New Schedule!
Thought since I was on a homeschooling roll, I'd show y'all what I've come up with for Lydia's next semester. We're slated to start after the new baby or our move, whichever is last. I want everything set up and ready to go - the new baby's routine, our new home, and our vacation stuff. And it looks like we have four weeks left of this 'Year 0' term that we did for her (age 4.)
You see, the Charlotte Mason method doesn't have grades. You simply do whatever 'year' the child learns comfortably at, and because there really isn't anything geared for ages under 6, I wanted to have a demi-school plan set up so that we would be able to cover some things together, without having an actual schedule, per se.
Last year (Year 0) I devised my own plan, and it ended up being about an hour and a half of *activities* per day. (You can see the schedule here.) Very minimal, lots of puzzles, books, and games, coloring... and just free-time. But I wanted her to start learning letters, how to hold a pencil, etc. I am not 'hardcore' CM... we each do our own thing. And we had a 'daily log sheet' that we 'x'ed off as we did our activities. But I've added a bunch of stuff for this next year, making it even more structured. And I used color to indicate 15-minute blocks. We're slated for about two and a half hours of *activities* this time.
Year 0.5 Charlotte Mason Schedule
| Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
| Prayer |
Prayer |
Prayer |
Prayer |
| Pledge |
Pledge |
Pledge |
Pledge |
| Weather Clock |
Weather Clock |
Weather Clock |
Weather Clock |
| Copywork |
Copywork |
Copywork |
Copywork |
| Phonics |
Phonics |
Phonics |
Phonics |
| Math |
Math |
Math |
Math |
| Green Science |
Country |
Handicraft |
PC Science |
| Song of the Week |
Song of the Week |
Song of the Week |
Song of the Week |
| Verse of the Week |
Verse of the Week |
Verse of the Week |
Verse of the Week |
| Rhyme |
Art Print |
Rhyme |
Art Print |
| Bible Story |
Bible Story |
Bible Story |
Bible Story |
| Poem/Composer |
Poem/Composer |
Poem/Composer |
Poem/Composer |
| Reading |
Reading |
Reading |
Reading |
| Outdoors |
Outdoors |
Outdoors |
Outdoors |
| Toy Scramble |
Toy Scramble |
Toy Scramble |
Toy Scramble |
Prayer: Lydia has been saying 'form prayers' at meals and bedtime, but I really don't like it. I want her to understand what prayer is, so we need to start really 'talking to Jesus'. We'll do this together at the start of every 'schooltime'. She said, 'but mom, I don't know how!' So we'll have to remedy that!
Weather Clock & Pledge: She knows the pledge by heart, but I don't want to drop it yet... I think it's important that we keep some continuity from last year's 'schooling', and the weather clock and pledge seem like easy and simple things to retain for this year.
CopyWork: I want to start this, but as a child who doesn't read yet, it's basically gonna be writing 'letters'... I'm thinking we'll do her verse of the week, and focus on a part of it at a time. She'll simply write the phrase or part of the verse, just like Mama has it written. She knows her letters, this will show her how letters are put together as words. Good intro to phonics and reading... and CM stresses copywork's importance.
Phonics: I'm still debating what to do here. Someone highly recommended Phonic Pathways, but I just... am worried about using something I haven't even looked thru. They have Phonic books at K-Mart for $19.95, and they look basic, but I don't know *how* basic, and with a cartful of kids, I just didn't have much time to really look it over. Maybe I need a shopping day to browse materials...? Math: There are several sites I have bookmarked... MathUSee seems to be what most CM-ers use, but there's also MakingMathMeaningful, 123Math, and the cheapy books at K-Mart (again, $19.95). I haven't looked into this enough yet, either, but I know we need to do some more playing with numbers.
Song of the Week/Verse of the Week: Her Sunday School gives us a 'schedule' of memory verses, and we just use those, since they are what they work on at church. And up til now, we've just done children's choruses (one a week) out of the Children's Bible Hour songbook I have from 1968. LoL!! But this year I might add some folk songs to it... maybe patriotic songs, too. We shall see...
Rhyme: I dunno about this, but I saw a schedule of rhymes on someone's homeschooling site, and copied it. And CM's 'Year 0' has a list of achievements a child should reach by age 6, and knowing 5 rhymes is one of them. They're pretty easy, so I'm thinkin we can do this...
Art Print: CM has a schedule of pictures (works of art) that all students look at and learn about. I thought it might be fun to hang one on our fridge a month, and talk about it, make up stories about it, try to draw it... that kind of thing. Make a picture book out of them. I'm sure I can print off pictures from the Internet for our 'art book'. It might be fun. And interesting.
Bible Story: We didn't even get thru Moses in my Bible Story book this past year - it's been that in-depth. It's not dumbed down in the slightest - it went into the details of the ark, the temple, etc. So we have a LONG way to go! ((It's a MONSTER book.)) This is a good thing. Because she's really enjoying these... she was telling daddy the other day about the men who were nice and helped Moses hold up his hands so they could win the war. Just out of the blue on the porch. That's good news, I think!
Poem/Composer: This is combining some CM techniques - specifically, narration and classical composition. I took the poem list on the AO/CM site, and made up a condensed version of them... with boxes beside each poem. We'll read a poem a day, I'll explain anything confusing, and she'll draw a picture of what the poem's about in the box (a ladybug, a boat, fairies)... and while we draw our freehand picture and color it, I'll play the song on the CM rotation. Killing two CM birds with one stone.
Toy Scramble: Carried over from last 'year'. This is where she does 'chores'... specifically, putting away the MOUNDS of toys all over the living room and playroom. I help... but it's good for her to learn to tidy up after herself. Just MHO, of course.
Handiwork: I have a list of projects and crafts I've put together, and I think hands-on fun is important, don't you? So we're gonna make things... do a little creative handiwork.
Countries: The same site above has a 'country of the week' list on it, and since I go to the library a lot, I thought I'd get out a book on each country, and we could 'explore' a different culture every week. Could be a lot of fun.
Science: I have a1950's 'green' science book, that talks about how water freezes, and has little 'Dick n' Jane' stories to make it fun... and it has questions and 'experiments' at the end of each. There are 52 in the book, so I'm gonna do this with Lydia once a week. I also found a list of topics on living things - and I think we could learn about one of those topics a week from library books, too, as part of our reading, using the list as our topic guide.
Anyhow, that SOUNDS like a lot of stuff, but really, if you have your ducks in a row, it's not much, really. And it will become routine pretty quickly, I'm thinking. Anyhow, my crate-on-wheels is all ready to be utilized for this. ((I have an apple crate with casters on it that has hanging files in it, and we just keep a folder for each activity.)) I'm pretty excited about the line-up, but there's still a few things to figure out (math & phonics)... so we shall see! | 
I'm really looking forward to "officially" home-schooling Joshua (as if I'm not already teaching him things.
