What it looks like to use a Guest Hollow schedule in real life…

If you are new to using a buffet-style curriculum like Guest Hollow, for some, the curriculum schedule can seem a bit overwhelming at first! How do you go through and pick things to do or not to do? How can you edit and customize the schedule to work for your family?

Today I’m going to go through a week of one of our schedules and show you one way to manage it all!

Important note: You absolutely do not need to do any of the things mentioned below. Our award-winning schedules are designed to be ready-to-go and work wonderfully the way they were designed. 😉 This post simply provides optional suggestions for those who enjoy personalizing their experience.

Guest Hollow is a buffet!

First, let me explain that Guest Hollow curriculums are a buffet. Think about walking through a buffet line. There are usually tons of choices: meats, pasta, bread, ethnic foods, desserts… When you walk in, you don’t suddenly panic and think, “Oh wow! How am I going to eat all of this?” No, instead you understand that you’ll take what you want and leave the rest.

People approaching a buffet will completely vary in what they pile on their plates:

• The “I’m starving” diner: Loads up on a little bit of everything like meats, sides, pasta, bread, salad, and two desserts, because everything looks so good!
• The protein lover: Heads straight for the carving station, stacks the plate with meat, and only adds a small scoop of veggies or one roll.
• The vegetarian: Skips the meat entirely and fills the plate with salads, roasted vegetables, pastas, grains, and maybe a fruit-based dessert.
• The picky eater or someone with an upset stomach: Chooses only a few tidbits of “safe” items, perhaps plain pasta and bread, and avoids anything unfamiliar.
• The sampler: Takes tiny portions of many different dishes, wanting to taste a wide variety without committing to a full serving of anything.
• The “favorite dish” hunter: Finds one or two beloved items, like mac and cheese or fried chicken, and piles up on those, ignoring most of the other options.

Let’s say you ate at the buffet every day. You can easily imagine that what you put on your plate would change from day to day. Yet over time, you’d still end up with a pretty balanced and satisfying range of meals.

That’s how most Guest Hollow curriculums can work! It’s not intended for you to do everything. We give you lots of options so you can tailor things to your circumstances, your child, your budget, and your unique educational style. You can take what works for you, leave what doesn’t, and enjoy the flexibility built right in.

And just like at a buffet, there will always be different opinions about the “best” way to put together a meal, and the same is true for homeschooling. In this discussion, we’re not telling you what your best approach should be. Instead, we’ll simply show you how to navigate the options so you can make informed choices that fit your own needs and preferences.

“Alright, that makes sense,” you say, “but how am I supposed to put that into practice?”

That’s what I’m going to show you in this post!

Book rankings

One of the first things you’ll notice with our schedules is that they come with a ranked book list (if you’ve made a purchase). This is the first step in picking from the buffet of Guest Hollow options!

Here’s how it works:

We’ve ranked items in our booklists to help you plan your purchases. If you are on a very strict budget, don’t have a good library system, or need to limit your student’s amount of reading, the ranking system will help you prioritize items.

Items we feel shouldn’t be dropped or substituted are marked with a #1.

Other items are ranked as follows:

#2: This item is not absolutely necessary, but highly recommended.

#3: This item is optional but recommended.

#4: This item is optional and less important than the others.

Remember, the rankings are a general but important guide. You know your student best though and what books will/won’t appeal. You can cull books based on the time you have available for the program, interest level, budget, availability, etc. This is a buffet that YOU are in charge of.

Here’s a screenshot of a piece of Jr. Modern American History’s booklist, so you can see the book ranking system in action:

In addition to the more detailed booklist, we also supply a handy quick-view booklist that can be taken to your local bookstore, library, and garage sales!

When you are choosing the books for the curriculum, it’s like choosing the meat/protein from a buffet line.

Now let’s fill up our plates with the rest!

Dive into the supply list!

Once you’ve chosen the books you want to use for the year, you can take a look at the supply list we provide to get a preview of some of the activities that require special items. Since these activities are buffet-style options, you can select the ones that best suit your student(s). Maybe you have a crafty kid who wants to dive into lots of hands-on art projects. Maybe another child dislikes crafts but loves trying out recipes. Or perhaps your kids aren’t into projects at all, but you’d still like to sprinkle in a few throughout the year. Reviewing the supply list ahead of time helps you pick and choose what fits and ensures you have the necessary supplies on hand if you decide to use them.

Here’s a screenshot of a portion of the supply list for Jr. Modern American History:

Think of the supply list as part of the buffet. You can go through it at the beginning of the year to determine which activities are the best fit for your student!

Now on to the schedule itself…

Here’s where the magic of a buffet schedule happens!

Some of our super-organized customers like to edit the Microsoft Word version of the schedule at the beginning of the year. They’re often the type who enjoy personalizing things and want to customize and fine-tune everything in advance. Sometimes they want to narrow things down before they get started.

