are so many boxes during the week I'm running into overwhelm on how to implement it. The short lessons are nice in theory, but it might be nice to spend more quality time on a subject. My DD12 is NOT very fast to complete everything, but always says she feels rushed. Has anyone found a simple way to implement a block schedule for middle school and high school guides without doing school year round? Is that even possible or am I being delusional?

We're in Revival to Revolution, and I've had to progressively drop: inventors, history project, state study, about 1/2 of the independent history assignments, and music/composers. Science this year is at the Jr. High but I'll be facilitating that next year at home.

Can the HOD schedule be reasonably modified to remain a workable fit? It greatly exceeds our state's requirement, so although I chose it for the richness and well-roundedness, I don't feel I need to do everything either.

Thanks.

Jaimejac
Posts: 143
Joined: Wed May 04, 2022 5:02 am

Re: schedule modifications for middle school guides?

Post by Jaimejac » Thu Jan 08, 2026 6:50 pm

Hello,

I've been contemplating how I might help you. I don't use block schedules myself so I'm not that familiar with them, and I'm not sure how they would work with an HOD day.

Julie has sometimes suggested "homework" in the upper guides. This is how they do it in their house:

https://www.heartofdakota.com/2019/04/1 ... d-history/

I wonder if that may work for you?

You do have a full day and I can see how it is hard to get all in by 12:45 with lunch in there too. But I hate to hear that you are dropping all of those boxes that are so wonderful.

Let me know if you've come up with any solutions!

Blessings,
Jaime
Christ Alone Homeschool
DD12 - MTMM
DS9 - Preparing Hearts
DS8 - Beyond Little Hearts
4 babies in heaven

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