Day 5

Very simple but effective. Here is what I use each week for each child's school schedule. It keeps the kids accountable for their own work while being able to see what they did and what still needs to be done for the day/week. I use this and another chart that I will also upload for both kids but I give my older child (10yrs) a little bit more responsibility with her charts than my youngest (7yrs).




First, I usually sit down on the weekend and figure out what the kids need to do in each subject for the week. As you can hopefully see (sorry it is a little light), I put all of their weekly subjects down the left side of the paper with a space for ME to write what needs to be done in that subject. For example, for History, I may put; read 60 pages of your current book or for Math; I would put; complete 4 lessons (we only have school on Mon-Thurs and take Fri. off). You might even want to include as subjects,anything they need to practice during the week (music lessons, maybe memorizing lines for a play that they are in, etc)and maybe set a time for how long each day. You could even include their weekly chores onto your chart as a subject. For my kids, I even include an area for them to have time to do the things they love. So for my daughter, I might put; cook 2 dinners and 2 desserts this week (she LOVES to cook), or for my son, I might put; spend 20 minutes each day and build something that is really tall or something that is useful or that you can put a motor in and make it work (lego stuff). Once I have this chart filled out, I can then move on to the next chart, below.





As you can see, the subjects are still going down the left side of the paper with our school days going across the top.

For my younger child (7yrs), I will go ahead and break up what he needs to do in each subject for the week into even amounts of work for each day. He then follows that daily and is able to then do pretty much 3 of the subjects completely on his own, and most of the others with some help from me.

With my 10yr old, I give her my first chart completely filled in (what she has to do for the week) and she is to decide how much of the work she is going to do in each subject for each of her school days. As long as it all gets done, I am fine if she chooses to go lighter in a subject on a certain day and do more of it on another day. The point is that she has ownership (responsibility) for when it gets done and how much each day. If it doesn't get done, than she has weekend school until it does get done! If there comes a day when she does not complete her school by Mon. of the next week, I will have to figure something out. So far, I have not had to go there, lol.

By implementing these charts, there has been a lot less arguing because she is the one who said that she would do X on Monday in that subject instead of it coming from me. Also, the kids know what they have decided to do and can see what they have done for the day and what still needs to be done. Some of the subjects they do at the same time, like quiet reading, Science and History but then the others, they can pick on their own as to what subject to do next.

Again, you have to judge for yourself as to what will work for your own house and your own children but so far, this has worked well for us!



So how is your 30 day challenge been going? What have you done differently since the starting of this new 30 days? What has worked for you? What do you feel you would like to work on within this subject?

Please share your comments, ideas, stories & experiences with us!


As always, If you would like to follow this blog and take the challenge with us, please click on the FOLLOW button on the top right side of this page. If you are involved in other homeschool groups or know of others who may want to take this challenge with us, please feel free to forward this blog address to them.

I will be taking Sundays off from blogging but will be checking the blog for comments or to answer any questions that were posted.

Peace in your day!!