School Schedule

Daniel does much better knowing what to expect and having things come in order. It helps him keep things on an even keel emotionally. So as we have decided to home school him I have spent some time working out a schedule or routine for him to follow. There will be disruptions from time to time and that's something that he has to learn to adapt to but to help him here is a sample of his (proposed!) schedule for one day of the week. It has far more scheduling than I would like. I hate routines so this is going to be something I really have to work on. I have spent a lot of time with it as Daniel has a hard time sitting still, (His Occupational Therapist says that his attention span is literally 2 mins. We are working on stretching that.) So I am trying to mix things up so that there is not a lot of sitting at one time and so that the sitting is (for now) 5-10 mins. max. One of his therapy goals is that by the end of the year he will be able to sit for 10 mins without any problems.

 Tuesday
Breakfast: Practice Folk Song (Alternating between folk songs and listening to music by specific composers)
Scriptures, Primary Song & Prayer
Chores
Pledge/Calendar/Time/Weather
Reading lesson
Fairy Tales/ Tea Party Time/ Manners (Great way to teach manners at the table and elsewhere!)
Math - Frequently much of this will be hands on learning so he doesn't have to sit still. We will also be trying to work it into our daily lives more.
Violin Practice
Outdoors or Active Activity- A lot of time outside observing nature (another hard one for me!) and learning. They are also both in Swimming lessons twice a week.
Lunch: Article of Faith Memorization and Art Study-We will study a different artist each term.
Occupational Therapy 12-1:30- He has currently 3 different therapies during the week.
Literature Reading- He needs down time after therapy as it wears him out.
Explode the Code- Excellent work book for handwriting and phonics. He loves it as it plays games.
Handicraft/ life skills- Pounding nails into wood. Working on riding a bike/scooter. Learning how to fish etc.
Building Thinking Skills- This is another workbook that teaches critical thinking- very important I think & fun!
Free Outside Time
Dinner-
Practice Reading- With newly emerging skills at reading its important to practice!
A walk after dinner- Other nights its a game night or German movie night
Dad Read A Loud @ Bed Time with German books- We are learning German. Why not with a built in tutor with Daddy! We will also watch on other days familiar movies in German and work on learning various body parts, colors etc.


It looks like a lot for a day I know. But when you consider that many of these are only about 10 mins or so I think we will be fine. For our curriculum we are pretty much using the Ambleside Online curriculum, (See the link on the right side bar for more information.) which is a very classical education but geared more towards developing a whole person. He is doing year 0 right now and will maybe start year 1 next year. It's a very advanced curriculum. By the time they are in High School they are pretty much reading and studying College level stuff. We'll see how he does. He's very smart, we just have to get him to hold still long enough to get him to absorb it.
I fully anticipate Reagan being right there to help us a long and learn all she can. She's a girl and only 17 months younger than Daniel so he'd better watch out! It's interesting to watch as she has a completely different learning style from Daniel. Both of them have had a hard time learning their letters and sounds. For Daniel all it took was Grandma Lois getting him Leap Frog's Letter Factory video and him watching it every day for 2 weeks a couple years ago. He knew every letter and every sound after those first 2 weeks. I thought it would be the same with Reagan especially as she can't stop the music coming out of her! But instead she needs to write it down to remember it. She isn't interested in learning to write her letters yet but the ones that she has learned those are the ones that she remembers the name of and what sound they make. She also loves to draw so that shouldn't have surprised me too much.