Free Customizable Loop Scheduling Menu

What is Loop Scheduling?

I super duper love loop scheduling. It basically saved my life. Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic. But I spent many years of this homeschool journey wondering why I couldn’t force myself to plod through open-and-go curriculums, or map out daily schedules, or even just fit science in regularly (oops).

Putting all my Great Big Ideas on a list and looping through them made me feel AWESOME because it meant I was finally “fitting in” All The Things! I was free from the burden of schedules and deadlines.

The most basic way to use loop scheduling is to make a list of tasks you want to do regularly, and then check them off one by one as you do them. The catch is that you don’t repeat any of the tasks until the entire list has been completed! Then you go back and start the list all over again.

Many homeschools use loop scheduling for their core subjects. Looping subjects alleviates the panic that comes with realizing you haven’t had time to get to, say, science for three weeks in a row! 😉 It also frees you from the arbitrary time constraints of curriculums. You get to every subject…just at whatever pace you need to get there.

In our homeschool, we use a Loop Book for core subjects, and then use loop scheduling for the extra-curricular activities that we often end up running out of time for, or even forget about.

For example, my eleven year old son, Tank, wants to learn programs that will help him toward his goal of becoming a LEGO design engineer. He loves to spend time learning how to use Sketch-Up, and also improving his skills in Studio 2.0, a LEGO design program. However, because other core subjects usually take daily priority, and because there are other things he likes to do in his free time, these programs wound up being forgotten.

Enter Loop Scheduling!

These aren’t activities he needs to do daily, or even weekly. But they are skills he wants to keep actively improving. By putting them in a loop (which also includes some other tasks, like a LEGO Challenge Build and an engineering activity book), he can choose one task to work on daily, and work his way through the loop. The activities don’t end up forgotten, but they also don’t become a time-consuming burden!

You can also use the loop to give fun extra practice for skills your child may need to work on. For example, my nine year old, Daisy, has a loop that includes logic games, math games, and poetry study. These are all skills she wants to improve, but not necessarily skills she needs to work on daily.

As an added bonus, I love that the loops in our homeschool end up being, in a way, even more important than the core subjects. The tasks in the loop are almost always directly related to my kids’ goals and dreams for adulthood.

For example, Daisy currently has many interests! She wants to work for NASA, but also be a mom, homemaker, gardener, and a good cook. She has another loop that contains activities like an astronaut activity book, and cooking and baking activity journals.

I love that my kids get to see in a tangible way that their interests are important enough to put on their weekly schedules. They help decide what activities go into these loops, and it gives them great ownership over their education!