Schedules & Assignment Lists - What To Do?
Tuesday, October 2, 2012 at 5:00AM 
We have taken varied approaches to homeschool in the past three years.
I have fluctuated between being somewhat of a Classical task master, to embracing my inner Charlotte Mason. I can see a distinct advantage to each, depending on the situation.
I've been struggling with the question: Is sticking to a schedule a good thing or a bad thing? More specifically, is sticking to a schedule of assignments a good or bad thing?
I have always loved the interest led spirit of our homeschool... but our needs are changing and I'm feeling the need for more structure. I admire moms who seem to have such a firm handle on scheduling. I'm not there yet.
Currently in our homeschool I have one child who is eager to learn. This child (who shall remain nameless) wakes up eager to please, gets dressed, makes the bed, walks the dog, and does math before I even have breakfast on the table.
All day long this child is in their own little interest led world. I rarely have to direct them to finish something, because they are just so self-motivated.
My other child, however, is not quite so motivated. Without "outing" this child totally, I can tell you this child used to be quite eager to please and very interest driven. Maybe it's the age? Maybe it's the personality? This child needs external motivation and accountability.
In my effort to respond to the needs of my children I created an assignment sheet for my child that needs motivation. What happened next? The child who doesn't need motivation complained because THEY wanted one, too. {sigh}
Alas, we are now working with schedules, assigment sheets and chore charts in my home.
I think I answered my question: For our family, schedules and assignments are a good thing!
This is not naturally the way I operate, but I'm seeing the value of it for my children, so I'm giving it 110%.
I had a heart to heart with the child that was needing motivation. It was a mutual decision to tighten the reigns and put in place a system of accountability. Now I sit down with my husband and show him the assignment lists and we have a little "principal-teacher conference" on Sunday night - Kinda makes me feel more official!
It's going very well, so I wanted to share with you the benefits of homeschool schedules (and assignment lists, chore charts, etc....):
1. Arguments about schoolwork are eliminated (for the most part!).
It's hard to argue with a piece of paper. When my child that is more reluctant starts to complain about the days' assigned work I direct them to the assignment sheet (which is just a simple Word table I created and change each week). I also leave some boxes blank to adjust as the week goes on... this assignment sheet is a bit lighter than usual because we are preparing to go on vacation and are out and about running errands this week. A normal week for us is much more full.
I have tried many homeschool planners in the past, and it just works better when I create my own planning sheets.
*The kids are also free to complete their assignments in the order they would like. Sometimes I have to stop them and call them together for read-alouds or projects done together, but with just two children that's pretty easy.
2. We are more productive.
I tend to go off on tangents (the creative side of me does that a lot) and drag the kids with me. A list of assignments keeps ME focused, too.
3. The house is more organized.
Each day I know for sure that the trash is taken out, dishwasher emptied, bathrooms wiped down, the dog is walked, etc... I used to have the kids do these things, but it was random when I would ask them and they would tend to complain. Now, it is their JOB to help me. I just keep a simple Chore Chart on the refrigerator. (Isn't the owl magnet cute, made by my sweet friend, Melissa.)
4. It actually gives the kids MORE time to be creative.
Yes, tightening the reigns allowed us to make better use of our time. You see, I do believe there are certain things that need to be accomplished, and those are dictated by my husband and myself.
I am all for my children pursuing their interests, but I can't sleep well at night if they have poor spelling, grammar, or don't know their math facts.
I also am a mean mom and make my kids set an alarm clock - 7:15 a.m. - we all function better when we get out bed and get moving!
When we have a schedule I can allow time for blocks of creativity. During Anna's "music" time she practices her assigned piano pieces, but she's also been learning every Taylor Swift song she can get her hands on. She has been improvising on Carol of the Bells on the keyboard. She gets out her recorder and plays frequently.
This week Anna has been very interested in reading about stories of girls her age on The Oregon Trail. I'm trying to leave enough for her to read A LOT. I don't a schedule to rule our lives and kill creativity.
Grant uses his "Lego" time to build based on whatever our history theme is currently. He has also been working on reading the Brick Bible.
My kids amaze me - the creativity is there, and if I give them the time they are so happy.
5. It makes record keeping easy.
I save these weekly assignment sheets in a binder. In addition to my simple record keeping book they give me a good record of the year and what we accomplished.
Life is changing, and I'm trying to keep up! Once you think you have the best way to educate your children figured out, they mature and change, and you must change with them.
I'm thankful that I CAN change. I'm thankful my children are not stuck in a system of education that stays the same year after year.
I'm thankful we homeschool.
Reader Comments (11)
This is great! I have been thinking lately that we need to get a bit more organized as well. I have always followed a fairly regimented schedule for our school work, but I am going to come up with a chore chart with the kids to get that part of our household moving more smoothly.
