Our Strict Homeschool Schedule

I've already explained the many reasons why we use a strict homeschool schedule or timetable in our Charlotte Mason homeschool and discussed 6 myths about strict homeschool schedules. Now, I'm going to share the details of our homeschool schedule.

In the image above, there are 5 columns representing the days of the week Monday-Friday. In each column/day, there are 6-7 subjects listed as well as a play break. The number in parenthesis is the length of time for each lesson.

So on Mondays, my son has 10 minutes of spelling, 20 minutes of drawing, 30 minutes of history with included mapwork. Then he has a 15 minutes break. After the break, he spends 10 minutes on recitation, 10 minutes on copywork, 30 minutes on math, and 10 minutes on natural history. To learn more about what we do during these lessons, check out our 2nd Grade Plans.

Each day the schedule is a little bit different, but there are some things that are similar throughout all the days. On the days we have spelling, we do it first. Recitation always follows the break on the days it appears on the schedule. I try to vary the types of lessons that come after each other, so a lesson that requires reading and narrating will come before or after math, for example.

The lengths of time for each lesson are approximate and are also meant to include the entire lesson time, including set up of the lesson, narration, and putting things away. So a 30-minute handicraft lesson on Tuesday mornings may involve almost 10 minutes of getting the sewing kit out, finding the current project, and threading the needle before much work is started.

With some lessons, like reading, math, and recitation, I use a timer to keep the work confined to the specific time planned. Once again, I don't have my son read for 20 minutes! I set the timer for a shorter amount of time to leave ample time for narrating the lesson to me. Similarly, for math, I set the timer for about 25 minutes to leave time for figuring out the last problem, narration and packing away the books and supplies.

With other lessons, like spelling and copywork and singing, I keep an eye on the clock and he works through the material until the time is almost up.

Finally, with history, geography, and natural history, I don't follow the clock at all. Instead, I have broken our planned books into small chunks ahead of time. Most days, the assigned chapter or pages are completed with plenty of time left over for narration and mapwork. Every now and again, I might have planned too much and the lesson runs a tiny bit over. We are not bound to the schedule with ringing class bells for the different periods as I was in school!

This schedule allows us to cover 14 different subjects over the course of a little more than 2 hours during the 5-day school week. We also do several more subjects, namely poetry, artist study, and composer study, as part of our morning time.

I developed this schedule using the information on Preparing a CM Schedule on Sabbath Mood Homeschool. However, my schedule is unique to me and my family! Charlotte Mason's students had lessons 6 days a week and I do not do everything strictly by her book, partly because I am still learning and partly because I want to fit my homeschool day to my particular family.

We have been very faithfully following this schedule for almost 180 days so far, although I did make a few tweaks at the beginning of the year as I learned what worked best for our family needs and season of life. I have been positively blown away by how peaceful and rigorous and challenging, but low stress, this schedule has been for my son, myself, and my other children.

Next year will be a huge adjustment as I add another student to our homeschool schedule. Fortunately, my 3rd-grade student will be reading all his own lessons, while I will read all of my first-grader's lessons to him. This has made it fairly easy to plan a schedule where certain lessons, like handicrafts, drawing, and singing, as well as the play breaks, will happen together, while other lessons will be separate.

So that is our homeschool schedule! I know it positively bucks the homeschooling trend right now to have a schedule like this, but it works for us and I have no plans to change anytime soon.

What are your thoughts about strict homeschool schedules?