Our Homeschool Routine

When we first started homeschooling, I tried to be super organized. I bought a bright, white sheet of poster board and used different-colored Sharpies to outline our schedule into blocks. Each subject got its own color lettering and its own time slot. My schedule was a thing of beauty. Too bad it didn’t work out in real life.

-We were never able to get things started on time.

-We were never able to end them on time.

-We almost never got all our subjects completed in one day.

-There were a ton of interruptions.

-Kids did not always cooperate and were sometimes disobedient and rowdy.

-The baby cried and needed taking care of.

-The phone rang.

-Children needed to go to the bathroom at the most inconvenient moments.

-The baby needed to have her diaper changed at the most inconvenient moments.

-I was pregnant and too exhausted to teach for any long stretch of time during the day.

-And so on.

Then I tried a modified schedule where I just decided on what subjects I wanted to get done that day and let it happen whenever it happened. That was better, but I realized that though kids do not do well with a super exact time schedule, they do need some sort of structure. They need to know what to expect and in what order.

That led me to eventually adopt the “in-the-middle” schedule. We get into a routine of what seems to work best for us (which always takes some trial-and-error and usually needs tweaking during different life seasons), and we just continue that order of things indefinitely. Every now and then we switch the order of something, take something out of the schedule, or add something on temporarily. None of this has ever seemed to bother my kids; in fact, they seem to thrive on having a little unexpectedness every so often!

I thought you might be interested in seeing what our schedule looks like. This has been adapted to fit our current season of life, with seven children ages 1 1/2 to 15, and another on the way. Though we haven’t always used this schedule, we have been homeschooling successfully now for about seven years with Sonlight Curriculum. (For the past year we’ve been using programs A and F, which we’re now very close to completing. I combine the children together into learning groups with children whose ages are close, within several years of each other, sharing the same History/Bible/Literature program [HBL]. They go at their own pace in math and language arts.)

Morning

-I get up whenever I feel like it.

Wow, did I just say that? Yes, ha, ha! After much experience, I have found that having a baby who wakes me up multiple times every night and getting up early do not go together. I usually get up sometime between seven and eight in the morning — not too early, but not super late, either. The kids usually wake up around that same time or a little earlier (they have so much energy they almost can’t help getting up with the sun), with instructions to be quiet as they do their “getting-up chores.”

GETTING-UP CHORES

-This includes making beds (I never let my kids leave their beds unmade), picking up their rooms (absolutely essential in a small home), getting dressed, and brushing their hair. If the children get all of this done and I’m still not out of my room yet (though I’m probably already awake and doing my own “getting-up” chores), they are allowed to play quietly in their rooms.

-The two oldest children (currently ages 15 and 13) are expected to take turns making breakfast. This is great experience for them and instills good habits. It also gives me time to take care of the baby in the morning, which used to be so stressful but is now much less so, thanks to them! No, they are not slaves; they are learning to help in their own home and are accumulating valuable life skills. I always thank them for their help.

BREAKFAST

-After a short, informal prayer, which each child has a turn saying on different days, we take as long as we need to eat breakfast together at the table. I don’t let them take a really long time, but I don’t rush them to finish by a certain time, either. I want us to be able to enjoy our meal, and I want the children to finish their food. I hate seeing waste, since food can be so expensive.

At one point, we were doing our Bible reading, in addition to read-alouds, while still sitting down at the table after breakfast. The children would take their dishes to the sink and then come right back. While I did the reading, they were allowed to color, play with puzzles, or do some other project such as crochet or tinker with gadgets, all quietly. This worked really well for awhile, and I’m not sure why we stopped. I think it may have been because the baby needed taking care of right away after breakfast, and I wasn’t ready to start anything until I got her settled down.

AFTER-BREAKFAST CHORES

-First of all, everyone brushes their teeth.

-Next, each child has a chore, or several chores to do in order to help keep our house clean and tidy. These include things such as: sweeping, vacuuming, dusting, wiping down the table, washing the dishes, picking up toys, straightening the pillows on the couches, cleaning the bathroom, taking out the trash, and taking care of the dogs.

After all of this is completed (it should take no longer than an hour, maximum, but usually takes about thirty minutes), we sit down in the living room for our morning school work.

MORNING SCHOOLWORK: COUCH SUBJECTS

-We start out with Bible. There is a Bible story/lesson book we read, plus our regular reading of a Bible chapter a day; the children who know how to read take turns reading several verses at a time. We use some CD’s with Bible verses put into song for Bible memory, which the children enjoy.

-Next, we move on to our read-alouds while the children play quietly with blocks or cars, do puzzles, fold clothes, or work on other quiet projects.

This part of our schoolwork is my favorite! I love reading engaging stories and talking together about them afterwards. There are usually so many connections that we find among the stories we read, the Bible lesson, and our everyday life that makes this part of our learning so meaningful and practical.

It is also so relaxing. I can drink a cup of fragrant, steaming tea while we are all drawn deeply into an interesting story. I sit down in the rocking chair and prop my feet up on the foot rest. It is very helpful to be able to do this while pregnant. If for some reason the baby needs caring for and I’m unable to continue reading, I’ll have one of the older children take over. This is helpful to me and great practice for them!

MORNING SCHOOLWORK: TABLE SUBJECTS

-By this time, the kids are ready to do something different. This is when I ask them to go to the table and do some of their book work. This is usually language arts, though I may sometimes have them do math instead and save language arts for later in the day.

