With glorious rays of sunshine and melodious sounds of chirping birds, I just knew that bright beaming faces would be eagerly greeting me each morning (ok I do tend to be over idealistic at times) ready to start school. A day in the life of a homeschooler is different for each family, but it is also very different within a family each year as I have learned.
It’s not like you don’t know, when your children are young, that things won’t change as they grow older. I knew, but I didn’t know. For example, I just knew that our Bible reading routine would stay the same because it is my top priority in the day.
Getting our reading done first in the day was all that counted. Cough, choke, sputter—it just does not work out that way and for many reasons.
Let me back up though and share a few tips that worked for me when the boys were all very young. At the time that I started “worrying” that we weren’t starting our day early enough, my kids were 8, 6 and 2 years old.
Playing IS Learning
Swinging from one extreme to another in scheduling attempts, I think, is pretty common when you start homeschooling. It’s not like we plan to switch around so much, but we are just trying to find a balance.
Knowing that I tended to show up as a drill sergeant (bad momma) early on in my homeschool years, I tried harder the next few years to be more relaxed.
I let the kids play longer in the morning, but that ended up being more difficult for me because they just didn’t want to stop and sit down.
Finding a balance when your kids are all very young is important. I learned to involve them in my chores as I started the day.
Playing is learning and they needed that time each day at those early ages, but key was keeping me us on task. So I used a timer for a few months as we learned our routine. Okay, some of my drill sergeant mentality wasn’t too bad. Actually the kids thought it was kind of fun coming back and checking the timer and I made sure I used it as a way to track our time and not feel stressed by it.
Too, I learned that involving them in house keeping and getting ready for the day allowed for an energy release for them, but also reminded them that it was a school day.
Look at how my day flowed then:
5:00 a.m. Mom time. I normally read, study and pray at this time and generally enjoy a few quiet moments. I still hold somewhat to this time period in the morning. Also, this was my time to be with toddler if he woke up then.
7:00 a.m. Kids up and time for them to wake up. Not much time needed before the kids are ready to be active.
7:30 a.m. Breakfast and Bible reading.
8:00 a.m. or so to about 8:30 a.m. Chores, getting dressed and room cleaning.
8:30 a.m. to 8:45. a.m. School starts. I learned that starting sooner in the day relieved my stress of the kids getting sidetracked. It allowed enough time for them to play for a few minutes.
10:30 a.m. Break for snack or to play.
11:00 a.m Back to school.
11:30 – 1:30 p.m. We eat lunch early, so we broke earlier for the day. We did more chores during this time and I made sure I decided what was for supper too and prepped it at this time too.
1:30 – 2:00 Read aloud time together.
This was the general flow of my day for many years. But, life marches on and things change. I will share how some things changed and why you have to change how you schedule too in part 2 of A Day in the Life of a Homeschooler.
How do you start your day each day?
Hugs and love ya,
Want to read some more?
The Sticking Power of a Homeschool Schedule
How To Create a Homeschool Schedule That You Can Stick To
