Although I prefer spontaneity over schedule, I have found that scheduling our days has brought a lot of peace to our homeschool.
I have been using the Mangers of Their Homes scheduling system for 4 years now and it has been a tremendous help to me.
In the MOTH system, each person in the family is represented by a different color of paper. I cut out small squares of each person’s paper. Each square represents a 30 minute time block. I write out the different subjects or activities that I want the children to do during the day, as well as what I need to be doing, and begin to place them on the time chart, moving them around until everything fits.
If I can’t make everything fit, it is a sign that my plans are unrealistic. I need to either lengthen our school day, cut out something I was planning to do, or juggle subjects so that different subjects take the same time slot on different days. For example, Geography is at 11:00 on Monday, Timeline work is at 11:00 on Tuesday, and so on.
Before I started MOTH, I would get frustrated that we couldn’t seem to accomplish all our goals, never realizing that I was trying to do 26 hours worth of activities in a 24 hour day!
My schedule has taken a lot of stress out of my days. Many times, I feel like I am on autopilot by 10:00 a.m. I’m tired, and there are several things going on at once, with each child doing different work. When my kids say, “What’s next?” I might easily forget. But I can refer to my schedule and quickly see whether we are on track or not for the morning, and what each child is supposed to be working on.
My schedule has also eliminated an old problem. This used to be a common scenario: one child would be told to work on their math while another was supposed to do spelling. The problem was that neither could do their work without my help. And I couldn’t very well teach new math concepts to one child and quiz another child’s spelling words at the same time! My schedule helps me to make sure that I don’t have to be two places at once.
Another benefit is that I can make sure that my preschooler is cared for and occupied at all times. I don’t want my preschooler to feel like he is an interruption to our school day, or that he needs to leave us alone so we can get our work done. But without careful planning of his day, that could easily become the case.
My schedule enables me to think about his needs when I have time to consider all the options, rather than just responding to his needs when I am distracted and occupied with other children. I plan his day so that he has a small amount of time to play alone, in the same room where we are working. He sits in on some of our schoolday, like family devotions and read aloud time. He also has time penciled in to play with each of his brothers, in turn. Planning a schedule with an eye to his needs is a blessing to him, and it enables our school day to run more efficiently with fewer interruptions.
My schedule keeps me accountable, too. There are certain subjects that I don’t enjoy teaching, especially ones which my kids dislike. But our schedule keeps us on track. We know that if we just buckle down for that 30 minute time slot, it will soon be over and we can move on to something more enjoyable. I can even arrange my elementary school-aged children’s schedules so that 30 minutes of sitting at their desk is followed by 30 minutes of hands-on learning.
This year I am trying something new with our schedule. We are planning to do 9 weeks of school over the summer. This is 1/4 of our year. I am planning a couple of classes that will last through this 9 week quarter and be over by the time fall rolls around. I’m interested to see how it will work to schedule something intensive for a short period, to be replaced by something different later.
As with all the best laid plans, mine don’t always work out. Life inevitably intervenes. Once I am comfortable with my schedule, I don’t feel compelled to stick to the times perfectly, though I do try to stick to the general order. I can look at the schedule and tell at a glance whether we accomplished our morning or afternoon goals.
Frequently, we need 10 extra minutes to finish spelling, so 10 minutes might be taken from math or science. I try to put a free block into the schedule for finishing up any work that had to be set aside. If something on my schedule has to be dropped altogether one day, I make sure that it isn’t dropped again for the rest of the week. In this way, I can ensure that my children get adequate time to do the work which each subject requires.
Thank you for sharing this! I use TOG and found your link there. I bought MOTH about 3 years ago, but my children are just now old enough that I will need to use it. I homeschool 6 1/2 yo twin girls and their night owl 8yo brother. I also have to take care of our 19yo son with autism, who is high functioning and still enrolled in special education at public school. But the afternoons and evenings are a little stressful because he lacks structure. Maybe I should add him to the MOTH program, too!