I have wanted to wean the Banker off the daily schedule broken down by day. As part of this exercise, I want him to THINK about his week, PLAN his time, ARRANGE his schedule and COMPLETE his work in a timely, organized manner. I think these skills need to be not a special class but an ongoing system of organization that he will use for the rest of his life. In university, no one will tell him what to do each day, at work, he'll be responsible for completing whatever task lay before him and his honey-do list will look something like this I'm sure. So, let's get going on this again, kiddo......
I tried the big list system with the Banker and he had a nervous break down, he couldn't cope with one all encompassing list. He needed his day listed with what classes he needed to complete on any given day so he had a visible beginning and end to his day when he sat down. He couldn't cope with a list of 12 classes that he had to schedule out on his own so we went back to the full week system. I've been giving him 5 pages of lists of what his responsibility was each day.
THEN I had an epiphany and started messing with the subjects on the days. I stopped putting times and started putting half work split between days. Then I started messing the days around so Monday stopped being math day and Wednesday stopped being science. I moved subjects around the week and told him it was a general guideline for the day. THEN I put all the really hard stuff on Monday and then a full day of easy quick stuff, I tried to make it really, really unbalanced and I found he organized the week on his own to balance it out. There started to be a natural system for completing work based on the general matter of the subjects like he tended to do science, physics and Astro-biology on the same day. He did world history, world study together and so on. He organized without even realizing it.
Way to accidentally change systems...nice stuff, Banker boy!
I held off till last week when I again raised the idea of the List system and surprise, he seems delighted with the idea ;) HAHAHA Way to go, Hippie Girl!
So, this is what his new weekly schedule looks like:
I told you, we're old school, paper, pen and a 3 ring binder. I like the binder system so that we can flip back and get a real, tangible sense of the sheer volume of work we've done this academic year.
He gets a master list with any special notes about the week so he can do a mental overview. Then he gets the list broken down into the details. I think it's visually easy to have a master list he can check off and organize in his head rather than my crazy loopy handwriting where it's broken down. He does like a smart list :) He can check off the master list as he completes tasks and has a quick and easy reference to what he needs to complete. I think it's a pretty balanced schedule.
We just reviewed the List, talked about expectations and the fact we'll be out playing all Thursday at a Minecraft fest at a library with other home school teenagers (allegedly) and then we may go visit a new home schooling friend to chat and drop hints and tips, as many as I have ?? I mean, c'mon, when did I become the go to person? ACK! I don't know what I'm doing but we're doing loads of it ;)
We'll see how well the Banker copes with the list and how well he balances his week. I have solid faith. I'll report back on Friday.
/tracy
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