One reader wrote to me to ask about out daily homeschool routine, sometime back in February. However, when I tried to reply to his email, it bounced back. Maybe he had keyed in his email address wrongly.
So I thought I would just post this up on the blog in case he was really looking for an answer from me. Also, I thought it would help others wondering how we structure our homeschool.
Basic Structure
Most of our days function along the same structure :
- Wake up
- Breakfast
- School
- Lunch
- Go through corrections
So if a child does his/her work really well and has no corrections then school is officially done before lunch. But if there are lots and lots of corrections (and tears….) school can stretch forever! Under normal circumstances however, school can last anything from 1 to 5 hours, depending on the grade he/she is in and how focused the child is.
What time does school start?
It all depends when they wake up! In theory, they are to be awake by 8 am but in practice……..some have been known to sleep in till 11 am! Well, the later they wake up, the less free time they have. I choose which hill I want to die on, eh? Once they are awake, the more diligent ones would start their work immediately – amazing, right? I really did not train them to do this. They just figured out on their own that they earlier they get through their assigned work, the more free time they have!
Bible is the only “subject” (it always sounds weird to refer to Bible as a subject to be ticked off in our planners!) that we do together, usually around 9:30 to 10 am. This usually means they have to interrupt their ongoing work to have Bible with me. This however, only applies to the younger 3 children. The older children do not sit and do Bible with me once they move on to the Abeka curriculum as the curriculum has its own Bible requirements.
As an aside :
Over the years of experimenting, I have concluded that decided that if school were to happen daily, I needed a curriculum the children can run with, without much input from me, . Curriculum that waits on mama to be ready will honestly never get done in our household. So as much as I like curriculum like Sonlight, it was just not doable for us.
What time is breakfast?
Breakfast is between 8 to 8:30 am. We don’t sit and wait for everyone to be seated before we eat. Once the meal is ready, they are free to eat immediately or finish up the lesson they are working on before joining us. Once breakfast is cleared, it is chore time. Then they are to start on or continue with their work till everything is done.
All done!
Once they are done, they are to hand up their work (all placed in individual plastic magazine holders bought from Popular Bookstore) on my little IKEA trolley for me to go through. They are officially free to do whatever they like – read, crochet, space out…..
After lunch, I will start going through their work. Sometimes this takes forever!!! Other times, I am done in 15 minutes! On those days, I get more free time!!! So you can guess how often that happens!
Generally this is how the day works out. If I need to be out running errands or meeting up with people, they will still run on this routine. We have been homeschooling for a while now – since 2004! – so everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing and when. There are some rogue members who will get distracted but generally everyone is on an auto-pilot mode. If they get stuck on a question or topic, they are free to ask the older siblings (again, a rare occurrence) or wait for me to be available.
What if something comes up that’s not planned for?
If we decide on an impromptu outing, then school work gets pushed to whenever we come home or the next day. Sometimes, they even choose not to go just to finish up their work! Amazing huh? Other times when the work is just too much, they will have to work on Saturdays. By now, they know how to work things out so that they will usually have caught up on their work by the end of the week.
For example : Our school break does not coincide with the public school breaks. So when Ruth recently signed up with our Church’s Children Ministry outing 2 Fridays ago, she had the presence of mind to finish up Friday’s work on Thursday, instead of playing or reading after completing her Thursday’s work. If an outing is is not scheduled for but they have a few days’ advance notice, I will let them choose to either do the work either before or after the outing. Almost always, they will choose to finish up their work first, of course!
So dear reader, if you are still wondering how we structure our day, I hope this helps you.