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!