Prayerfully Planning Day 3 ~ Schedule Writes Itself!

I know, this sounds surreal, but it is true. I had run out of time yesterday to get my daily school schedule drafted and spent this morning working on our home business and some Little Flowers things. I sat down this afternoon to draft the schedule, and it just happened!


Once again, I have been inspired by a fellow blogger. Jennifer writes about her day being broken into blocks of time. When I revised that old mother's rule, the first part of our day looked like this, with our learning blocks already divided:

7:30 ~ Breakfast
8:00 ~ Chores/Hygiene
8:30 ~ Exercise and/or Nature Exploration
9:00 ~ Morning Basket
10:00 ~ Learning Block 1
10:30 ~ Morning Recess
11:00 ~ Learning Block 2
11:30 ~ Circle Time
12:00 ~ Learning Block 3
12:30 ~ Lunch
1:00 ~ Read Aloud


Just to explain, Circle Time includes the subjects both of my children will do together. It just seemed like a nice way to break up the morning. They will work mostly separately during the Learning Blocks either with my assistance or independently, depending on the task.


So, all I had to do just now was to fill in what subject areas I wanted covered during those learning blocks. Here is what I decided...

Morning Basket = Prayers/Saints/Seasons x5, Bible Stories x2, Art Appreciation x2, Music Appreciation x2, Poetry x3, Singing x2, Nature Reading x2, Virtue Study x2
Learning Block 1 = Math x5
Learning Block 2 = Reading/Literature: Five in a Row x5, Narration x2, Shared Reading
x3, etc...
Circle Time = History x3, Geography x2, Science x3
Learning Block 3 = Writing & Religion: Handwriting x2, Composition x2, Catechism x4


I left a message for the gymnastics coach and decided to pretend the classes are on Tuesdays, which I was told is one option. That made Tuesdays and Fridays (due to Little Flowers and catch-up time) our light days, so I filled in the blocks for the days of the week with the above subject areas and...


Sweet! I'm done with the schedule and the morning basket decisions! Time to move to number five and finish number six...


5. Get my liturgical and catechetical plans in order. This includes planning my daughter's First Communion notebook contents and creating my monthly folders (not weekly like Dawn's, although inspired by her - I might work up to that) to hold all the relevant ideas. I also need to figure out my plans to use Who Am I? with my son.

6. Plan what will be a part of my Morning Basket, inspired by Jennifer's. Once I finalize what we will do during that time, I need to plan for the time. My thoughts are revolving around liturgical year, prayers, songs, hymns, art and music appreciation, poetry, and nature...maybe. I want to focus on BEAUTY here.