Please help me with my schedule

[Alana]

We used TOG for about a year at one point and now we have decided to come back to it. The consensus is that we want to be back on the same subject. So we will be using Year 2 this year. When I was using it before, it was still in only classic form and I had a LG and an UG. This time I will have two 2 D students. I am trying to figure out my schedule and how much time to allot and would like to know what is working for you.

Do you do all the history readings on Monday and Tuesday with a discussion on Wednesday? Or does it work better to read Thursday through Tuesday? Do you not start your writing until Wednesday? If so, do you require the final to be due on Friday? I am thinking that would be fine for a paragraph but what about when the assignment is a 5-paragraph essay?

When have you found it best to do geography and timeline?

I would love to hear what's working for you.


Alana

[Susan in La]

Dear Alana,

Currently, we fill out our planners on Friday afternoons. The children are free to start reading over the weekend. Most of them wait until Monday to start reading, though.

I read the Teacher's Notes on the weekend.

We do geography and timeline together as a family on Tuesday mornings.

On Wednesday afternoons, we discuss History (and Government for my rhetorics). On Thursday afternoons, we discuss Church History (and Philosophy for my rhetorics). On Friday mornings, we complete any evaluations I've decided to give. On Friday afternoons, we discuss Literature and then do any Fine Arts "viewing" together as a family.

For Writing, on Monday, I go over the week's assignment. Pre-writing is due on Wednesday, 1st draft on Thursday, final draft on Friday. If the genre is new to my children (like essay-writing), then I will spread the assignment over more weeks so that I can walk them through the process more carefully. I found that once my students became more skilled at writing essays, they could complete the assignments in a week. I've realized the key is ME - I must be diligent to check my children's pre-writing and drafts and return the drafts to them promptly so they can finish their assignments.

The only aspect of our schedule that I may change this year is the day we discuss literature; I may move the literature discussions to Thursdays when we are not quite so ready for the week to be over.

HTH!

[Alana]

Thank you, Susan. That was helpful. I'll just see how it goes with the writing. For the most part, I think it will be fine anyway. I can't wait to get my books so I can see how much actual history reading there is and if it is realistic for her to accomplish that in two days. I will just have to wait on that one.

Thanks for your help!

Alana

[mom]

We're switching to a daily schedule this year after four years of a block type schedule.

Doing more each day in our history period instead of Monday - geography and scheduling, Friday fine arts type sched.

This year, dialectic for my middle child is a new level and there is alot more reading than she's used to. She also has questions to answer (acctb. and thnkg ?s). That's too much pressure to do on Mon and Tues.

I would be happy to email you our format done like a SL schedule and a seperate unit overview sheet I made to help me see what lit and history readings need to be scheduled.
Leave your email here if you want me to. I'll check back later.
Stephanie

[Alana]

Thanks for your thoughts, Stephanie. I think I really won't know if the reading will be able to done by Wednesday or not along with the questions. I did get my books but it is hard to tell. So I'm just planning on tweaking what I need to.

I'd love to see your schedule. My email is grant2415@verizon.net.

Thanks,
Alana

[nHontas]

Originally posted by mom:
We're switching to a daily schedule this year after four years of a block type schedule.

Doing more each day in our history period instead of Monday - geography and scheduling, Friday fine arts type sched.

This year, dialectic for my middle child is a new level and there is alot more reading than she's used to. She also has questions to answer (acctb. and thnkg ?s). That's too much pressure to do on Mon and Tues.

I would be happy to email you our format done like a SL schedule and a seperate unit overview sheet I made to help me see what lit and history readings need to be scheduled.
Leave your email here if you want me to. I'll check back later.
Stephanie

========
Me too? We're leaving a SL schedule for the 1st time in 6 years, beginning TOG Y1. I would LOVE to see what you've come up with for both the overview & your schedule -- THANKS for sharing!
nHontas

[MK in TX]

Hello,

I'm reading through this post, because I too am having difficulty with my schedule - what is an "SL" schedule please?

[Alana]

An "SL" schedule is a Sonlight schedule.


Alana

[Tambrie]

Hi,

I have a dd using year one. I'd be very interested in a schedule. I'm not familiar with SL's schedule, but if someone would share some ideas with me, I'd be grateful.

Last year I read about someone blogging ToG year one and their schedule. Any idea where I can find potential schedules for the year? I realize I'll need to tweak it to fit my daughters interests/strengths/weaknesses, but some timeline would be fantastic.

tambrie3@yahoo.com

[Alana]

I can tell you what has ended up working for us, but I will say I figured it out by trial and error. The first couple of weeks we tried doing all history reading on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday Discussion, Thurday timeline and geography, and Friday church history. It just seemed unbalanced to us.

We switched to a Friday discussion time where they read from Monday through Thursday. They also do timeline/geography on Friday. This works much better for us. I don't know how old your children are so I'm not sure what your specific challenges are and if my schedule would help you or not. I have two D children in 6th and 8th grade. If you would like to see times and subjects broken down, I can email that to you.