Homeschool Scheduling

On Friday’s, Heart of the Matter hosts a weekly meme. This week’s theme is:

How Do You Schedule?

This is a perfect question to ask me right now. As we approach the end of our traditional school year, I have found myself tweaking our schedule and routine for our school day. We generally start “school” at 10 am. We found that the kids were not really in learning mode until around that time and I really wasn’t up for teaching until then as my coffee needed time to kick in. We usually do bookwork and other studies until around 3 or 4 with a lunch break around 1:30. For us this seems to work on many days. We do like to schedule around life also. All birthdays are holidays, major life changing events include taking a brake, and when we have days where no one feels like doing school we take a break.

Originally, I did not write out their lessons and assignments, I just picked up the book and do the next thing. However, that was not giving the kids a real sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. And I was finding that they were taking a very long time to complete their independent work. So… I decided to start writing a list of things they needed to get done for the week. This works so well because it gives them a goal and as they mark items off, it gives them a sense of accomplishment because they can mark of what they have completed. We do library day once every 2-3 weeks. Every Monday afternoon, we go to the park to play with other homeschoolers in town. Friday’s I try to keep light with games, activities and fun worksheets like mazes, crosswords and other pencil puzzles.

I find I do more tweaking to plans and schedules than sticking to them. What works for the fall usually does not really work for us in the spring. I love the freedom homeschool gives us to morph it around life and not make life around school. And, since we try to make life school by taking every opportunity to teach it makes sense. For next year, I plan to be a bit more organized and scheduled out in the bookwork area than I am right now.