Last year we sort of just went with the flow, but I confess that I'm not great at time management, and I often found that the day was over and we got little if anything done.
This year, I sat down and wrote out a loose schedule of sorts. (My son is in kindergarten, and we're we're pretty laid back too, so the schedule reflects that.)
Basically, I'm shooting for a minimum of an an hour of "work" a day.
My plan looks like this
Monday:
Reading aloud
Handwriting
Spanish
Tuesday:
Reading aloud
Phonics
Art
Wednesday:
Reading aloud
Math
Fine motor (My son has some pretty significant fine motor delays. I realize that wouldn't be one everyone's to do list.)
Thursday:
Reading aloud
Bible study
History
Friday:
Reading aloud
Science
Art
There is still some flexibility built into the schedule. If he decides on Wednesday, (math day,) that he'd rather play a math game than work in a workbook, that's cool. If he wants to make letters out of playdoh instead of doing the Montessori tweezing activity for fine motor skills practice, that's cool too.
The main thing is that it sort of gives me a bare bones plan to make sure that we really are covering everything, and sort of keeps me accountable.
Also if he wants to do extra, that's great, and will be encouraged, but if we only do the minimum I've laid out, I'm satisfied that he'll be getting an adequate kindergarten education, while still allowing him the freedom to just be a little boy and follow his interests.
School starts next week for us, so it remains to be seen how this schedule works for us, but I think it's an improvement over the way we did things last year.
