Weekend Edition~Loop Scheduling

Loop scheduling is a system I use so that we can get to most of the material I want used and covered in our school year. This helps us not feel behind or be enslaved to the days of the week. I will admit, most times our weeks are the same every week, every Monday, Tuesday etc. But, through loop scheduling, if we decide to just take Thursday off and spend it at the science museum and even do that for several weeks in a row we won't miss what is on my agenda to get to in our scheduling.

Some people have small loops and some people have larger loops. My loops are on the small side.

First you need to look at all the materials you plan on using for your school year. And see how many times through the year you will need to do a lesson to get through it in the time you would like.

For us, mostly if I can hit on each book or material I have one lesson a week I'm good. Some I want scheduled daily though, and some twice a week etc.

So I use loop scheduling. I start with say a math choice first-I want so many lessons in the book, as well as games, and hands on materials to use for learning math. So I sit and look at it all, and figure that out. So I may start out with my first day in the loop doing a math lesson in Ray's, then the second day of the loop playing dice or uno, then the third day in the loop doing another lesson in Ray's, and the fourth day in the math loop doing pattern blocks, and so on. Once I get through all the materials I want in my loop, we start over again at the beginning of the loop and schedule from there and keep going. With the pattern, it helps us not skip much of what I want covered and to get to it all no matter if we only do three days of school that week or 6, etc. I do this for each subject, art, language arts, music, science, social studies, etc. Then again like I said, we have subjects we do daily as well, those are not in the loops because they are daily no matter what.

You can get a pretty good idea of how I do this by looking through my Daily Planner postings on this blog. Below I will list our basic loops and also our daily subjects.


Loop Materials-

Math-
Ray's Arithmetic
Uno
Dice
Pattern Blocks

Language Arts-
McGuffey's
Primary Langauge Lessons
Pathway Readers
Calvert How to use a Dictionary lessons
Books Authors-
Too many to list mainly, but Beatrix Potter, Laura Ingalls Wilder, McCloskey, Burgess Books for Children, Uncle Remus, Richard Scarry, Frog and Toad, and on and on. Book selections from OldFashionedEducation.com and Amblesideonline.org as well. Here and there. We loop through them, till all in that collection have been read, then change the loop accordingly.

Science/Health-
Rod and Staff Health
Rod and Staff Science
Bearinstein Bear Big Book of Science
Peanuts Encyclopedias
Science Books I collected from Sam's and Costco
Science in a Nutshell

Social Studies/Geography-
Magazines-public Watchtower or Awake
Rod and Staff Social Studies/Geography
States Game

Music/Art-
Recorder Lessons
Rod and Staff Music
Draw, Write Now
any arts and crafts projects I can come up with or find.
The songs we use for from JW.org-this is more of a monthly loop then a weekly, they change monthly.

Bible-
As was said the songs we use, as well as the Fruitage of the Spirit aspect changes each month.
Brochures for children

Daily Materials-

Language Arts-
Kindergarten Stories book

Math-
Calendar Time

Social Studies-
Year book til we have read through the entire years book.

Bible-
Daily Text
Daily Bible Reading
My Book of Bible Stories
Watchtower Study for the week-one subheading a day