Homeschooling, Year 20, Our Schedule

I thought I’d post a little bit about our homeschooling schedule.   Every year looks different depending on the ages of our children and what outside events need to be covered (like driving an older child to and from work/school).

This year I’m only homeschooling three – Emma, Sophie, and Silas – so our schedule is a lot easier for me to stick to than it ever was when I had an infant, toddler or preschooler.  The way we school this year, each child has his or her own math, handwriting, reading and language arts.  We do history, science, bible, literature and extras (music, art, biography) together.

We start the day with bible and then I set a timer and each child does math for an hour.  After math we take a break and go for a walk, feed the goats, and take the dog for a run.  I’ll also do any lunch time prep that needs to be done such as putting eggs on to boil.  A break is needed after thinking about numbers for an hour, but I’m finding that by setting a time rather than a predetermined number of pages that needs to be done, the kids can fly through the things they understand and spend more time on new concepts or things they need to review.

(Sidenote: The pictures on this post were taken during one of our morning breaks.  The kids have a little “secret hideout” in the woods (which we all know about).  They have fun imagining all sorts of things when they’re at the hideout.  On this morning, our break was extended and they were mid-play when we heard a low rumble off in the distance.  “Funny”, I thought, “that almost sounds like thunder”.  I didn’t recall any rain in our forecast, so they kept on playing.  Suddenly, we heard the wind through the trees and the unmistakeable sound of rain, though we couldn’t feel any raindrops under the canopy of trees.  We walked quickly through the field, and by the time we got to the gate at the field and were again under canopy, we turned and saw so much rain falling!  We walked quickly through the woods on the path toward home, but by the time we came out of the woods it was pouring.  We had to race across the yard, everyone laughing the whole way, and we ducked inside completely soaked through.  It took a little bit of time to get back into school mode, but oh, that was so very worth it.I’m pretty sure even the dog was smiling.)

After our break we read a literature book.  It’s a great way to settle them and pull their minds back to school after being outside.  Right now we’re reading The Princess and the Goblin, and I’ve been so tempted to read ahead just to find out for myself what happens.  After literature is handwriting.  I set a timer for 15 minutes and they work on as many pages as they need to during that time.

After handwriting, we do science/natural history together for as long as it takes to work through what we’re reading.  Then I use the timer again for language arts.  Silas does 30 minutes of work in his book, Emma and Sophie work for 40 minutes.  Then Silas gets a bit of a break while I work with Emma and Sophie on phonics, sight words, spelling, poetry memorization, etc.  This is the hardest time of the day for me, because no one is really able to work independently, so my attention keeps bouncing from one child to another.  I may need to change our schedule around a little to make this time easier, but I haven’t figured out a better time yet.

We generally break for lunch around this time.  Depending on our afternoon activities, I’ll also start supper during lunch break.

After lunch we read history.  It’s not the best time of day if the history is dull, but most of the books we’re reading through keep their attention pretty well.

After history, the older girls work on their own reading books, and I spend time with Silas on his reading.

We alternate through the “extras” and don’t do them every day.  We spend a little time reading a biography (Van Gogh is up first this year) if the readings for the day were shorter.  We also listen to folk songs, hymns, classical music on alternating days, and study an artist (though we haven’t gotten to this yet this year).

You’ll find that our school day schedule alternates between active work and listening work.  There are a lot of studies on how children learn best when they alternate through work that uses different areas of their brains.  Personally, I’ve found that by changing things up, they don’t get tired as quickly and they focus better.

You may also see that I don’t have any housework listed during the school day other than immediate meal prep.  I’ve found that I’m best able to teach my children when I’m actually available to teach my children.

For a lot of years I didn’t respect that my own full time job was as teacher and I tried to accomplish other things during the day while we did school work.  If you could take one piece of advice from me, its this – don’t do anything else.  While you’re homeschooling, that’s all you should be doing.  Don’t try to keep up with laundry.  Don’t add in household chores. don’t answer the telephone, don’t pick up your cell phone and scroll through facebook, instagram, Pinterest, etc.  Be all there and all present for your children. Homeschool.  That’s your focus.  Once your children have all reached ages where they can work independently (for some that’s around 6th grade, for others it may not happen until the high school years), then you will have time to do other things while they work.  But even then, you need to be available.  I’m often called upon by my college kids to help work through a problem they’re stuck on or to proof read a paper.

To mama’s with little ones, these are your hardest years.  It is so hard to work on school when you’re also caring for a baby or keeping a toddler or preschooler busy, so it’s even more important to keep your focus on school and not on all the other things that try to call you away.

Let me know if you want to know more about our schedule.