New Schedule is wonderful!!!

Wow, I revamped our school schedule and it is working wonderfully!!!

We now spend a half an hour on science. No more. If I need more time on a lesson, it can wait until the next day.  This was a huge problem last semester. We do science first thing in the morning and I would often spend at least an hour on it, I had great projects and we all loved it, but it put us behind all day. Now, a half an hour. That is it and it is working great!!!

Because science is only taking a half an hour, we have time for Bible class.  Again, this has a limit of half an hour.  On Mondays, we will take this time to do our AWANA lessons, otherwise we will be working out of our set curriculum with AWANA review at the end of our time.  Today, we didn't get very far in our lessons (due to some interruptions) in our half hour time slot, but instead of spending more time on it, I finished what we were doing and said we are going to finish tomorrow. You know how hard this is for me??

By 10:15 in the morning, we are done with two subjects!!

Next is snack break. I know, do my children really need a snack at 10:15 am? No, not really, but they don't think they can survive without thier morning package of fruit snacks! I am making them get their drinks before school starts and if they need to go to the bathroom, well, they can just wait until break time.  This is part of "limiting interruptions."  Oh, and I will not be taking phone calls during this time. Ok, if it's grandma, I will probably pick up, but if you want to get ahold of me during this time, I can definitely text and not take too much time away from the kids.

By 10:25, we are ready to go again, except now is individual time with Megan. Courtney gets to play with Christian for awhile. :)  We do math, English, spelling, history, handwriting, and writing together. I go over her homework from the day before and then go over her new lessons.  This doesn't take long at all! My goal is to get done with her work by 11-11:15.  When we are done, she goes immediately to the dining room table and does her homework!  I am amazed, she has been done with all her homework by noon the last two days!!! Now that's what I like!!

While Megan is working on her homework, I work with Courtney on phonics, sight words, and math. This takes at least 45 minutes, so this takes right up to noon! 

With Megan's homework done and Courtney's lessons done, we are ready for lunch!

We have lunch and I let them play until 1:30.  From 1:30-2, we have reading time. Megan had a hard time getting her reading done first semester, so I am scheduling it into the day. While she is reading her books, I will be reading with Courtney. 

From 2-2:30, we are going to work in art, health, music, and Greek/ Latin or German, doing each one once a week. We did art class yesterday and I plan on doing a music lesson tomorrow.

Finally, at 2:30, I will read our read-aloud, which takes awhile, but is our favorite part of school.

I like this schedule already because 1. Homework is no longer a battle. Megan does it while I am working with Courtney, so she is not distracted.  2.  I like getting all the necessary subjects done by noon. 3. If we have a field trip, we are free in the afternoon.  4.  Our afternoon subjects are necessary, but we can skip them if we need to. (like today!)  5.  I am able to work in those extra subjects I wasn't able to do before Christmas.  6.  The kids are nice and alert in the morning and things are seeming to go smoother, compared to doing schoolwork in the afternoon. 7. It has been easier to work with Christian, he has not interrupted so much and has some time with Courtney in the morning, so he gets some attention and therefore, behaves better!

We also moved the start of school up to 9, not 9:15 or even 9:30, which means I need to get out of BED!!

Hopefully we can keep things going smoothly! I'm super-excited for this semester!