2015-2016 Circle Time Planning

Now that I have books chosen for our 2015-2016 homeschool year, I'm trying to create the schedule.  Last night I worked out our "Circle Time" subjects, or subjects we want to do together as a family, Cindy Rollins coined this "Morning Time".  I took little squares of paper and wrote each subject/book title that I intended to use as well as creating Mon, Tues, Wed, etc., headers.  This I learned from Sonya Shafer while watching the Simply Charlotte Mason Learning and Living DVD series. 

Once all the little papers were written, I could easily manipulate them and place them under a day of the week accordingly.  For example, I knew I wanted to spend three days per week on Beautiful Feet's Modern American and World History study and two days per week on Beautfiul Feet's History of Science study.  These were easily plugged in across the top, altering days.

Next, I plan to study the book of Genesis using the TruthQuest Beginnings guide, along with church history and some missionary stories.  I've chosen the Nancy Ganz commentary, Herein is Love, as the spine of the Genesis study and plan to spend four days per week on it.  The church history and missionary study will rotate with Beautiful Feet's Geography, which we're finishing up from last year.  I will be combining readings from Trial & Triumph by Hannula and the History Lives series by Mindy and Brandon Withrow.  I know the Geography study will only take one day per week, as well as the missionary biography.  A dear friend told me about the YWAM missionary stories on audio.  Since we'll be traveling to choir on Thursday mornings, I thought this the perfect time to pop in a YWAM missionary audio, hence the reason I plugged it into Thursday.  I know the BF Geography study is a little heavier than reading a chapter of church history and given the fact that Ruben has tutoring at the Children's Dyslexia Center on Mon/Wed, I plugged it into Tuesday, one of our days we get to stay home all day!

Lastly, I looked at what I call the, Charlotte Mason Enrichment, that I wanted to incorporate into our Circle Time this year.  I'm outsourcing choir and art, but I still want to do composer and picture study at home.  In addition, I plan to carry on our Plutarch Study from last year, as well as adding Wild Animals I Have Known by Seton, a recommendation from Ambleside Online Year 5 for Natural History.  I simply placed these four items on a different day each week.  Then added Health and Nature Study to our light day, Friday.  This will be a time for outdoor recreation and exploring nature.

Put into table form, our Circle Time week will look something like this....

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
History	Science	History	Science	History
Bible	Bible	Bible	Bible	Health
Church History	Geography	Church History	Missionary	Nature Study
Composer Study	Plutarch	Natural History	Picture Study
Tutoring		Tutoring	Choir

Stay tuned for our full list of 2015-2016 curriculum as we begin our first day of school next week....