How Do I Teach After School: Scheduling the Year

Welcome to Day 5 of the How Do I Teach After School! Today I’m going to cover Scheduling the Year. Be sure and read over Day 1: What to Teach, Day 2: School Set Up & Day 3: Finding Materials and Day 4: Setting a Routine.

For the last post I want to talk about Scheduling the Year. I will break this down to Weekly and Yearly. This is all tentative and can change a lot. When doing after school learning you learn to be flexible.

Something to keep in mind is you don’t have to 100% repeat school in your planning. If you want to learn something that they are not in school go for it! We are doing some history that they are not covering in school but is local history to us. Never miss a chance to learn something at a place you can visit.

Our Weekly Schedule

This is a sample schedule that I used last year. It was changed around a lot but we went with the time we had and what we were doing. I try to have it be around 45 minutes to an hour. Remember that this is not a repeat of school but fun learning activities that can be done at home to add on to what they are learning! Every activity should be as fun and as much learning as possible.

For each week I use Homeschool Creations Homeschool Planner. I like that I can use it year after year and it is easy to edit. I don’t have to print it either. So I can look back and change it as I need to.

Monday: Work Books or Printable (3 or 4 pages), Craft and Fine Motor
Tuesday: Flash Cards and Gymnastics
Wednesday: Gross Motor and Reading activity
Thursday: Printable (3 or 4 pages), Fine Motor and Arts & Crats
Friday: Gross motor and Art & Crafts
Saturday: Gross Motor, Arts & Crafts, and Printable or Workbook (3 or 4 pages).

I will start with the same weekly schedule at the start of the year and change it as needed for homework and activities out of the house. Just remember you are not planning a whole day just 1 hour at most to add on to their day.

Our Yearly Schedule

When I do our yearly schedule I do themes we will cover that month. It gives me time to work on any extra things I want to find or make for that time. I’ll give you a rundown of the themes I have looked at for the year. Some of these will be changing around.

The schedule below is 100% flexible and if there is a change it often happens fast but I try and make sure that I cover a few things that stick so I can plan them. This will cover just our themes for the school year. We will do the activities mention in the weekly schedule in these themes.

September

• School Themes
• Apples
• Farm
• Fall – General Fall themes

October

• Columbus
• Pumpkins
• Monsters
• Halloween

November

• 3 Little Pigs
• Goldie locks & The Three Bears
• Thanksgiving
• Hanukkah

December
All month we will cover various Christmas type activities.

• Polar Express
• 12 Days of Christmas
• Christmas Themes & Nativity
• New Years

January

• Winter – General themes of winter and will do some of these all month.
• Transportation
• Bear Snores On – and other bear themes
• Jack & the Beanstalk

February

• Ground Hog Day
• Valentines
• Medieval Themes
• Presidents Day

March

• Spring & Update
• Kites
• Little Red Hen
• Little Red Ridding Hood

April

• Rain
• Baseball
• Flowers
• Earth Day

May

• Desert
• Aesop’s Fables
• Bird
• Bugs

Don’t feel that you have to stick to what you plan. If your child has a theme at school mirroring it at home is okay. You will teach and do different things. I start with this list above and change as I need it.

Final Thoughts
This has been a great series for me. I loved doing it. Is this the only way to do after school activities? Nope not at all. Here is a list of other blogs that do after school activities and some have link ups as well. If you can’t find what suits your family here they might have a fun idea for you!

• The Educators Spin On it
• KC Eduventures
• The Measured Mom
• Mama Smiles
• Creative Family Fun
• Coffee Cups and Crayons
• Afterschool for Smarty Pants
• Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational
• Scribble Doodle and Draw
• Pennies of Time
• Busy Kids Happy Mom
• Housing a Forest

The main thing to remember with after school activities is that this should be fun for them and you! Don’t stress out to much about not finding the right printables or item you need.

Check out the other posts in the series.
Day 1: What to Teach
Day 2: School Set Up
Day 3: Finding Materials
Day 4: Setting a Routine

Please keep in mind this post is my personal experience and might not work for your family. Keep in mind that you do what works best for you.

How Do I Teach … 5 Day Blog Series is brought to you by the following blogs:
Enchanted Homeschooling Mom ~ Homeschool Gameschool ~ Are We There Yet? ~ Life with Moore Babies ~ No Doubt Learning ~ Mrs. Redd’s Classroom Blog ~ Proverbial Homemaker ~ My Joy Filled Life ~ Preschool Powol Packets ~ Adventures in Mommydom ~ Vicki Arnold ~ Only Passionate Curiosity ~ Living Life and Learning ~ Farm Fresh Adventures ~ 3 Dinosaurs

Cassie – 3Dinosaurs.com