How We Homeschool: Schedule & Rhythm

Before I began homeschooling, I didn’t personally know any home educating families. When I was growing up, I only knew one family that homeschooled. I babysat for that family, but truthfully I still didn’t know what it really was all about. When I was investigating making the decision for my kids, I was set up on a few “blind dates” with a friend-of-a-friend, to pick their brains about what homeschooling actually looked like. I couldn’t really wrap my head around what they actually DID. Like, what does a typical day look like?

….. Covid-19, Quarantine, Lockdown, Crisis Schooling Sidenote…..

In this post-quarantine/lockdown/crisis-schooling world, virtually all of my readers will now have some type of exposure to homeschool. I do want to make a distinction, though, between “schooling at home” and “homeschooling.” Shifting a traditional schooling model to a home/virtual/online model is immensely difficult. I have been in awe of the way my public/private school teacher friends figured that all out… talk about building the plane while flying! 

What we’ve been doing(pre-quarantine), and will continue to do(post-quarantine), in our homeschool is vastly different. I’m not sure I can convey all of those distinctions in this blog post, and it’s not the purpose of this post either. But, suffice it to say I am not aiming to recreate school at home— that’s kind of the point. If I tried to recreate school at home, I would fail. I’m aiming to provide a totally different educational model– a child-led, wonder-directed learning-rich environment custom designed for only the two learners in my home. 

That aside, here are some of the structures that our homeschool is built around.

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Schedule Vs. Rhythm

I’ve read so many books about the power of unstructured imaginative play time for young children. (Balanced and Barefoot is my favorite, hands down!) Kids who reach elementary school don’t just graduate from that. And so, I face a daily internal struggle of getting to our curriculum versus allowing my kids to lean into their creative play. My solution has been a checklist system which I post on our fridge. These are our “musts” and I consider our day complete when we’ve moved each magnet from one side to the other.

This balances the two ends of the spectrum… from a rigid schedule with things like “9:15-10am math” and so on, which make me stressed all the live long day… to the other extreme of waiting for a “lull” in their playtime and asking if they feel like doing math now (they won’t. ever.). This way, the routine is not a surprise, it’s expected, and it actually takes the burden away from me.  Many days we have extras: history, nature study, unit study of a topic we’re interested in, art study. Those are written in on a post-it note by me the night before (okay, the morning of). (Oh, and if you’re wondering, “blessing hour” is an all-hands-on-deck cleaning of the mess of the day, blessing our home and our family.)  In a separate post, I shared our curriculum choices. 

Weekly Rhythm

We follow the above rhythm 4 days per week. One of those four days is a “gameschool” day in which we play games to review concepts in math and reading rather than completing a lesson plan. This is an area I would like to grow in through the years to come, expanding our game closet with educational games (there are so many beautiful and effective games out there!). We have loved Math Card Games, which is part of our math curriculum but can also be used as a supplement to any math study.(I have a separate post here about these games, and here about our math curriculum.)

We also play Ziggy Reading Games which is an add-on to our reading program, All About Reading; and, I recently downloaded free extra file folder games to practice phonograms and sight words. (You can read more about our reading curriculum in this post here.)

A few of our other favorite board games are Ukloo, Money Bags, Zeus on the Loose, and Sum Swamp; I’m buying Election Night for a 1st day of school surprise this year!

The fifth weekday is our co-op day. This year that looks a lot different and we’ll be taking this as it comes. For now, we will be meeting outdoors with another family or two to provide some accountability for memory work, projects, and geography tests, and to share the burden of planning a few subjects (namely art and science).

Daily Rhythm

On our four at-home days, we start our days the same way-

I literally have a school bell. After breakfast is finished and cleaned, I ring the bell and totally pavlov-style I give my kids a probiotic gummy. I’m not ashamed. They love it and it’s as close to candy as they get.

Then, before we jump into our content, I make sure to connect with them relationally and provide choices for them. Having some control over your day from the start goes a long way! First, they select an essential oil to diffuse for the day. I find that extra sensory component is helpful in eliciting positive vibes (they seek scents according to what they crave, even subconsciously- a calming scent perhaps, or an alerting one if they’re dragging, or one that they associate with a memory, like “Forest Fresh.”). We use the “Ok for Kids” oils from Edens Garden.

Next, we DANCE! I have a special playlist that is for our “Morning Time”- we each select one song (there’s another chance for control/choice!). They are upbeat songs that we love! I often find myself with children on my back while I spin them around. (Spinning is so good for their brains, too!) We often are catching our breath, laughing, and in a super good place to be receptive to learning. I find our moods and hearts buoyed by the intentionality of our morning.

Then, we tackle our more challenging subjects first–  math, reading, handwriting. For a while I wanted to start our day cuddled on the couch with a book (my love language) but I found it was just too hard to motivate us afterward! We never wanted to get up!

I have options for each child to pursue independently while I work with the other. It doesn’t always happen beautifully. There are lots of interruptions, and it definitely takes consistent training to learn to respect their sibling’s lesson time. That’s part of their education, too.

Reality

These words are all pretty, and they’re nice goals but it doesn’t always work flawlessly IRL! When my kids are extra resistant, I will offer them more choices such as WHERE they’d like to do math. I find chewing gum can help too- it’s supposed to be very organizing to the brain/sensory systems. (We use Pur brand, no aspartame or artificial colors!)

And then there are days when I chuck it all out the window, we take a hike, jump in puddles, read as many books as they can find, or I just kick them out into the yard with instructions to make something in the mud kitchen.⁣ We’ve also enjoyed PUZZLE DAY… in which we complete a jigsaw puzzle every hour on the hour (the jumbo 100 pieces or less kind that can be done in one sitting). I also highly recommend Go Noodle (we especially love Blazer Fresh), Cosmic Kids Yoga, and Art for Kids Hub when you just need a screen to help you out a little!

So, there’s a little slice of our homeschooling life! I’m sure this will all ebb and flow as my kids grow. I hope this has been helpful for you! If you’d like to read more homeschooling posts, here is my homeschool index page of blog posts. Wishing you a wonderful school year!