A Look at Joshua's Week

This is inspired by a thread at the WTM board where one poster shared her 9th grader's schedule. She has her son working from 6 a.m. to 6 in the evening with one hour for chores and hygiene and one hour for lunch and walk. Wow! I thought homeschooling was supposed to be more effiecient than public schooling! I just couldn't imagine following that schedule at all, even for myself, let alone my hormonal and growing 14 yo son. But to each his own! However, it did make me wonder exactly how J's week flows. Because I do feel we are on the slow side of accomplishing things, only because he doesn't want to have to work all summer to earn credits for this high school year. So I thought I'd take a look at what he tends to do each day of the week and how it could be tweaked to make it a little more efficient without interfering with his free time.

Weekends:
Usually on Sunday, but not always, Rick has been working with J on Algebra. I usually check through the homework and any test and mark wrong answers. Since I don't know much math myself I use the solutions manual, Rick goes through and figures out where J might be stumbling and then teaches him those aspects. Sometimes but not always, J will then do a lesson or at least a partial lesson. Also on weekends, sometimes, we do a little Latin to get a jump start on our homework. We should be more consistent about this though. So that is one way I'd like to tweak things.

Monday:
Usually an Algebra II lesson
Reading in History
Lunch
Free time
Latin homework (about 2 hrs)
More free time/dinner
A bit more Latin at around 9:30 or so for maybe 1/2 hour to 45 minutes.

Tuesday:
Finish up Latin homework (45 min to 1 hr)
Attend Latin class from 10:30 to 12
Lunch
Short free time
Algebra II
History reading (in the evening)

Wednesday:
Algebra II (in a.m.)
Earth Science (usually right after lunch)
Literature - from 4 to 5 - I have to squeeze it in between VT and Drawing class for S and B
Catholic Life - Scripture study and discussion - 7:30 to 9:15

Thursday:
Algebra II
Earth Science
Literature - big focus on this
History discussion

Friday:
Mass
Socratic Discussion
Lunch
Tennis

One thing I see here is not enough hours devoted to science. J is in theory also reading in Earth Science but he hasn't really so he should probably pursue that.

Other than that, I like that he has so much free time. He does tend to spend it in front of a screen but he does learn some things from that so it isn't totally wasted time. He also takes walks frequently, often with the dog, and he does a lot of independent reading (though that has decreased in intensity since the school year started.). He also mows the lawn, does laundry, cleans the kitchen and helps tidy the house very cooperatively. And on weekends he participates with the church youth group activities. We are also going to be working on projects with the Pilgrims of the Holy Family if I ever get that off the ground, so I think it is basically a pretty good life!