Schedules

During the last week and a half, we have tried a new schedule and strategy with our 6th grader, in an effort to train him to be more responsible with his school day,  and work to become more organized and able to work independently.  Out of all the schedules we have done for him over the years, this is by far the best one.  It has worked out so well!  

Several things that I discovered this time is that the size of the font and color are very important to my son.  He is a visual learner, so I should have figured this out sooner.  He says that the color is just more fun, but I believe that the words stand out more and make it easier for him to distinguish on the page.  We coordinated the color of each subject title on his daily schedule with his weekly assignment sheet that details each subject and all the items that need to be completed in that subject on each given day.

When creating the schedule, we evaluated the following:

• pre-scheduled events for the day 
• topics that my son can work on independently
• times when I need to teach a topic or assist older son with his work
• times when I need to be available to work with my younger son.

Taking all this into account, we came up with his schedule and it is wonderful.  It helped this week when I was sick and my husband had to step in to help out.  My son was able to accomplish all the tasks that he needed to do so we do not have anything we need to catch up on.  That in itself is a true "delight" for me!

I have attended many seminars and read many more articles on the topic of "scheduling the school day", but until this point nothing had worked as smoothly.  I'm glad we finally found something that is working for now.