Some of us parents are free-flowing and some of us are highly structured. In the homeschool realm, there are challenges if the scale is tipped too far on either side. Too much “free-flowing” and you’ve got chaos. Too much structure and you stifle independence and creativity. So how can you find balance between the two in homeschooling? You can blend structure and independence with a simple scheduling template.
This free template allows you to establish which subjects are taken on which days of the week. It provides space for students to fill in the pages/assignments they’ve completed and space for you to fill in any additional notes (“Sick Thursday,” “Worked ahead a full day Tuesday”).
The template shows examples of how various subjects can be recorded. Delete the examples you see on the template and fill it in with what works in your homeschool. Or simply generate your own template by creating a document and clicking on “insert” and “table.”
I created an updated template for each student every semester of school. My students did not fill out what they accomplished for each subject until after they completed it. The beauty of this system was that they were in control of how much work got done each day. (**Most standard curriculum is broken into daily lessons anyway, which makes it easy.) They were also highly motivated by knowing that if they finished their curriculum early, they could be done with school earlier for the year. Each year we celebrated the last day of school (when the last student finished his or her last subject) by going out for ice cream. This tradition was also a great motivator for the kids to see who would get done first and who would be done last!
When my kids were younger, I printed their templates for them each week and set it out for them. I also included their morning chores on their school schedules, which they could check off when completed. By middle school, they printed the templates for themselves each Monday morning. I kept all their schedules in chronological order paper-clipped together in the front of their school yearbooks. (See the blog post about “Record Keeping” for more info on that.)
Check out the template HERE and modify it so it works for your homeschool!