Your Day

Chances are, you’ve tried a schedule or plan only to see it all fall apart by 9 a.m. Take heart! A routine can be a terrific tool if you use it and are not ruled by it. Always keep in mind that our lives with little ones tend to move in seasons, and what worked last month might not work this month. That’s OK.

Before we begin, take a moment to think about what your life is like. Do you thrive on routine? Or do you need flexibility because of your husband’s work schedule or other changing demands on your time? Avoid the temptation to compare your daily activities with those of other homeschooling moms; you are unique, your family is unique, and God’s call on each of our lives is unique.

Next, I’ll briefly explain how you can start to formulate a schedule for your day, but I want to direct you to the best resource I’ve seen on this subject, in case you want to learn a thorough approach to scheduling for the homeschool day: Managers of Their Homes

First, Pray and ask God for direction. Ask Him to show you specifically what He wants you to include or accomplish, and what He wants you to drop from your routine. This will differ greatly for each family, and there is no right or wrong.

Then, ask your husband what he thinks you should be accomplishing this school year. If he is not actively involved in your children’s schooling, ask him anyway. Many of us are in the habit of forging ahead without considering what the father of our children wants for them. As moms, we read the homeschooling magazines and books, we study the boards on the Internet, we peruse and purchase the curriculum. It is easy to plan a whole school year without even considering his opinion. Do it anyway!

Now write down everything you need to fit into the day from laundry to paperwork. Then list each child’s name and do the same for each one. From there you can begin to plug things into your schedule.

Determine for yourself what you can do in the presence of toddlers and what you’d rather not do with them there. Personally, there are subjects I don’t mind teaching or overseeing with little ones about me (such as grammar, math, and memory work) and subjects I prefer to tackle when the nappers are napping (science, history).

The next step would be to determine how to keep the littles busy when they’re not napping. For ideas, see our page called Little Hands.

Begin to plug everyone in to time slots, something like this:

Mom	11-year-old	9-year-old	7-year-old	5-year-old	2-year-old	baby
Nurse/Quiet Time	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Nurse
Dress	Morning Stuff	Morning Stuff	Morning Stuff	Morning Stuff	Morning Stuff	With Mom
Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast	In Kitchen
Circle Time	Circle Time	Circle Time	Circle Time	Circle Time	Circle Time	Nap
Laundry	Math	Math	Math	Help Mom	Help Mom	“
Reading w/J	Preschool w/A	Play With C	Reading w/Mom	Preschool w/H	Play w/N	“
Read to J/A/C	Reading List I	Chores	Mom Reads	Mom Reads	Mom Reads	“
Laundry/ Chores	Chores	Reading List I	Chores	Tape w/C	Tape w/A	“
Help in Schoolroom	Writing	Copywork	Reading List	Room Time	Room Time	“
Nurse	Latin	Handwriting	Handwriting	Chores	Room Time	Nurse
Help Nate	Copywork	EFTTC	Tape	Table Time	Table Time	With Mom
Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	In Kitchen

The above is not unique to me. I learned this approach from Teri Maxwell’s book, Managers of Their Homes.

Now, all that said, you also need to know when to toss a schedule or change it. After our sixth child was born in December, I made a schedule for January similar to the one I just outlined. I felt it would get us back on track once the excitement of her birth and Christmas wore off. After the first day, I knew I had revisions to make. So we tried the revised plan the next day. Within a week, I realized that I had some MAJOR changes to make. We were now onto schedule number 3, and it was drastically different than anything I’d done before.

My then-2-year-old (see above) was extremely busy and I was increasingly frustrated by her innocent interruptions; things like falling over and whacking her head on the coffee table. So I revamped our mornings to be more toddler-friendly, at least until we were over that hump. Our whole spring went something like this:

Morning stuff

Breakfast/Clean-up

Circle Time

Chores

Walk or play games, depending on the weather

Read-aloud our current chapter book while children draw, play Legos, and the like

Free time

Lunch/Clean-up

Girls down for nap

Math, Copywork, Grammar, Latin, etc.

This worked for us because our children go to bed fairly late and rise after 8 and so they were not too wiped out to tackle school after lunch. The point I’m trying to make here is that you need to feel the freedom to make adjustments depending upon what is going on in your life at the time. This is the beauty of homeschooling, and knowing when to change your approach and then doing it will go a long way toward preventing homeschool burn-out.