I have had to develop a schedule for using singapore math blending the text book, workbook and the intensive practice book.
Our last 12-week term of the school year begins next week, so I've been spending this week planning out all the kids' work and entering it into Homeschool Tracker so I don't have to do any more planning once school starts. But I always find it difficult to plan out Singapore math on a daily basis. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Singapore math, but there's just not an easy way to schedule work on a daily basis.
Sure, the teacher guides that Sonlight publishes give you a weekly schedule, but they don't take into account the Intensive Practice book. Plus, a weekly schedule doesn't help someone who wants to have a daily to-do list for each child.
So after a little thought I came up with a different plan which I think will work much better for us. I went through the Singapore textbook, workbook, and Intensive Practice books and wrote down, in order, the pages that needed to be completed. You can see what I came up with below (click to enlarge). This is the list I compiled for Jerah's Singapore 4B work. (TB=textbook, WB=workbook, and IP=Intensive Practice)
The plan is that when it comes time to do math each day, we'll just proceed to the next item on the checklist. If I've scheduled 45 minutes for math, we'll take that time doing the work, and then I'll determine at the end whether I want her to do more of the work as "homework" or if we'll just stop there. Either way, we'll just proceed from where we ended the next day.
The great thing about this is that some days, if my kids are having a little trouble with the concepts, we can spend the whole time on just one of the items on the list without feeling like we're going to disrupt the schedule for the rest of the term. But other days we might be able to check off more than one item, maybe even skipping some things if my kids have a good handle on the topic. And then, when it comes to doing the Intensive Practice, which I scheduled at the end of each unit, we'll take several days to complete the work.
Using the checklist and taking it one day at a time will make it much easier for me to make sure the math workload each day is more balanced; but at the same time, I have a list of all the work that needs to be done so that we stay on track. I may not have a definite date when the work will be completed, but I'll know we are working toward that goal each and every day. My kids are happy they aren't overloaded with work, and I'm happy that we're sticking to some kind of schedule; it's a win-win situation.
Do you use Singapore Math with your kids? I'd love to hear any tricks you've come up with for scheduling.
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This is great! I just love your site and all of your ideas. Your book choices are great…just what I need…some more books! Ha!
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Thank you so much for this. We have just started with Singapore math and I was struggling with how to organize our daily work. This looks like a great solution that I am going to test out!
I teach Full time in a Singapore Primary school, and thats the way I schedule my math curriculum. The progression of the topics are spiral, which means that every year they cover the same topics but introduce a little more (and maybe add in some new topics). But I find following the workbook exercises is the best way. I always look in the workbooks first.
Thanks for sharing your method of scheduling Singapore math. I'm keeping a master schedule like this on the computer for all the SM levels that we have so I don't have to reschedule it again (this is our 4th child through this book…how did I not think of this before??).