If that sounds like you, feel free to edit the schedules as much as you like. You can delete anything you don’t plan to use and add in resources or activities you already have or want to include. I’ll show you what that looks like in a minute.

If you don’t have Microsoft Word, no worries! You can edit the schedule using Google docs, LibreOffice, and other similar apps that open up and edit Microsoft Word files.

Some of you are definitely NOT that type of person, LOL. Some like to work from a printed version of the schedule and check things off as they go along. Others like to use the online version (presented like a webpage) of the schedule to see all of the options and just play it by ear. Either way, make it work for you!

If you want to follow along with the up-coming example, grab a highlighter or marker and feel free to mark up this PDF copy of week 1:

To give you an idea of how to use a schedule and adapt it for real life, I’ve included an example of week one below.

Let’s pretend I did week 1 with one of my kids. Items in black show the things we did for the week, and items in light blue are things we skipped (to give you an idea of how a schedule would be used in real life). If you were preplanning the week, you could just cut out anything you wouldn’t want to do ahead of time and not have to look at it. I’ll show you how that works, soon! The things we didn’t do (in blue text) are left in the schedule example below to give you a visual idea of how much was cut to personalize things.

Extra notes are added in red text. When you see those, pretend that I’m (Jenn) sitting here talking to you and explaining things. 😊 Remember that anything in light blue text was cut, and we did not do those things. It’s kind of hard to read on the screen, but if you have your copy on hand, you’ll be able to better see what I chose not to do.

OK, here we go! Don’t be intimidated by all the options! I’ll walk you through how to simplify everything shortly. 😉

The unedited version!

Resources	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
*Spine Book: Beowulf’s Marvelous Book of Modern American History *A spine book is a “backbone” of information and will be used for most of the year.
Beowulf’s Marvelous Book of Modern American History I did this as a read-aloud.	p. 16-23   Introduction   Chapter 1: 1900-1919 The Turn of the Century   The Industrial Revolution Changed the World	p. 24-31   Rabbit Trail! Tycoons and Monopolies   Immigrants   Religious Persecution: Sarah	p. 31-35   Political Unrest: Jakub   Economic Opportunity: Joseph	p. 36-42   Life in the Big City Tenements   The Romano Family	p. 42-48   Muckrakers   The Progressive Era
Non-Fiction
What Was Ellis Island? Kiddo read this to herself during language arts reading time.	Chapters 1-2	Chapters 3-4	Chapters 5-6	Chapters 7-8 (End of book!)
Fiction/Literature/Graphic Novels
Understood Betsy Used the audio book during lunch.	Chapter 1	Chapter 2	Chapter 3	Chapter 4
	Book notes for Understood Betsy: Book club guide (has questions about the book)   If you want to spend more time with this book, here are some additional resources you can purchase: Understood Betsy: A Reading Guide Prairie and Pine: Understood Betsy Unit Study
Geography and Maps
	Google Earth: View Ellis Island. Zoom out and look at how far away it is from Europe.
A Buffet of Extra Resources and Activities
Activities	Play Monopoly. Did this on Saturday with Dad and brother.   Writing idea: Did this during language arts time: Write a story about an immigrant family who left their home country to come to America in the early 1900s. Why did they leave? Were they hoping for a better job, escaping danger or war, or joining family who had already moved? What was their journey like—did they sail across the ocean on a crowded ship? What did they bring with them?   Describe what they saw when they arrived in America. Did they pass through Ellis Island? What did they feel—excited, scared, hopeful?   Then, imagine what life was like for them once they settled in a big city or small town. Did they live in a crowded tenement building? What kind of work did they do? Did the children go to school?   Use your imagination to bring their story to life. Give your characters names, emotions, and challenges to face—and show how they worked hard to build a new life in America.   Art/Crafts Create a tenement building in Minecraft. Note: Chose not to do this because kiddo gets a bit addicted when it comes to electronics.   $ Pop-Up dollhouse template (on Etsy): Design your own tenement building scenes using the pop-up templates. You can also use a cardboard box to make a diorama. Note: Might use this later for a different time period with Internet Archive catalog cutouts to paste in as furniture (linked in other parts of the schedule). We don’t have time for it this week.   Recipes: Made butter during science time: After reading chapter 3 in Understood Betsy, make some butter from scratch: Video: How to Make Homemade Butter in a Mason Jar   Science: Making butter science printables – You can use this packet of printables to go with the video above. Put in Kiddo’s notebook.
Printables	Muckrakers packet: This packet has reading material, a multiple choice quiz, crossword puzzle, cause and effect chart and questions, and extension activities.   Muckrakers of the Progressive Era (for older students)   Scholastic Teachables: Mini-book: Ellis Island Scholastic Teachables: Immigration to the U.S. Lift-the-Flap Timeline   twinkl Arriving at Ellis Island Roll and Write Introductory Activity – Supplies: dice twinkl What would you bring to Ellis Island? twinkl Ellis Island flip book twinkl Annie Moore’s Suitcase Activity twinkl Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Fact File and Vocabulary Questions
Videos	American History 1900 – 1909 – How We Lived 8:06m Just watched part of this in 2x speed.   New York c.1899: Restored to Life in Amazing Footage 1:42m	Immigrants at Ellis Island | History 4:27m   Who were the Richest Tycoons in America? 6:26m	Life Story of a Native American in the 1900s //Eyewitness to History// Documentary	Inside Historic Tenements of NYC | New York Live TV 3:24m   Tenement Life: The Harsh Reality of Immigrant Housing in 19th Century New York 3:08m	What Is Muckraking? Early Investigative Journalism Explained 4:26m
	Note: Throughout the year, you’ll watch various videos that include real footage from the past—like the New York, c.1889 video linked above. When watching them, you can imagine you’ve been given a time machine and can visit different time periods to observe daily life!   Discussion idea: After watching these videos during the year, take a few minutes to discuss the following: What do you notice about how people dress, work, and travel? What kinds of technology or transportation do you see? How is it different from today? What surprised you the most in the video? What things in the video seem familiar or similar to today?
Websites	Interactive game: City of Immigrants Kiddo played this after all her other schoolwork was done.   The Confino Family Story – This article explores the life of Victoria Confino, a 14-year-old immigrant from Kastoria, in modern-day Greece. Through her story, students learn about Victoria’s life in Kastoria, her immigration through Ellis Island, and her life on the Lower East Side. The article includes two primary sources, a postcard from Kastoria in 1910, and a ship passenger list from 1911, student-facing questions and writing activities.   The Rogarshevsky Family Story – This article shares the story of the Rogarshevsky family—the parents, Fannie and Abraham, raised six children in 97 Orchard Street, balancing work, family, and their religious faith. Students consider the difficulties of factory work for teenage Bessie Rogarshevsky, and learn about labor unions, working conditions, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory through Bessie’s perspective. Primary sources include a census record from 1900, a factory photograph from 1910, and a photograph of women on strike in 1911. The teacher guide includes student-facing questions and writing activities.

