2006

 

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2006

 

Our 2006 Timetable

Copyright © Ruth Marshall 2006

Term 1

This year we have the privilege of officially teaching 7 of our children, in grades 12, 11, 9, 7, 5, 3, and kindergarten. Below is our proposed timetable for the year.

We use the word "timetable" rather loosely. Most of our work together tends to be done at meal times, or when everyone happens to be in the same room, following family worship. Other than that, maths lessons usually come first, and I do phonics and maths with our kindergarten student during that time, followed by reading with my 3rd grade student. I do languages, history, geography, science, and Australian Studies with the younger half of the family after lunch. Other than that, there is a fair amount of leeway over who does what when. Older children do almost all of their work independently.

Something else I should point out is that this timetable is rather more flexible than it looks. This is our goal, but it would be a rare week when we are able to do everything! Real life often means that we might manage two or three full days of work, plus assorted bits.

We do not follow school terms, but instead have a "5 weeks on, 1 week off" cycle through the year, with an extra week off in the middle of the year.

 

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY
All —

Older children may be exempt from some of these

Calendar text (French / Greek / Hebrew / Latin / German)

Scripture memory

Remember book

French memory verse

Shorter Catechism cycle

Singing

Read-aloud 1

Read-aloud 2

Poetry (memory)

Calendar text (as Monday)

Scripture memory

Remember book

French memory verse

Shorter Catechism (Individual questions)

Singing

Read-aloud 1

Read-aloud 2

Poetry (read)

Calendar text (as Monday)

Scripture memory

Remember book

French memory verse

Shorter Catechism cycle

New song

Read-aloud 1

Read-aloud 2

Poetry (memory)

Calendar text (as Monday)

Scripture memory

Remember book

French memory verse

Shorter Catechism (Individual questions)

Singing

Read-aloud 1

Read-aloud 2

Poetry (read)

Calendar text (as Monday)

Shorter Catechism question in depth

Psalm tune

Singing

French passage – (listen)

Books of the Bible
Maths

Drill (CalcuLadder – Gr. 3, 5, 7)

Lesson or Activity

Drill (CalcuLadder – Gr. 3, 5, 7)

Lesson or Activity

Drill (CalcuLadder – Gr. 3, 5, 7)

Lesson or Activity

Drill (CalcuLadder – Gr. 3, 5, 7)

Lesson or Activity

Drill (CalcuLadder – Gr. 3, 5, 7)

Lesson or Activity
English

Alpha-phonics & Reading  (K, 3)

Dictation – Passage for the week assigned; read through it (Gr. 9, 7, 5)

Copywork (Gr. 7, 5, 3, K)

Writing (15-20 minutes)

Meiklejohn's Grammar (type – Gr. 11-12)

Bible reading + Reading Cycle

Alpha-phonics & Reading  (K, 3)

Dictation – Copy passage (Gr. 9, 7, 5)

Copywork (Gr. 7, 5, 3); Ready-Writer (K)

Writing (15-20 minutes)

Bible reading + Reading Cycle

Alpha-phonics & Reading  (K, 3)

Dictation – Study words (spelling) & punctuation (Gr. 9, 7, 5)

Copywork (Gr. 7, 5, 3, K)

Writing (15-20 minutes)

Meiklejohn's  Grammar (proof-read – Gr. 11-12)

Bible reading + Reading Cycle

 Alpha-phonics & Reading  (K, 3)

Dictation – Passage dictated, or use "Reverse Dictation" (Gr. 9, 7, 5)

Copywork (Gr. 7, 5, 3); Ready-Writer (K)

Writing (15-20 minutes)

Bible reading + Reading Cycle		 Wks 1 & 3 – Free-writing / Essay; Wks 2 & 4 – Letter; Wk 5 – Game / Essay (or copywork)

Bible reading + Reading Cycle

History & Science

(Gr. 11-12)

 Gr. 12 – History – Longmans Series

Gr. 11 – Biology / Chemical Science		 Gr. 12 – Biology

Gr. 11 – History – Longmans Series		 Gr. 12 – History – Longmans Series

Gr. 11 – Biology / Chemical Science		 Gr. 12 – Biology

Gr. 11 – History – Longmans Series		 Gr. 12 – Biology / Nature Study

Gr. 11 – Biology / Chemical Science

Current affairs / Book of the Centuries / Science

History & Science

(Gr. 9)