I usually wait until after “quiet time” in the afternoon for them to read their language arts books out loud to me if they are taking awhile to finish their writing.

PLAY TIME OUTSIDE

-As soon as they’re done with their table work, I let them play outside until lunch is ready.

Notice that we haven’t got all our work done yet. I’ve found that for us, it’s impossible to get everything done before lunch, so I break the school day down into two parts: morning school and afternoon school, with “quiet time” in between.

LUNCH

-The two oldest children take turns preparing lunch for everybody. This is usually something very easy, such as leftovers from dinner the day before or sandwiches.

-While eating lunch, we listen to an audio book. I’ve noticed that I don’t have to keep telling the children to be quiet or to stop playing around if we listen to a story while eating. This is also a great opportunity for me to just relax after a busy morning. I don’t feel like talking or directing; just resting.

Afternoon

QUIET TIME

-We have had quiet time ever since we started homeschooling, and it has always worked very well for us.

Each child has his or her own special, designated spot to rest, whether that is a bed or a place on the couch. They can take a nap if they feel they need it, or they can read a book of their choice. Usually, they read first and then take a little nap.

The older ones will use this distraction-free time to get more of their schoolwork done before settling in to read a book of their choice.

I love quiet time because it gives the baby a chance to sleep without any noise waking her up, I get a chance to have a much-needed nap when I’m pregnant, and the children have plenty of uninterrupted time to read whatever they want. In this way, they have learned to read well and to love reading!

After quiet time is over (it lasts from about 1:00 to 3:30 or 4:00 — 2 1/2 to 3 hours), the children are allowed to get up (they have to wait until I call them). Then, we have snack time (some sort of fruit, usually). This is another thing the oldest two children take turns preparing.

AFTERNOON SCHOOLWORK: TABLE SUBJECTS

Before they can play outside, everyone has to finish up whatever table subjects weren’t completed in the morning. This is usually math.

-Each child is required to finish two pages of math.

-If there is any language arts that didn’t get done, this is when they finish that up, too.

PLAY TIME OUTSIDE

It’s about five in the afternoon by now, and I send everybody to go play outside while I work on getting dessert prepared, then dinner. This ends our school day, though there may still be one or two read-alouds that we have saved to read before going to bed. However, I try to get all of these done in the morning most days, since I’m usually very tired after dinner.

The most important thing

In this article, I’ve gone over our current homeschool routine with plenty of explanation so you can get a feel for not only what we do but why we do it that way. However, this wouldn’t be complete without reminding us all of what the most important thing is (hint: it’s not having a perfect schedule):

It is absolutely essential for us to keep our focus on God and His will for the family, as outlined in His word (for example, see Deut. 6:4-9). We have to have an eternal perspective.

Homeschooling isn’t mainly about academics: it’s about training our children’s hearts in the right direction. Homeschooling, more than any other educational option out there, flings wide the door to help this happen. With so much time spent with our kids everyday, we have the ability to control what they learn and what influences them. We have the ability to feed them healthy food for their hearts and minds. We are in control, just as God designed for parents to be.

Some days we don’t get all our school subjects done. Some days the kids act up and I have to spend a lot of time just dealing with their misbehavior. There are days I feel totally stressed out and like a failure. I have to remind myself that it’s okay. Bad days don’t mean I have to give up; they’re not even a sign that I should. It’s just what life is like. It’s normal.

Many of us want “normal” to be subjects that fit neatly into color-coded boxes and children that follow directions perfectly. But in my experience, that expectation is unrealistic. Yes, children can be trained to obey, and that is certainly my goal! However, they are, after all, still children, and the Bible says that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child (Proverbs 22:15). It shouldn’t surprise us, then, when they act like the foolish children they are.

Why not let life be life?

It’s okay for it not to be perfect. We can be flexible, flow patiently along with the ups and downs, forgive our children when they misbehave, persevere through the hard days. That all builds character! And you know what else it builds? The family. As we learn to get through hard times together, we build our relationships with one another. This is real life, and this is excellent preparation for whatever comes next, both in the next stage of our children’s lives and in the next role that God has prepared for us during His coming 1,000-year reign, and afterwards.

Sending unruly children to public school in order to “save the relationship” or to “save my sanity” isn’t the answer, in my opinion. No, children need to learn to obey and respect their parents. Sending them away to school so they can learn to obey and respect their teachers is just avoiding the problem and delaying the necessary confrontation of sin, both in them and maybe in us, too. The problem will pop up later if we don’t deal with it now. Now is the time for children to get it into their heads that they need to respect the authority of their parents, even if the schedule has to be sacrificed in order to be able to dedicate the necessary time to make that happen. But, I’m confident that the sweet fruit of all that labor will be worth the sweat that drips down our brow and the exhaustion that requires us to reach out to God again and again for help.

Homeschool routines are discardable, but having our children at home is the chance of a lifetime that should definitely not be thrown away. Yes, we can do this!

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What is your homeschool routine like? What works best for you, and what does not work for you at all? How have you overcome the challenge of stressful moments? Please share in the comments below!

(P.S. I’m still working on my Bible verse project about what the Bible says about having children. I’m basically going through the whole book of Genesis again in order to make sure I don’t miss anything, so it’s taking a while. But, I will get it done soon! I’m really looking forward to sharing the completed list with you!)

~Jessica