First Grade Homeschool Schedule: Our Timetable

Today I am giving you an in depth look at our first grade homeschool schedule, daily flow and weekly timetable. With one formal student, one kindergarten and a couple of toddlers, I hope getting a peek into our days helps you in your own home and home school.

Watch our First Grade Homeschool Schedule walk through on Youtube here!

What is a timetable & why create one?

A timetable is a term that Charlotte Mason created for her programs in her schools. The purpose of the timetable and to make it visible for all is to remember the principle that for everything there is a proper time. Charlotte Mason created her timetables to include short, varied lessons for the children. She would display the timetable so that everyone would know what to expect for the week.

In our homes, timetables look a little different from Miss Mason’s school timetables because we often have many other things going on in the home setting versus the school room setting. Little siblings with needs, meals to prep, attitudes to address. A home timetable may look different from the school room but the tool is there to serve the family (not the family to serve the schedule).

Block Schedule + Loop Schedules

With our timetable, I use a little bit of block scheduling and a little bit of loop scheduling.

Block Schedule

With a block schedule, I allot blocks of times during the day for certain tasks to be done. Between certain times of the day, I write down which things need to be done within that time. This helps our family have a flow to our day instead of having a strict time to stick to.

click here If you want a copy of our timetable to tailor for your home

Loop Schedule

Within our first grade home school schedule, I have resources that I ‘loop’.

What is looping?

A loop schedule is a term that means we rotate through the subjects or resources. Instead of having a specific subject on a specific day, I like to incorporate looping.

For example, I loop what we do for reading instruction. Everyday when it comes to our reading instruction time, I rotate between our phonics program, word building with our alphabet letters, listening to an audiobook, and deeper spelling instruction. We go down the list to do the next version of that lesson in the given time blocks.

Another example would be our truth, beauty, goodness subjects. I will put our artist study, composer, dancing, singing games, and foreign language songs on a loop. When it comes time during our day to do one of these subjects we will just do the next one on the list that we haven’t done yet for the week.

Last year, we had history scheduled for every Thursday and we almost always missed history. This is why I don’t schedule that way anymore because with looping, that is not an issue. History will come when it’s the next resource on my looping list.

Loop Basket

When I am in a difficult season of life such as a first trimester of pregnancy or just a busy month of the year, I will create a looping basket. In the basket, I put each resource I want to cover for the week. As we have time (and energy), I will just pick up the next resource in the basket. Once the resource is covered, I move it to the back of the line in the basket. I find this a life-saver to be able to keep up with consistency in lessons when more full or difficult days hit, because they do.

For a deeper look into how I plan out our subjects and resources check out the blog post here:

– Homeschool Lesson Plans: Step-by-step

or this video here:

Our First Grade Homeschool Schedule

Here is a look at our weekly timetable. You can see in the notes section I have the resources to loop and within the week I have a suggested outline. I fallback on the looping.

Subjects that we do not loop are the subjects that we do every day such as math, bible, poetry and piano.

What is a buffer day?

Buffer day is a term that comes from Dan Sullivan’s entrepreneurial time system. There are focus days, free days and buffer days. My goal is to hit four focused days of lessons throughout the week and the other days are either our family rest day or a buffer day.

On buffer days we do a lighter lesson time. Sometimes that involves math games, more read aloud time in our term novel or more art instruction/handicraft time. These days we are still doing educational activities but it doesn’t always look like structured lesson time.

Sunday

Sundays are a sort of buffer day for our family. This is not our family rest day yet I do like to have a special tea time where my formal student and I will have tea, a snack and do some math or another subject we missed in the week. This acts as a buffer but is also a set apart, special time that doesn’t feel much like a formal lesson.

Something else special about Sundays is our Sunday readings. Charlotte Mason recommended certain books to be read on Sundays such as Pilgrim’s Progress, missionary stories or stories of Christian character and virtue. I am working on putting together a Sunday basket for our family. I love this idea.

Conclusion

As I mentioned, the timtable is a tool that is there to serve the family. As I take reflection time each term and at the end of the school year, I look back at my logbook notes and think through our timetable. How is it going? Does anything need to be adjusted?

I hope this gives you some inspiration for building home rhythms that serve your family well for the season you are in!

Please leave me a comment below on something that works well in your timetable or something you are excited to implement!