A Look Inside Our Homeschool Schedule

I have been planning and planning for first grade since January! Jane will be starting Grade 1 and Max begins his first year of Kindy.

Kinergarten in the Waldorf philosophy is very laid back. So Max's schedule will go something like this.

Monday - Circle time, painting, music, and story
Tuesday - Circle time, music
Wednesday - Circle time, music, bread baking, story
Thursday - Circle time, music, story, and craft/recipe
Friday - Service project, homeschool sports and park day

Pretty chill life, right?

Jane's school just stepped it up a notch. This year we begin a foreign language, knitting, narration/writing, lots more art, spelling, recorder and form drawing. It sounds like a lot (and it feels like a lot some days) but I have been slowly adding each of these things in for the last few weeks to work into the rhythm of it, and it's amazing how much I can get done during our anchor points like circle and quiet time.

So, Jane's schedule.

Monday - Circle time, which includes songs and poetry memorization, Spanish lessons, beanbag math/spelling, and jumproping. Then we go straight into recorder practice (right after her recorder I do a quick "music lesson" with Max. He plucks a pentatonic lyre and we learn a new song to sing.) Then the Fairy Tale, Watercolor Painting, and Form Drawing. After lunch we have 15-20 minutes of knitting time while listening to a sparkle story, and then reading (I read a loud and Jane reads aloud).

Tuesday - Circle time, Recorder, Jane Retells the story and we add her narration to our Main Lesson Book. Handwriting. Knitting, Reading

Wednesday - Circle time, Recorder, New Fairy Tale, Block Crayon Drawing, Reading, knitting and Afternoon Science Co-op!

Thursday - Circle time, Recorder, Retell and add to MLB, Reading, knitting, and homeschool classes

Friday - General Free Day, but we try to do the following. Service project, catch up (if needed), homeschool sports and park day, play practice.

I can usually start circle time around 9:30 or 10 and be done by 11:30 or 12. Some days will be longer. Mondays definitely, with the form drawing. Other days will be shorter. Those are days when we'll add in some cooking or projects to go along with our stories.

You may notice there is no math in this lineup. I promise we're teaching it. But Waldorf teaches subjects in blocks. So some weeks, instead of new fairy tales we will have math lessons. All social studies and science/history will be done through homeschool co-ops/classes and our daily read-aloud time.

Phew! We begin on Monday with EVERYTHING!