Great thoughts on scheduling, Mary! I started out over-scheduling with time slots and everything, which I think was the negative side of scheduling for our family. But having a to-do list does keep us all on track and lets everyone know what needs to be accomplished. Like you, I love interest-led learning but couldn't sleep without spelling, grammar and math facts taken care of!
I like your chore chart very much. The one we have isn't working as well as I'd like because it involved laminated cards and I had to keep moving them around if they were done or not done--yours looks much easier to manage. Thanks for another great idea!
I also tried overscheduling (with times!) like Colleen. It was an effort to force my lazier kid into finishing things on time. Yep, I said lazier. It works much better to just have a list and he then finishes "whenever". He gets up in the morning and has his whole "do this today" sheet in front of him, and he just piddles on through. Sometimes he finishes at noon. Sometimes it's more like five. Really...five. I just sit in my chair, reading a book, saying mild things like "you know, if you sit there taking your time, you're making your day last forever...why don't you just finish it?" I'm thinking because my nearly-ten-year-old doesn't really want to do anything right now, he'll just keep going his slow pace. I assume at some point he'll get fed up with himself and how he takes all day, and will just suddenly come down every day and BAM get it done. My oldest does that! He also has a schedule. The youngest has a week schedule. My oldest (11th grade) on the other hand, has his entire year planned out (yeah....that took me three weeks to make!). And so he can look forward and get ahead, or see where he's behind, and it works very well for him. The other would just be so overwhelmed, he couldn't handle it.
But overall, the schedule/list fixes lots of problems. I just say things like "did you do your list yet?" instead of a million other naggy things I could say. And in the meantime, I'm just kickin' back reading a book or something all day (until someone asks me for help, that is!)
My kids do best with a check list too. It also helps me to keep track of what everyone is supposed to be doing. They also have certain chores, usually the same thing everyday day so it's easier for them and for me to remember who does what. My girls are naturally early risers {for now!}, it's the boys that have an alarm set for 7:00am - mean moms need to stick together! While I would like there to be less structure, everything sort of falls apart if it's not there.
This schedule looks so much like ours. Until this week. I am not sure how we will end up but Keilee just said to me, "Mom I had the best day today, thank you". She did Math for 1 1/2 hours, did a gorgeous October calendar while listening to a "Beethoven" channel on Pandora and then an "Elvis" channel, watch the video "The Number 1", helped me make chili in the crock pot and is now practicing her Little Women lines. I go back and forth so often but today felt good. I love that owl magnet!
Mary, we've used schedules for several years now. I found if I didn't, everything went haywire and not much got done. I need the schedules, too! One of mine is naturally more self-motivated than the other, but schedules help everyone. My less motivated one uses her schedule to keep on task (but I often have to remind her to refer to her schedule!), and my more motivated one enjoys ticking items off her to-do list and counting how many more she needs to complete before she is done for the day.
I make ours on my own, as well. Nothing I found worked like I preferred. I think I'll blog about this, too! :-)
okay, I've got to ask... who took the parent conference photo?!!
I have found that everytime I try to schedule, something happens... ER for asthma, van breaks down on our grocery run break (those days when we got all our morning work done, ate lunch and went to store thinking we'd come back and finish! Ha!)....figure out that library books are due and some are non-renewable becuse we already did it and this only happens on the day that it closes early for some odd reason.
But I still try...
I really like the chart for the week idea. I am assuming that their independent work is on there with the work you do together. Hmmm...wondering how this would work for us. I usually write down in a notebook what I want to accomplish, but it seems EVERY SINGLE time I try to plan more than a day in advance, something happens that we can't do the work (like we had to return the puppy because of my allergies, which precluded school for a day) OR that we end up getting farther ahead. But I like the idea of them being accountable...like practice for a college syllabus.
Great post! I also struggle with the line between being two scheduled and wanting the accountability. I’ve realized in the past year that I’m a checklist kind of person and so is my oldest. It seemed very anti-homeschooling to have him work off a checklist at first but since we started it’s been great. I actually give him everything I want him to do for the week and then he has some choice about what to do what day. So he knows he has to complete three days worth of grammar but he can choose if that’s MTW or MWF or all on Friday. On Monday we go over the list and what the week will be like (like if he needs to remember that Friday is a field trip). I still give him a lot of reminders about what a good amount of work is in a day and of what needs to be done since he’s young but I’m trying to train him for middle school/high school when hopefully he can be even more independent.
Mary, YOU amaze me and I love your great sense of humor. I have to chuckle reading about your kids and having no problem knowing which is which. ;-) We have always done better with a work chart for Joe. He loves to check assignments off. I believe Ben is the same way. I'm going to get this done for the week right now!
If there is one thing that is constant about homeschooling, it's change. Ha! We use assignment lists or checklists - they change regularly. I enjoyed this post, Mary.