 Science – General Science / Physical Science World History – Rome; Early Middle Ages

Book of Centuries (Wk 5)

File all history work (Wk 5)		 Geography – Geoactive I: Global Geography (Jacaranda) Australian Studies Nature study

Current affairs / Science

Human Society & its Environment;
Science & Technology

(Gr. 3-7; K joins in some of this)

 Science – Exploring Creation with Astronomy World History – Rome; Early Middle Ages

Book of Centuries (Wk 5)

File history work (Wk 5)		 Geography – A Child’s Geography: Explore His Earth Australian Studies Nature study

Current affairs / Science
Languages Other than English Gr. 12 – German course work

Gr. 11 – Reading Latin

Gr. 9 – Teach Yourself Beginner’s Latin

 Gr. 5, 7 –  Approach to Latin		 Gr. 12 – German reading & copywork

Gr. 11 – Reading Latin

Gr. 9 – Teach Yourself Beginner’s Latin

Gr. 3, 5, 7 –  French (Skoldo)

(French for all during History of France read-aloud)		 Gr. 12 – German course work

Gr. 11 – Reading Latin

Gr. 9 – Teach Yourself Beginner’s Latin

 Gr. 5, 7 –  Approach to Latin		 Gr. 12 – German reading & copywork

Gr. 11 – Reading Latin

Gr. 9 – Teach Yourself Beginner’s Latin

 Gr. 3, 5, 7 –  French (Skoldo)

(French for all during History of France read-aloud)		  
Art / Drawing / Hand-crafts (During read-aloud time) (During read-aloud time) (During read-aloud time) (During read-aloud time) (During read-aloud time)
PE 5BX / XBX or other activity 5BX / XBX or other activity 5BX / XBX or other activity 5BX / XBX or other activity 5BX / XBX or other activity
Typing Typing (Gr. 5, 7) Typing (Gr. 5, 7) Typing (Gr. 5, 7) Typing (Gr. 5, 7) Typing (Gr. 5, 7)
Other Picture Study   Prayer Meeting Music – Composer  

Timetable Notes:

