This is our homeschool schedule for Danya and Gloria next week. Normally I hand write all this in a little "Teacher's Plan Book" that I bought last year. Since we are considering using Sonlight's 3rd grade curriculum in the coming school year I thought I'd try typing up our schedule using their format and see if it was easier to read, follow, and use. I was also curious how much time it would take me to do. The actual creation of the basic document took me the longest, and I'm still thanking my vo-tech teacher for encouraging me to learn Microsoft Excel on my own. She handed me a book and pointed me toward a computer. Then she told me I had 9 weeks to learn it and pass the tests. Learning that way instead of in a regular class really cemented all the knowledge into my brain and has come in handy in several jobs throughout my life.
After the spreadsheet was made I saved it so that I don't have to redo that part again. Going through our books and workbooks to figure out how many pages to do this week and typing it into the spreadsheet was actually only about 30 minutes worth of work at most. I left a couple of subjects blank since we'll fill them in as we go during the week. I'm also giving the girls a copy so that they can work ahead if they want to. We'll see how it goes this week.
4 comments:
Hi Jess,
I looked at the worksheet you typed and I noticed on your SOTW it looks like you cover 3 Chapters per week and it says the workbook pages that follow that. We started Vol 1 but then decided to put it on hold. If you have time I was wondering how much of the Workbook list do you cover? When we begin it I was so surprised over how many extra resources were listed and how much time it took and the kids got bored with some of the extra stuff.
Can you please tell more about what is working the best for you guys?
We usually only cover 2 chapters a week in SOTW. Right now, though we are behind since I started volume 2 so late in the year. We typically do the review questions, the map, sometimes the coloring pages, and only occasionally the activities. We never use the outside reading recommendations. On the review questions we will sometimes include them when we play a board game. They get to move forward by answering a history review question or solving a math problem.
Thanks so much. I think I would like that, so much more than what we had tried. I may give it another try a little sooner then.
The kids liked her story book but it was some of the extra readings that got us. Some of the recommended readings where over there heads.
I think this is a smart way to tackle SOTW, Jess. When I started homeschooling and we switched our curriculum to that recommended in The Well-Trained Mind, I immediately knew I wanted to do SOTW with my 3. I soon found out that I was getting bogged down in all of the extra activities and reading. Sure, there are some wonderful books we've found along the way from the suggested reading list but I realized that I needed to step back and reevaluate.
I had planned on starting over with SOTW1 but didn't get very far as we had switched to Konos and I found myself bogged down in wrapping my mind around that. Then my daughters told me (in December) that they missed the history we were doing. Ana even started reading it on her own. I've since decided to jump back in and take it light and easy.
So, back to why I wanted to comment. LOL Thank you for sharing with us how you tackle SOTW. I think it will help me out, as well.
Blessings!
Delaina
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