Simple Homeschool - Our Schedule

There are a lot of ways to homeschool. There are also a lot of ways to plan (or not plan) a homeschool day. I have always been the kind of person who loves lists and schedules, so when we started our homeschooling adventure 5 years ago, I went looking for a "perfect" schedule template. But as we have progressed, I have learned that the best learning happens unscheduled, and there is no perfect schedule. This is why we use a loose, flexible schedule for our day.

We wake up slowly.
I'm a night owl. So is my husband, and so are our kids. No matter how hard we have tried over the years, we always revert back to staying up a little late and sleeping in a little. Our brains just function better later in the day and things are easier. Since I am a believer in working with the natural rhythms of our bodies, I embrace this as part of our homeschool life. We wake up, usually one at a time, between 7:30 and 8:30. The kids have breakfast and play and maybe watch a PBS program. There's no shock of an alarm clock, and there's no rushing to meet a deadline to be ready. We just enjoy each other and the morning. We also don't suffer from sleep deprivation  because the kids still sleep 10-11 hours every night.

We use checklists to start our daily routines.
I want my kids to develop good hygiene and housekeeping habits. I also don't want to nag them to do each step. To smoothly start our day, I use a checklist system for me and the children. The kids have checklist cards for hygiene and chores so they can prepare for the school day. I also have a housekeeping checklist that I work through over the week. Around 9:30 or 10, we begin our checklists. These usually take 30-45 minutes to complete. Prairie Daughter is in charge of supervising Prairie Son to see that he gets ready and tidies his room. He assists her with chores since he is learning to take over her chores as she progresses to more complex tasks.


We have required subjects for every school day.
We start our lessons with seatwork around 10:15 or 10:30, depending on when the checklists are finished. My kids love worksheets, but they can get tedious, so we like to get them out of the way. We start with writing, reading comprehension, spelling, geography, and science for my daughter and shapes, colors, letters, and numbers for my son.  I do let my kids choose the order in which the work is completed so they are more comfortable. They each have a desk which we sometimes keep in the living room and sometimes in their neighboring bedrooms. It is easy for me to go from one to the other and help as needed even though they are on different levels. If the kids start getting wiggly before they are done, they have a snack break, and maybe a dance break too!

We utilize "couch time" for learning and resting.
My kids can sit and listen to me read for hours. They remember so much by me reading to them, so we use that to our advantage. After seatwork and snacks, we have listening time around 12 or 12:30. We have our serious Bible time first. Sometimes we have coloring pages or projects to go with Bible time, like crafts or planning volunteer work.  After this, we break for lunch around 2. After lunch, we have some fictional reading (storybooks, fables, fairy tales, chapter books). As time goes on, my daughter is doing more of the reading, but she still likes to listen a lot. We also read our science and history textbooks on the couch. I want the kids to enjoy learning these subjects, and when they are relaxed, they absorb so much more. 

We use "table time" for projects that can be done together.
It can be tricky combining working for kids who are 3 1/2 years apart. After couch time, we use table time for science and history projects based on our reading. We stay here until we are finished which is sometime around 3. My 7 year old may be filling in fact sheets, labeling charts, or making complex crafts while my 3 year old colors appropriately themed pages. They just like to know they are working on the same subjects. We round out table time with our math lesson. While my daughter would be in 1st grade in public school, she is almost at the end of a 2nd grade math curriculum, so her work includes complex addition and subtraction problems along with some multiplication and division. My son still chimes in with counting, naming 2D and 3D shapes and coins, and solving pattern puzzles.

Learning is more important than following the schedule.
Some days we venture away from even this loose schedule. If the science reading is incredibly interesting, we may keep reading, pull out some flashcards, look up YouTube videos, and make a plan for using the telescope that night. Or if the kids love the chapter book we are reading, we may read until we finish it and skip science. If history requires a big art project, we might skip the science reading and cut math a little short. I try to follow the kids' lead. We eventually get through the curriculum I have lined up, but we do it in a way where they love it and retain it. And even though we start our formal work later in the day, we get a lot more hours of schooling in over the course of a year because my kids want to work on schoolwork on the weekends and holidays, and we do a lot of projects in the evenings that tie into school lessons.


Play is learning.
From the time we start our morning checklists, I don't allow individual screen time until we are finished with lessons for the day. If my kids need a break, they can play individually or with each other. We have all kinds of blocks, play dough accessories, animals, dolls, etc., and I know kids learn from play as much as they do from books. Not only do they learn problem-solving skills, but they also learn how to communicate, and they get in that absolutely adorable brother-sister bonding time - most of the time.


Learning never stops.

When we finally allow screen time in the evenings, my kids are more likely to ask for an educational show based on what we learned during the day. It may be a documentary on recycling or a kids' program on space. Even Disney movies like Mulan and Pocahontas get viewed through an educational lens as my daughter separates fact from fiction. And I love it. I love seeing how learning is affecting their choices and how they subconsciously continue our school discussions.


Our homeschooling days usually aren't perfect. And usually even a loose schedule can break down when someone is sick or when we just feel burned out. But it does help to keep me accountable. I don't want homeschool to be a reason to ever be lax, so I like having an order for our list of subjects to cover. We usually spend 3-5 hours a day on our formal schooling (worksheets, projects, textbook readings), but the learning can continue all day and night, and I wouldn't want it any other way.




This blog links up with the Hip Homeschool Moms linky party!