How To Set Up An Easy Homeschool Schedule

The Many, many attempts have been made over the past 7 years since I started homeschooling to get an easy schedule in place. Each time I thought that the homeschool schedule was mastered….along came another baby. Let me just be honest….in theory a schedule is great. Putting one together that works is practice. Flexibility. Patience.

8 homeschool years later, putting together my schedule is a little easier. Spontaneous people do not like schedules. I am spontaneous, but I also have to have a legitimate schedule. Since I blog and do a few other work related activities I have to have a schedule that functions. A working homeschool moms schedule for me looks a little different each year. As my children get older the times change, but I still schedule in my work time. That is where a schedule comes in handy.

Don’t get me wrong, the days were not bad all day or all of the time. At the end of the day when our home looked like a hurricane and homeschool was ALMOST finished I knew somewhere I was wasting time.

There was no sit down and watch TV, or eat bon bons. I don’t even know what those are… but they sound relaxing to eat. Those were the visions that I had of homeschooling. 8 years later I realized how wrong my perception was of homeschooling. It is not for the faint of heart. It is work. There IS no play. Manage the home, manage the school, sleep when the kids sleep.

People who really, really stay involved in homeschooling realize that it is a long term commitment that is sooo worth it. Once puzzle pieces for management are in place, I can’t imagine not homeschooling. Any moms out there struggling with lack of “me” time take advantage of all the help on the internet and in books. Put some management pieces into the puzzle.

The schedule helped me to keep breakfast, lunch and dinner at close to the same times. The schedule helped me keep a load of laundry going with the morning routine and all I had to do was open my home management binder.

Each year the first part of planning my homeschool year starts with writing down a simple schedule for just the homeschool. Just for the kids to get a routine of work flowing each day.

Setting Up A Homeschool Schedule

Lay out all of the curriculum and think about the day. Have a start and finish time in mind.

Kids will work better with a frame of a beginning and end. Nothing but books, papers and learning is not very encouraging so right from the start I have a break scheduled after am session of curriculum. While the kids are having a break inside reading or outside on the scooters I fix lunch.

Lunch is done around 1:00 pm then we do some read aloud time for about 15 min. then it is nap time/quiet time.

My older children get 1 hour of quiet time to read, play with legos, or draw. When I am finished cleaning up lunch, we start our pm session of school.

My 9 year old will complete his independent time so that I can have his work graded and we can discuss anything he did not understand. My 6 year old will wrap up his science, math or phonics that he did not finish.

Finally, we wrap up our day around 3:00-3:30 pm and have more outside time, or if it is raining I will play a game with them.

Weather permitting this is the time we may visit a park or pool if they are still open.

Easy Scheduling Of Homeschool Days

This is just an example of how we homeschool right now. If I need to tweak it in a few months, then I do.

Pledge/Devotion

Morning binders/board

Calendar time

Memory work

Handwriting

Break

Reading

Math

Science

History/Art/or Music

Latin or Spanish on Fri.

For each subject I spend about 15 min. going over the content with each child. Then we go back and finish the work and check it. One of the reasons that I homeschool is so that they get the content and I can be involved. Watching and helping them learn is so fulfilling.