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Creating a lesson plan was one of the things I really looked forward to about homeschooling. Highlighters, different color pens for each subject, and a perfectly laid out calendar. Call me a nerd but that level of organization makes me very happy. Putting things into effect is another story which is why I am overjoyed to be introducing our new loop schedule!
To be perfectly honest, when I first started to plan our school year, I got a little overzealous with the amount of school time I had scheduled for Squeaks and me. We started to fall behind pretty quickly. One day the boys would wake up too early, or Squeaks would want to spend more time on a subject (which I’m thrilled with!). I know, in reality, we weren’t actually behind. Squeaks was still learning and growing. At this age, kids learn mostly through play and daily life anyway so my lesson plans were just me being my hyper-enthusiastic-organized self. The fact that “falling behind” started to stress me out is my own fault. Completely self-inflicted.
So out with the lesson plan I say!
I first read about using a loop schedule in Teaching From Rest. I had already created my beautifully organized traditional lesson plan though and decided I was on the right path. Our first two months of the school year were planned out to the day. We were all set. Two weeks in our son had a birthday, we had a few sick kids, a day where nothing went as planned, and suddenly I felt behind.
We worked our way through it. Catching up a little on days when the boys napped longer, or days when Squeaks was particularly into the lesson, but I still felt rushed.
This short experience has led me to realize just what I want our homeschool to be.
I want my children to feel at ease with learning. It’s not work, it’s life. I don’t want it to be all worksheets and structured lesson plans. I want it to be life learned well. No stress to meet the next “goal”, just time enjoyed together learning.
I’m sure the way we learn will morph and change as the kids grow and I learn more about the best ways to help them grow. But for now, I know this: I want them to LOVE learning and I want Philippians 4:8 to be our focus.
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Phil.4:8
I also know that my children thrive on routine. My husband and I are the same way. We have personalities that find comfort in the expected. So some sort of structured learning is healthy for our family. That’s why I think a loop schedule fits us so well.
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With a loop schedule you still know what’s coming next but there’s no date attached to it.
You rotate through a list of subjects as time permits. If you miss a day, you just do the next item in the loop when you get back to it. There’s no falling behind, you just keep rotating through the loop.
Here’s what’s in our loop schedule:
Our “Daily Loop” consists of things that are a priority for us. Bible time is top of the list, followed by read-aloud time and BOB books. Next is gross motor which can be anything active, like our color race game or just exploring outside. This is followed by a “weekly item” (more on that below), and last on the loop is a kid pick. Squeaks chooses any extra activities or topics she wants to learn about. All of these happen daily.
Weekly items rotate through additional subjects: math, science, phonics, life skills, and art.
These weekly items are broken into topics that I’d like to cover at some point in the year. They can be covered individually or combined and, if we want to, we can do more than one weekly item a day (which so far happens more often than not). For example, on the day we loop to math, our lesson might start in our numbers and shapes Busy Binder and lead to our phone number activity which is part of life skills. Or we might bake muffins which involves math, science, and life skills. Many topics can be combined since subjects overlap.
Some of the topics I’m particularly excited to incorporate into our loop are animal science (Squeaks want to be a vet. Love!), poetry, and lose parts. I recently started reading about the creative benefits of working with loose parts and I think it will be a big hit with Little Dude especially, my little future engineer.
Get your EDITABLE Loop Schedule – Subject Format here!
We’re at the beginning of this new lesson plan style and I’m really looking forward to enjoying this process with my kiddos. And of course, I’ll be sharing our experiences with all of you!
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