bulletWork together – This falls into four main categories:
bulletCalendar work – See this page for an explanation of what we do. This incorporates work in Hebrew, Greek, French, Latin and German.
bulletMemory work – This includes both Scripture and the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Occasionally we learn a poem as well, but we are not as consistent with poetry-learning as we have been in some years.
Our youngest children are currently learning the Bible verses in the Trinitarian Bible Society Remember booklet. The older ones are learning verses and chapters quoted in Handel's Messiah.
We approach learning the Catechism in two ways. Each of the children learns the individual questions and answers at their own pace. We also "cycle through" the whole of the Catechism as a family, taking about 14 questions a day. This helps even the younger children to become familiar with the later questions as well as the ones they are currently learning.
bulletSinging – We sing the metrical Psalms during family worship every day (unaccompanied, and often in 4-part harmony), and we also make up our own Song Book with hymns, folksongs and non-English songs. One of the inspirations for our Song Book was the Ambleside Online hymns and folksongs rotation.
bulletReading aloud – I try to read aloud regularly from two different books, one chosen for the older and one for the younger children.
For general read-alouds, I try to pick books which appeal roughly to 10-12 year-olds (rather than to the older teens): this way many books actually interest all of the children in the family – both younger and older.
Titles I choose for the younger boys are usually ones which their older siblings have already read (sometimes many times!) This being the case, the older children are generally excused from listening, though sometimes they like to listen anyway.
bulletMaths –
bulletFrom grade 3 and up, our children use the Saxon maths books. For the most part they use these independently. Our 3rd grade student is working orally through Ray's Primary Arithmetic.
bulletApart from "real life" activities, our kindergartener and preschooler are both working through a couple of the Rod and Staff Preschool workbooks: Adventures with Books, and Counting with Numbers.
We alternate these with another set of maths workbooks which all of our children have loved at that age. These are the TOPS Beginning Problem Solving series, published by Dale Seymour. Titles in the series are Frederika and the Big, Bad, Biting Bee (Counting), Sam and the Storm at Willow Pond (Addition), Maggie the Mischievous Mouse (Subtraction), and When Barney Stopped Laughing (Addition and Subtraction)
If they complete all of these before the end of the year, we will begin using either First Lessons in Numbers or First Lessons in Arithmetic.
bulletWe plan to include games, puzzles, or other maths-related activities 1-2 times per 5-week block
bulletEnglish
bulletPhonics & reading – For my thoughts on this, see my Alpha-Phonics review page
bulletDictation – In Term 1, I chose dictation passages from the children's individual reading. For various reasons it became simpler to use a "ready-made" resource for dictation, so at the beginning of Term 2 we resurrected our copies of Schonell's Essential Spelling List and Essentials in Teaching and Testing Spelling (available from Adnil Press) to use with our 3rd-7th grade students. These are only small books, but they are excellent ones with British spelling and interesting passages for dictation. We use them very simply: the boys first spell the words orally and then I dictate the corresponding passage. At this stage they rarely need any formal spelling instruction, though occasionally we have to stop and point out rules. When I dictate a passage to any of my children, I give them the correct punctuation and we discuss afterwards why the author punctuated the passage the way he did.
Our 9th-grade student's dictation passages are still taken from "real books", and I plan to use a different genre of writing for him in each 5-week block.
bulletCopywork – For our approach to copywork, see here. The only real difference to how we do things now is that we purchased the Educational Fontware CD-Rom and installed the Queensland font on our computer. This makes it much easier to make up either manuscript or cursive models for our children to copy, without them picking up some of my own handwriting quirks!
bulletWriting – For grades 5-12. This will usually be related to other subjects; though we may use also use the time for writing thank-you letters, story-writing, completing the Scripture exercises from the church magazine, or doing activities from Julie Bogart's BraveWriter. Not everyone writes every day.
bulletGrammar – Our teenage daughters are currently typing and proof-reading Meiklejohn's New Grammar of the English Tongue. Everyone else learns grammar in the context of Latin lessons or dictation passages. Occasionally we play our Grammar Game.
bulletFree-writing – This is another idea we borrowed from BraveWriter. Everyone sits down with a sheet of paper and a pen, and is expected to write constantly for 15 minutes. Sometimes we assign a topic, sometimes children may be given a picture or a quotation as a prompt, sometimes they are given free range. It doesn't matter what they write (we have had pages filled with "I don't know what to write...this is boring") just as long as they write. After one or two sessions like this, all of a sudden there are giggles, pens begin moving more rapidly, and pages are filled with words and sentences which make sense.
bulletLanguage games – These may include Hangman, Twenty Questions, alphabet games, Scrabble, "What is my Thought Like?" [1], and others.
bulletReading Cycle –
bulletIn order to keep some kind of balance in our reading, our family read-alouds, as well as the children's assigned reading, will follow a "Reading Cycle" – Categories are as follows:
1. Christian Biography (or another Christian book)
2. Geography
3. Literature
4. History
5. Science
6. Other Non-fiction / Historical Fiction)
7. English essay [Read-Aloud 1 only]
bullet"Reading Cycle" work includes both reading, and producing something in writing. The latter is fairly open-ended, but may include copywork, a final narration, or a book review.
bulletOur "Read-Aloud 2" is much more flexible than this as these books are chosen for younger children (preschool-grade 3). At the very least, we try to have a good mix of fiction and non-fiction.
bulletScience and Technology – This year we are using Exploring Creation with Astronomy with our younger children, and the older ones are using the high school General Science and Biology texts, all published by Apologia Educational Ministries.
One daughter has gone on from there to use Chemical Science by Hunter, Simpson, Stranks, Carswell & Boden (published in Sydney by Science Press, in 1983).
bulletHuman Society and Its Environment –
bulletHistory – Our grade 5 and 7 boys are using an older history course called The March of Time. This is an excellent series of books which was published in Britain in the 1940's, but unfortunately is out of print. Our older children are using the Longmans Secondary Histories (another British course, and one which I think is also out of print.
bulletGeography – With our younger children we use Ann Voskamp's A Child's Geography. Our 9th-grade student works independently though the first edition of Geoactive 1, published by Jacaranda Press.
bulletAustralian Studies – We loosely follow the ideas here.
bulletLanguages Other than English –
bulletFrench – Younger boys used the Skoldo French course in Term 1. In Term 2 we dropped French to concentrate on Latin. However, we continue to translate a text from the French Bible each day and we occasionally sing French songs.
bulletLatin – We have four Latin students this year. Our 11th-grade daughter works independently through the Cambridge Reading Latin course; our 9th-grade son also works independently, from G.D.A. Sharpley's Teach Yourself Beginner's Latin; and I teach our 7th- and 5th-grade sons from Paterson & Macnaughton's The Approach to Latin. (For reviews of these courses see here).
Everybody helps translate a text from the Bible each day, and we also occasionally sing songs in Latin.
bulletGerman – Our 12th-grade daughter chose to study German this year. She works independently using a variety of resources. The two main ones are Teach Yourself German and the Oxford Take Off in German course. She regularly reads passages from the German Bible and occasionally listens to some of the Powerglide German tapes.
Each day we all translate a text from the German Bible (the same text as we use for French and Latin).
bulletArt, Craft, & Music – These are mostly covered incidentally or in real life.

