I have been working hard to get my school year plans together in time to start next week. It's quite a challenge with my boys going into Grades 12, 10, 8, 5, and K. And then there's the 1-year-old. I am using The CMEC with a few tweaks and adjustments.
The past few years, I always made a comprehensive timetable (schedule) that laid out each school day for each child. This worked extremely well for me. Our school days were focused and ran as smoothly as I thought possible with four students plus baby or preschooler. There was never any question in anyone's mind what anyone should be doing at any given time...we just had to glance over at the big schedule posted on the wall. Moreover, while each day of the week was different, every Monday, every Tuesday, etc. of the term followed the same pattern so we were able to get into a comfortable groove.
However, while all this has been an incredible and often painful workout for my executive functioning skills --have I ever told you how much I hate planning?-- it really has been doing very little for my students' executive function. I've been feeling more and more convicted as my oldest sons' high school years slip away that they really need to practice doing this for themselves. But how could I let go and have our days still go smoothly?
Changing gears is so hard for me. I just didn't have the mental energy to figure out how to do this in the last couple of years with a challenging pregnancy in 2023 and a baby who needed surgery (cleft lip) in 2024. But this is our year.
I've made a skeleton timetable for my oldest three. (I'm doing a regular timetable for my fourth in grade 5 and a loose one for my fifth in Kindergarten.) It is a weekly spread that includes all the things we do together, like meals, daily news, chores, Shakespeare, Plutarch, and picture study. And then it has blank space. They will have to fill in when they're doing each subject.
I have also scheduled a daily check-in with all three (at different times) to make sure they are:
-filling in the timetable
-logging work completed as they go along (I'll have them mark on their timetable itself)
-orally narrating any lessons that they haven't done a written or drawn narration for
-doing work in their Book of Centuries, Commonplace, and Nature Journals
I am sure we will be adjusting a lot of things as we go. Please don't take any advice from me on this yet...I am just sharing a work in progress. I am hoping that as time goes on and they get used to this we will be able to check in weekly rather than daily. But I know they will need the accountability and coaching at first.
There is an added challenge this year as my oldest is taking a university course, and the oldest two are taking a composition class from Wildwood Learning Centre. These things are completely new to us so it will probably take a little while to figure out how to fit in homework, etc.
I will try to come back periodically and share how it's going.
