All About Loop Scheduling

What is a Loop Schedule?

Loop scheduling is basically just putting the lesser subjects that you do NOT want to do every day on a rotation. You can use this for core (academic) lesser subjects such as history, health, geography, & science. You could also use a loop schedule for non-core (elective type) subjects such as art, music, literature study, physical education, poetry, life skills, foreign language, home ec, etc…

Or you can even use loop scheduling for out of the house events such as playdates, library days, park days, you name it even comic book creating or baking day! The sky is the limit.

Moms: you may even choose to loop your housework. 🙂

NOTE: Do NOT list the subjects that must be or should be done every day like math.

Why Plan a Loop Schedule?

Planning a loop schedule has its advantages. The ones I consider worthy are especially beneficial to the younger years. 

1. Planning a loop schedule keeps things fresh and entertaining as well as exciting especially for the younger grades. This keeps the children engaged and looking forward to the next day’s “fun” looped event.
2. By planning a loop schedule, you are able to have a more robust and well-rounded educational experience for you and your child. This is achieved by being able to “fit in” all the things that you or your child want to do. I know when I first started homeschooling, I tried to fit in all the things we wanted to do only to find that we didn’t have time or wouldn’t do each thing regularly or often enough. This would make me feel like a failure and a bad mom and make my children sad. Then I discovered loop scheduling, and we had fun, peace, and happiness.

Loop Schedule Tips:

1. I suggest keeping your loop list as short as possible (you don’t want a never-ending list.)
   By keeping it shorter, you’ll get finished sooner, and it’ll give you and your child(ren) a feeling of accomplishment. 
2. I always had our scheduled loop time to be AFTER the main “must do” curriculum such as math and language was done. By doing it after the “hard/boring” work was done, it gave the children something exciting to look forward to, and I found they worked more diligently during those mundane subjects. 

How to Plan a Loop Schedule:

To plan a loop schedule simply list all the subjects you want to loop and put a number next to them that tells you how frequently you want to tackle those subjects, it’s a ratio. So below is an example.

History           3
geography      1
science           2
health             1
art                   1
music              1
lit. study          1
physical ed.    1

So, according to my above list I would have a ratio of 3:1 for history to art. That means for every 3 history lessons I do, I’ll do 1 lesson of art.

To actually put these subjects on a rotation schedule, I’ll have to count how many lines I will need.
I’ll add 3, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, & 1 which equals 11. I’ll draw 11 lines. I’ll start with my subject that has the highest frequency (history), and I’ll put history on lines 1, 5, & 9. Then I’ll space 2 sciences evenly on the remaining lines. Lastly, I’ll fill the remaining lines with the subjects that only have a frequency of 1. So my finished loop rotation schedule will look like this.

History
Geography
Health
Science
History
Art
Music
Science
History
Literature Study
Physical Education

WHEN to use the Loop Schedule:

We will set aside some ‘loop’ time during each school day. You can set aside however much time you are able to devote to it. I’ll set aside 1 hour. After we complete our daily work such as; Bible, Math, & Language arts, it’ll be time for loop. We will start at the top of the list with history. We may get history done in 30 minutes, if so then we still have 30 minutes of loop time left, so we’ll continue with geography. We might get geography done in 15 minutes, if so we’ll continue with health. After the hour of loop time that I sat aside we may have completed history, geography, & health. So tomorrow during loop time we’ll start with science. It may take the whole hour to finish the science lesson, that’s all right, the following day we’ll pick up with history again.

How to Track Your Loop Schedule:

As you complete a lesson for each subject listed, just mark it off. It doesn’t matter what day you do what. You only complete what comes next on the list. Now, there is no stress! When you get to the bottom of the list you start back over at the top. I keep my loop list in a page protector and use a dry erase marker to mark it off as we go.

I hope this helps to explain loop scheduling. 

Another thing to think about: If you find that loop scheduling doesn’t work for you or you think it’s too complex you might want to check into block scheduling.  

I created a document to help you plan out a loop schedule.

Loop Planning Sheets