Term 2 Update

At the beginning of second term, we made some necessary changes. Apart from anything else, our preschooler had been insisting on doing kindergarten work with his brother, and I also needed to give more individual attention to other children and other subjects. Our older children continued to use the timetable above, but we streamlined things for the younger ones. I made up a checklist for the boys and for me (see below). I begin work each day with our two youngest children, and we simply work down the list. While I am working with them, the other boys are working independently through their own lists. By the time they have finished their independent work, I am ready to work with them.

At the time of writing, we are half-way through the term, and this is working beautifully.

Kindergarten

(With Mummy)

bulletReview memory work (Remember book & Catechism)
bulletAlpha-phonics (& eventually other readers)
bulletReadyWriter / Handwriting (Begin this after completing Counting with Numbers)
bulletNumber work (Counting with Numbers / Frederika et al / other activity)
bulletMon-Thu: Tales (short stories from around the world – fact or fiction) & oral narration; Fri: Nature Study – read a book or outdoor activity

Grade 3

(Independent work)

bulletRead your Bible
bulletPrepare memory work (Remember book and Catechism)
bulletSilent reading

(With Mummy)

bulletMon-Thu: Tales & oral narration; Fri: Nature Study (as for kindergarten)
bulletReview daily checklist
bulletScripture & Catechism recitation
bulletAlpha-phonics; McGuffey Reader
bulletSpelling / dictation (Schonell)
bulletMaths (Ray’s Primary Arithmetic – do orally)
bulletHandwriting / Copywork
bulletCalcuLadder

Grades 5 & 7

(Independent work)

bulletSaxon Maths (Remember to check your work carefully)
bulletPrepare Scripture & Catechism memory work
bulletCursive handwriting / copywork (10 minutes – your very best work)
bulletRead your Bible
bulletTypeQuick
bulletAssigned reading
bulletMon & Wed: Science (or Geography); Tue & Thu: World History; (or Australian Studies); Fri: Nature Study (& possibly a science, history or geography activity)

(With Mummy)

bulletCalcuLadder
bulletReview daily checklist
bulletScripture & Catechism recitation
bulletSpelling / Dictation (Schonell)
bulletMon-Thu: Latin; Fri: BraveWriter exercises

Other work

bulletCalendar text (French, Hebrew/Greek, Latin, German)
bulletCheck timetables & work for grades 9, 11 & 12 – go over any problem areas
bulletDictation with 9th-grade student (different genre of writing each 5-week block) [unless he is busy with another major writing project]
bulletMemory work together (1-2 times a week)
bulletSinging (1-2 times a week, as well as daily Psalm singing)
bulletRead-alouds (includes poetry)

[1]: What is My Thought Like?
One player thinks of some person or object and then asks each of the others in turn: "What is my thought like?" Each names some object and the leader then announces what his thought was; and each player is requested to prove the resemblance between his guess and the subject really chosen. If he cannot he must pay a forfeit.            [from Kate Greenaway's Book of Games]

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