2 Sample Schedules

Preschool Booklist:

Seven Times the Sun: Guiding Your Child Through the Rhythms of the Day by Shea Darian (4)

Beyond the Rainbow Bridge: Nurturing Our Children From Birth to Seven by Barbara J. Patterson & Pamela Bradley (1)

Eurythmy for the Young Child: A Guide for Parents and Teachers by Estelle Bryer (10)

The Breathing Circle: Learning Through the Movement of the Natural Breath by Nell Smyth (2)

Painting with Children by Brunhild Muller (6)

The Nature Corner: Celebrating the Year's Cycle by M v Leeuwen & J Moeskops (5)

Earthways: Simple Environmental Activities for Young Children by Carol Petrash (7)

Festivals Family and Food by Diana Carey & Judy Large (12)

Toymaking with Children by Freya Jaffke (11)

Children at Play: Using Waldorf Principles to Foster Childhood Development by Heidi Britz-Crecelius (9)

All Year Round by Ann Druitt, et al. (8)

A Child's Seasonal Treasury by Betty Jones (3)



This is the list of 12 essential books I had posted on my site as my recommendations for the preschool homeschool family. And that is me! So in getting ready for the upcoming year I pulled it back out and I'd like to restrict myself as much as possible to the books on this list. In my experience, if you have too many books you end up using none of them and you are actually completely adrift. I think a dozen is a good number.

Turning to the first point, which is the daily rhythm, we will have time to ourselves from 7:30 am (when the children get up) to 2:30 pm (when we leave to pick up Natalie from kindergarten). Steve is taking Natalie to school in the mornings for their special time. I had just Leah and Rebecca in the mornings all week but didn't really do a lot with them -- I kept waiting for the afternoons to do family things. I guess I felt like it wasn't fair to Natalie to leave her out. This morning I realized that Natalie is off at camp having a grand time and it's actually not fair to the other two to have us sit at home all morning. So we headed off to Jug Bay and walked through the marshlands. It was really really nice. And for the first time I got a sense of how wonderful it is to just focus on the two of them and get to know their personalities better. Leah is really surprising me right now. She's asking a lot of probing questions about things like what happens to animals after they die and how babies get out of their mommies. Today she sprang "Where do camels live?" on me; she also remarked that if you have only one foot you have to hop everywhere. The book on her bedside table is Poems and Prayers for the Very Young and her favorite album right now is Masterpieces by Ellington!

Anyway, back to the question of schedules. I have two samples in this Booklist (both from parent-child classes, which is what is done with children the age I have). The first is from Beyond the Rainbow Bridge, "Parent-Child Classes with Barbara" chapter, pages 135-139).

9:45 am - morning circle
10 am - creative play for children
(activities for parents might include snack preparation, crafts and work projects as well as periodically baking and painting with the children)
10:30 am - snack
11 am - clean up
11:15 am - puppet show
11:30 am - goodbye circle

work projects: mending cloths, sanding, repairing toys, washing placemats, sweeping, dusting, polishing tables, and ironing


Turning to The Breathing Circle, we find a chapter called "Creating the Space", pages 30-40.

20-30 minutes of free play
a song or simple melody played on a flute or lyre - gather at center of room
greeting
movement verses
quiet reflection
rolling/swaddling
circle story verse
clean up song - clean up toys, place in baskets at side of room
a new song indicates that the story is soon to follow and that the space for that story is to be established - a few very simple props indicate the scene, a candle is lit, and the mood is set
children help to blow out candle, move to creative activity
(this could be a drawing activity, painting, working with felt, baking, candle decorating, making lavender bags or any other seasonal activities with a thematic link to the story you told)
after cleaning up the previous activity, the children may very well be hungry - a song for washing hands and preparing to eat
snack
a simple circle verse to bring gentle closure
goodbye song


You can see that The Breathing Circle is much more detailed (and FULL of movement verses that you can use in your circles) in its description of how to create a good flow of activities with the children. So between the two we will veer towards that one. Assuming that breakfast is at 7:30, we have from 8 am to 11 am for "school" time, then lunch at 11 am and naps from 11:30 am to 2:30 pm. I'd like certain days of the week to be for certain things, such as painting on Monday, farm visit on Tuesday, playground or park on Wednesday, eurythmy on Thursday, and baking on Friday.

School being three hours from 8 am to 11 am, that gives us (roughly)

8 am 20-30 minutes of free play (inside)

8:25 am a song or simple melody played on a flute or lyre - gather at center of room
greeting
movement verses
quiet reflection
rolling/swaddling
circle story verse

8:50 am clean up song - clean up toys, place in baskets at side of room

9 am a new song indicates that the story is soon to follow and that the space for that story is to be established - a few very simple props indicate the scene, a candle is lit, and the mood is set

9:20 am children help to blow out candle, move to creative activity
(this could be a drawing activity, painting, working with felt, baking, candle decorating, making lavender bags or any other seasonal activities with a thematic link to the story you told)

9:50 am clean up time

10 am after cleaning up the previous activity, the children may very well be hungry - a song for washing hands and preparing to eat
snack

10:20 am outside play time

11 am a simple circle verse to bring gentle closure
goodbye song