The edited version!

Now let’s take a look at the edited version. First, I deleted all the “notes” in week 1 after reading them, so they wouldn’t clutter things up. Remember, I can always see deleted notes or items by visiting the online version of the schedule or viewing the original copy.

Notice that some of the items are used during Language Arts Time and Science Time! Many of our curriculums have cross-curricular activities that you can spread across the day across different subjects.

I also moved some things to different table cells to make them easier to remember and do at the correct time (that I chose). I also cut some of the video titles and other text (like for Beowulf’s Book) to make less visual clutter.

Although I’d edit the Microsoft Word version of the schedule at the beginning of the year and print it out, I’d use the online version of the schedule to click on links. This would do two things for me: It would make links easy to click on, and it would also remind me of things I cut out of the schedule in case I wanted to revisit any of them.

Resources	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
*Spine Book: Beowulf’s Marvelous Book of Modern American History *A spine book is a “backbone” of information and will be used for most of the year.
Beowulf’s Book	p. 16-23	p. 24-31	p. 31-35	p. 36-42	p. 42-48
Non-Fiction
(Language Arts Time) What Was Ellis Island?	Chapters 1-2	Chapters 3-4	Chapters 5-6	Chapters 7-8	Google Earth: View Ellis Island.
Fiction/Literature/Graphic Novels
(Lunch Audio) Understood Betsy	Chapter 1	Chapter 2	Chapter 3 Science Time: Make butter.	Chapter 4
A Buffet of Extra Resources and Activities
Activities	(Saturday) Play Monopoly.   (Language Arts Time on Friday) Writing idea (see online schedule for details.)
Videos	American History 1900 8:06m New York c.1899: 1:42m	Immigrants at Ellis Island | History 4:27m		Inside Historic Tenements of NYC 3:24m   Tenement Life: 3:08m	What Is Muckraking? Early Investigative Journalism Explained 4:26m
Websites	(After school play time) Interactive game: City of Immigrants

Doesn’t that look a LOT more manageable, easy to read, and easier to accomplish!? 😊

I’ve totally tailored the schedule to work for me and my child!

Want to practice editing a Microsoft Word version? Download a copy of week 1 here:

Feel free to practice moving things around, deleting text and even entire rows, and adding in a few things, too!

A buffet-style curriculum truly gives you the flexibility to make things work for your family in many different ways: learning style, budget, time constraints, and more.

It’s our opinion at Guest Hollow that this way of learning is so much better than being stuck with a single resource or other rigid curriculum style. It’s rich, flexible, and… well, it’s a buffet! You can choose what works best for you instead of feeling tied to a one-size-fits-all approach!

I hope this post has been helpful, and as always, if you have any questions, we’re always just an email away!