Scheduling the Homeschool Day
Okay, you want to know about a schedule, so I will talk about how to set one up, but let me tell you a little secret. Our Homeschool doesn't run on a strict schedule but rather thrives on a predictable routine.
At the beginning of the school year, I sit down with the kids' planners and look over all the subjects I need to cover with all the kids in a given day/week. I make a list of any extracurricular activities, homeschool co-ops, and online tutorials that we're going to do that year. And I create a master schedule of what my morning should generally look like. I need to make sure that I do have time to teach the subjects I do with each kid, practice instruments with the kids who need assistance, and factor in driving time to activities. At the same time, I have the kids planners out and sketch out a model schedule for them, too, to make sure that we’re not overloading anyone. The picture above is a first draft of this fall’s schedule. Sometimes I look at the day and realize that I need to back off a subject or two for the semester or move spelling just to two days a week. My big kids sit down with me for this, and we talk through whether it’s realistic to expect that we’ll get through everything we have listed in a normal day. As they add in more online or co-op classes, we have to factor in the time expected to do that homework, as well.
My rule of thumb for formal, sit-down schoolwork is about an hour per grade level through elementary school. Pleasure reading, practicing instruments, and read aloud times don’t count. My second grader should be able to get her work done by recess time, or I might put her on toddler duty for part of the morning and have her finish up school by lunchtime. My eighth grader, however, will absolutely have a full 8-3 school day, with some longer days when he has bigger assignments from his other tutors and teachers.
With my sample schedule in hand, I start our school year. Within a week, I’ll realize that I need more time to do math with one child and less time to do language arts with another. I might notice that one child has too much schoolwork planned per day and needs to drop a subject for awhile, and another doesn't have enough to occupy her and needs to beef things up a bit. I try to take stock after a week or two and make sure that we’re still completing everything we need to—and I’ll adjust my plans as necessary.
After that, we don’t follow a strict schedule! I don’t look at the clock at 9 am and yell, “Okay, now it’s time for spelling! Switch!” We certainly have a routine. I make sure to get up and get dressed right away and make myself a cup of tea. (I only homeschool in my PJs if I am sick or if it’s a snow day.) Everyone gets up and eats breakfast right away, gets dressed, and sits down at the table to start schoolwork. Some years we’ve started with Bible all together, other years we’ve started with history, and last year I just grabbed whoever was dressed first and got to work, while whoever was dressed last got toddler duty. This year, I’m hoping to do memory work all together over breakfast. I generally start with math and work youngest to oldest, then move on to language arts. We have recess at 10:30 every morning. We stop in the noon hour to have lunch, often while listening to an audiobook related to our history topic. My little ones always have quiet rest time for two hours after lunch, and the elementary kids should be done with their work and are off playing. My middle schoolers and I sit down and finish up the rest of our schoolwork. We may have a fun, messy art project while the baby is still down. The table is ALWAYS cleared off by dinnertime.
