Scheduling AO

Sometimes Ambleside Online seems daunting to implement, and usually it's the scheduling that seems difficult.  However, the scheduling is really already done for you--it's just a matter of finding a method of recording the schedule and your progress through it.

I use the chart-format schedules (new, up-to-date copies soon to be available on the AmblesideOnline website).  I then edit them to add things that I want to be sure we do daily or weekly that aren't already listed.  I take out what I don't want to do.  For things that need to happen more than once a week, like copywork, I put little checkboxes in the weekly chart box.  Then each day, we look at the column for the week.

We start with the things at the bottom of the column, the work that needs to be done daily or multiple times a week, and we do those in whatever order we choose, marking them off as we go.  I look at the readings for the week and figure out how many readings we'll need to do each day to finish in the week, and I let dd choose which ones to do that day.  Sometimes we mix those in with the other work, and sometimes we do them after the other work.  Sometimes I have to give input about what readings to choose so as to be sure we don't do two easy readings in one day and leave the hard readings to all be done on another day.

I've also used a checklist format, just taking the weekly schedule and putting little lines next to each item.  I used that for the first three years, but now that I've got two schooling the chart format works better for me because it is more compact. In fact, with my laser printer's option to print four pages to a sheet, I can print the entire term's schedule for one AO year on a single sheet of paper that folds into a little booklet.

Update 7-Apr-2013:  Post changed to reflect changes to available resources.