Planning Ahead: Loop Reading

I have been listening to the podcasts at A Delectable Education.  They are inspiring me to make time for wide reading. Since my oldest will officially be entering Form II - where we should start Plutarch and Shakespeare - I want to make it happen.   Meanwhile my younger one should be reading through Pilgrim's Progress.  Not exactly simple reading - but the type of work I want to do with my children. 

Here are my thoughts about scheduling all this reading - considering 3 out of my 4 kids can't read on their own yet.  I have learned that reading stories first thing in the morning doesn't work (for one thing, half of the mornings we are trying to get out the door).  So, we do much better at lunch or an afternoon tea time (they ask for it at this time of day).   

Daily readings: Bible, Spanish, poetry and some literature reading from ELTL daily (level 1 and level 4). These I probably will do as part of our "school day", morning basket type time.  I decided to do Getting Started with Spanish with my kids this year. 

Weekly Co-op Readings - assigned readings in history and English weekly through Artios.  I will read some of these aloud but my oldest will start doing some of his own reading this year! 

Weekly Loop Readings.  Here is some nitty gritty on loop scheduling.  I decided to pick the subject areas to cover - long term - and then I will fill in the titles as we go along.  I think these categories could be used year after year.  So, here is the subject loop for the week (and probably a little bit more). Some days I will read two together but most days we will have time to cover just one of them. Loop scheduling is all about grace and continuing to move forward - right!?  

Tales/ Literature - Bullfinch's Mythology, Black Ships Before Troy, etc. 

Science - Fabre or Clara Dillingham Pierson 

Math - Zaccaro, Geometry readings

Shakespeare - 2 or 3 plays

Plutarch - using Anne's study guides

Saints and Church Stories - Trial and Triumph  

Maybe Latin - Olim or CAP History 1 

There might be other subject areas that we add but these seem most crucial for us.  I am still debating if we should add a history overview like Child's History of the World or something similar.  But I might start that next year when we go back to Ancient history in Artios and my kids are a bit older. 

I am still trying to decide what exactly my oldest will read on his own this coming year.  I will probably assign specific days for each subject area.  

I look forward to reading all of these great things in the coming year.  What are you reading?  How do you schedule it?