Sharing about Scheduling

Last night was our homeschool group's monthly parent support meeting. I love going to the meetings and make it a priority. If you have the opportunity to attend a support meeting, I highly recommend it. I put the dates on my calendar as soon as I know them; that way I don't forget about them.

Anyway, I was asked to post a summary of the meeting. (Thanks, Michele, for that idea!) The topic was scheduling and routines. We had about 10 parents (1 dad!) there. (and one very active toddler! lol) Since one mom there had just pulled her 7th grader out of the public schools, we took time to address her questions and concerns before moving on to our scheduled topic.

We discussed Managers of their Homes (MOTH) by Steve and Teri Maxwell, which describes a very structured approach to scheduling. Every half-hour segment of the day is scheduled and color-coded by child. I did a MOTH schedule a few years ago, but found that being that strictly structured was not something I could stick to easily. I also had a few issues with some of the themes in the book, the one I remember most clearly being scheduling breastfeeding times for your baby. (I firmly believe in breastfeeding on demand.) But, this was the beginning of my scheduling journey.

From there I have moved to a spreadsheet schedule, based on my MOTH-type schedule - still color coded, still mostly 30 minute blocks. However, I use it more for planning purposes (ensuring there is enough time in our day for what I want to accomplish) rather than a timeclock (I don't move on to the next thing at the chiming of the clock).

Sarah, the parent support coordinator, had asked me to share some of my scheduling & lesson planning methods, so I showed my spreadsheet schedule and my lesson planning sheets and described how I manage my time and lessons.

As I've mentioned, I have started doing a month's worth of lesson plans at a time. For David, I give him the whole month's assignments at the beginning of the month. I give the other kids a week's assignments at a time, divided into daily assignments. Any of them is free to work ahead, if they so choose. (They usually do not.)

I have described lesson planning on this blog before recently, so I won't reiterate all that here. But it's working well for us and I described that method at the meeting.

Sarah also discussed her loop scheduling method, which I find intriguing. At some point, when we need a change, I may implement this, especially with the younger two. If you are interested in loop scheduling, here is another blog post about it that I found on doing a web search.

All in all, a very rewarding and valuable meeting! Put the next one on your calendar!

Support Meeting Last Night

As the coordinator of a homeschool group, I strive to provide a welcoming and interesting forum for all kinds of moms at our support group meetings. Last night was our first group meeting since May.

Our topic was "Starting the Homeschool Year" and we asked people to bring something new (to them) that they were EXCITED about using during the upcoming year. We had about twenty women attend the meeting! Lots of people shared things they were excited about. Here is the list posted on our group website.
Meeting Resource List

I have been in leadership in this group for about 7 years and was one of the founding members. Our monthly attendance has been averaging 6-12 women most of that time. Now and then we would have a large meeting, but the average meeting was under 10 moms. Last May we had 19 moms, so maybe this is a hint that our meetings are going to be larger this year. Makes sense because we have a co-op now that has 59 families enrolled.

I do enjoy facilitating the group discussions. My training as a La Leche League Leader comes in handy in this role. Sometimes we have an informal discussion, as we did last night, and sometimes we invite a speaker to come in. Sometimes I prepare something to share. We will have speakers at our next 3 meetings and then we will have a Christmas social.

Do you attend a homeschool support group? If you do, what do you like most about it? If you don't, why not?