Many homeschool moms (and dads) are busy planning their year right now. Even if they homeschool year-round, it takes a good amount of planning to pull it all off. I use the summer months to get my planner organized and my year all planned out.
We study the usual subjects like math, science, history, and language arts every day. Those are the required subjects and the most important. But, there are other important subjects that get overlooked during the school year because we get so busy trying to keep up with the three R’s.
I actually learned about loop scheduling recently. It is where you schedule certain subjects on a loop (or rotation). For instance, you would use artist study, Shakespeare, composer study, hymn study, poetry, geography, and foreign language. You don’t have to use all of these subjects and can add in what interests your family.
On our rotation, we do one of those subjects per day. I don’t schedule certain ones for certain days (like Mondays is Shakespeare day). That way if we miss a day we just pick up where we left off and don’t miss out on that subject.
We first choose an artist, a composer, a Shakespeare work, a poet or book of poetry, a region for geography, a hymn, and a foreign language. The ones I chose for the first round starting in August are: Van Gogh, Beethoven, Hamlet, A Child’s Garden of Verses, the Americas, Amazing Grace, and American Sign Language.
During our morning basket time (about an hour of read aloud time and bible time), I add in one of the loop schedule subjects. We will look at a piece of artwork and study it. We will listen to a symphony. We will read poetry and Shakespeare. It gives them a well-rounded education. It also won’t make me feel bogged down with these subjects.
Breaking up each subject into a loop schedule gives you and your children more of an appreciation for each one. Doing 15 minutes of study on each of these areas gives my children a love for learning and opens them up to many new ideas.
