I thought I’d post these download links here for anyone interested in finding out how we plan our days and weeks. This isn’t the only system I’ve used in our homeschooling life. There have been many many plans and schedules that we’ve tweaked through the years; some worked for several months, others a few days. Part of it is my perfectionism, part of it is the continuing education that comes with this type of lifestyle, you’re always hearing/reading about something that maybe will work better for you. Part of it is knowing and loving your kids best; because homeschooling allows the parent to know each child intimately, his personality, his learning style, his body rhythms, his moods, we are in the unique and enviable position of having enough information at our fingertips to be able to decide what materials to use for each child, what books and learning tools he will respond to best, what schedules will go best with his body clock, and how best to train that body clock to conform to a discipline or schedule when needed.

This newest schedule is a modification of something that we used last year. From that I had switched to a more rigid schedule with minutes for each item, but that proved to be too much for my 10-yo and my 8-yo, so now we’re back to using a checklist. Notice that on MY schedule, I still have things listed by the hour/minutes, but that’s so I can keep track of what we’re doing and so I have the *ideal* picture of how our day will go. In reality, things change a lot, and days that go perfectly are few and far between, but as long as we keep trying, we still come out ahead.

The chore chart is one that has been in development for years. Actually made and discarded several times, because we’ve moved so much, and each house has its own particular needs, layout, etc. What I’ve done is list all the chores needed to be done at least once a month on a spreadsheet, with the names of the family members on the top. The chores are organized by room. The code — M and a # — is so that we can distinguish between monthly and weekly chores — I used to have weekly and monthly chores on the same spreadsheet, but it became easier to separate them out. It’s a 4-week cycle, and the numbering goes from 1-20, with 1 being the first Monday of the month, 5 being the first Friday, 6 the second Monday, 20 the Friday of the 4th week. Any extra days on the calendar are monthly-chore-free days (yay!). Saturdays and Sundays are chore-free except for those that are absolute needs (e.g., dishes have to be washed so we have something to eat on).

Finally, the lesson plans. I bought a teacher’s planning book, but there was never enough space. Back when the 16-yo was 10 and she was the only one I was doing any serious planning with, a word processor sufficed. Now that I’m planning for 4, I’ve resorted to the reliable spreadsheet system. This is actually more a reading list than a lesson plan; sometimes depending on the topic I’ll write out a more detailed lesson plan, with items to do each day, but that rarely happens now, since we’ve found that being flexible pays extremely well. It’s very difficult to plan everything, and spontaneous learning is always more fun. (Like today, when I brought in a book from the library with experiments, and the 5-yo is beside me taking off with it — she’s on her fourth experiment already. I could not have planned that!)

Every week, a new schedule is printed out for each child. A new reading/lesson plan is printed out each week as well, with the previous week’s unfinished lessons/books relisted, plus new things added. The monthly chore chart is still being tweaked.

Weekly Chores
Sample child’s schedule/checklist for the week
Master Schedule for the week
Monthly Chores
Sample Weekly Lesson Plan/Reading List

Some resources that helped us along the way — though I hardly ever follow them exactly, but just glean what we can use or what will work for us:

Managers of Their Homes — very inspiring, but WAAAY too rigid for us — believe me, we tried. It got to be too stressful after just a few days.

Holly Pierlot‘s A Mother’s Rule of Life was more helpful. Still very monastic-life-like in some aspects, which for some takes away from the appeal, but helped me understand more about my calling and the need for discipline.