Our Homeschooling Routine
There are so many different routine and scheduling tricks out there. If you Google “homeschooling routine” you will find myriads of ideas. Whenever I wanted to find a good idea to solve an issue that I struggled with I would head to my favorite blogs. Everything I read presented that particular idea as the sure fire way to fix my issue. I constantly searched for the homeschooling routine that would finally make our homeschooling run smoothly and consistently. I’ve tried morning baskets, starting right away in the morning, lettings the kids do their own thing for an hour or two before we get started, specific schedules, plans down to the minute, using different types of planners. Every good idea that I have found never seemed to work just as they said it would. I changed things so many times that my kids started expressing their confusion and frustration. “Oh, mom’s changing things again.”
But not every routine fits all families. Some people do better in the morning, others do better in the afternoon. In our family, we all have our best time in the morning. But our routines have had to change when life changes. As the kids get older and our lives have changed our routines have had to change.
Homeschool routine, Daily Life Routine
And our routine doesn’t only apply to our homeschooling. I’ve made several different types of chore charts, I’ve taken the time to write the day’s plans in notebooks for each child, I’ve posted daily to do lists. They’ve stayed in their pajamas all day, and I’ve had them get dressed right away when they woke up. I’ve let them make mistakes and deal with the real life consequences, and applied consequences when they didn’t follow directions. I’ve read blogs that say that in order to achieve success kids need to make their own mistakes in the safety of our home. Others have said that kids need specific guidelines to follow and very clear boundaries. I grew tired of trying to follow someone else’s routine and schedules. So I decided to take what I needed from what I read and ditch everything else.
Over my 12 years of homeschooling, and my one year of unschooling, I discovered that we need to follow our bodies’ and our family rhythms. As much as I would love to use all hours of the day that I can, I know that my best hours are morning hours. Fortunately, all three of us are morning people, although as they both hit puberty that might change.
Get the work done first!
In my own life, I have found that if I get up and do my required chores right away, my days flow better. Since our school start time is fluid, for a long time I would either get up and start the day in my jammies or stay in bed longer than I should. This year when my husband started school I decided that I would get up with him and do my “room chores” right away. It has helped so much. On those days when I don’t get up on time, my entire day feels as if I am a step behind. I hate that feeling!
The kids are discovering that now too. A while back they both had a not very nice day because they put things off till later. Around 3 or 4 in the afternoon they both started to panic because they still had so much to do and they realized that they were running out of time.
So the next morning I challenged them to complete all of their work before I got home. That day went much better, and the kids were able to get on their games about 1 PM. They both expressed to me that they loved the feeling of getting their stuff done and not worrying about it for the rest of the day. I gave them a list of assignments that they had to do, but I allowed them the freedom to choose the order in which they completed their work. One may choose to do their hard stuff first, the other may choose to do the easiest and quickest stuff first. I believe that this gives them a real world choice. We all make those kinds of choices each and every day.
Our general schedule
In general, our schedule usually looks like this:
I go to work several hours before my children wake up in the morning. In this way, they are not missing all of that time home with me.
Then, I get home early enough in the morning so that I can still spend all day with my children. It means some extremely early mornings for me and going to bed early at night, but it’s worth it knowing that I can still spend my days with my children.
During my hours at work, the kids get their own breakfast and can complete their independent work. When I come home we can do our work together. It also gives me a chance to check the work that they have completed. We usually finish our work by lunchtime. This gives us our afternoons free and allows us to have our down time when we need it. Most of the time during the afternoon we read together and more often than not I take a power nap in the middle of my own independent reading. 🙂
Most importantly, when I come home from work, I am home from work, and I leave my work there. At home, I am mom, and it is so important to my children and myself that I don’t bring my work home. Working these morning hours brings with it the appreciation for the time that I have to spend with my children. I am so thankful that I can spend my days with them.
Even though this routine works, it takes daily diligence to keep
When I first started writing this blog post, this schedule seemed so easy to deal with. I had just started working, and we all realized that our days passed better when we did our work first. But now, several weeks later, I have realized that this schedule takes diligence. Because all of the schools in our state closed as a result of the coronavirus, for a couple of weeks my husband was home too. When he stays home, our normal everyday schedule almost gets thrown out the window. On days when I don’t have to work, it is so easy to just stay in bed for a little while longer. Or even when I get up staying in my jammies just a little bit longer tempts me as well. I believe that we are just now starting to get back into our normal school routine after having a couple of weeks off. But every time that our schedule demands flexibility, I learn a little bit more.
Be flexible
But I have given up making a strict schedule. Our lives don’t flow according to the clock. We keep our routine, but our routine is not tied to time. In writing this blog post, I at first thought that I would tell you that my routine is the best. But it’s not. This is the routine that best fits us. I think that the biggest thing that I have learned throughout my years of trying to find a good routine that I can stick with is that we need to do what works in our family and home. What works for me might not work for you. So what kind of advice am I going to give you? Find the routine, schedule, and flow that works for your family and stick to it. Life changes almost on a daily basis, and as homeschoolers we need to roll with the punches. Be flexible, but find what fits you.
How about you? Have you had to change your schedule and routine as your life circumstances have changed? How do you roll with the punches? Share your own routine and schedule in the comment section below.
