If there’s one thing I pride myself on as a homeschooler, it’s the fact that our school routine doesn’t take up a large part of the day. This is something that’s very important to me because I firmly believe that children need unscheduled time for free play and following their interests. This is a crucial part of learning.
So imagine my chagrin at the fact that our school day didn’t end until almost 5pm yesterday. 5pm!! And this wasn’t an isolated incident. Since we’ve begun our new school year, we’ve been finishing up around 4pm everyday. Last year the latest we ever ended was around 3, so I’m really trying to figure out what this is all about.
Admittedly, their math books are harder than last year’s and we are notebooking this year, but the notebooking literally adds about 10 minutes tops, so…I’m at a loss.
Anyway, since we’re really enjoying what we’ve been doing so far this year, I’m not going to change our actual routine, but I am going to play around with starting earlier. Ugh. For the last several years- actually, for almost our entire homeschool career- we’ve been starting at 10am, which I love. I hate rushing around in the morning to get ready for school. I like to ease into the day, and I think it makes us all much more relaxed.
But…I really don’t want to keep schooling until 5, so I’ve got to do something. We tried starting at 9 today, and while I was a little stressed about having to rush a little, the day went pretty smoothly, and we actually finished at 2:30, so that was nice.
After we try an early start for a few days, we’re going to go back to our 10am start time and, instead, cut 30 minutes out of our two hour lunch/chore break. We normally don’t do school from 12-2 because of lunch and cleaning up the house before my husband comes home from work, but I really don’t think we need that long, so we’ll switch it up to a 12:30-2 time instead.
We’ll see what happens…
Monday:
The Littles:
Bible Time and Read-Aloud- The Look and Tell Bible, Mr. Tiger Goes Wild
Table Time-
-Ireland and Summer- phonics and math (if you’re interested in what books we’re currently using, you can find them here)
-Luke- reading and LOF math
The Big Kids:
Bible Time- devotional
Table Time-
-spelling workbook and exercises on SpellingClassroom.com
-silent reading
-read-aloud
-living math estimation and measuring
-hands-on critical thinking exercise
-notebooking page for hands-on exercise
Tuesday:
The Littles:
Bible Time
Table Time-
-phonics
-read-aloud
-learned to draw how a character feels by showing body language
-counted all the clogs in the book
The Big Kids:
Bible Time
Table Time-
-spelling workbook and computer exercises
-LOF math
-silent reading
Read-Aloud-
-listened to one chapter and completed notebooking page
Wednesday:
The Littles:
Bible Time and Read-Aloud- Velociraptor and Other Raptors- The Need-to-Know Facts
Table Time-
-phonics
-math, (Luke- LOF math)
The Big Kids:
Bible Time
Table Time-
-spelling and math workbooks, spelling computer exercises
-silent reading
Konos-
-read-aloud
-played Guess Who?- (put the name of a Bible character on each child’s back; they ask yes or no questions; first one to figure out who they are wins!)
-played 20 Questions
-completed notebooking page on any activity from this unit they wanted to write about
Thursday:
The Littles:
Bible Time
Five in a Row-
-read-aloud
-played store using Shopkins as money
-watched weather episode of The Magic School Bus
-made lapbooks for A Pair of Red Clogs
The Big Kids:
Bible Time
Table Time-
-Bailey- spelling workbook and computer exercises and LOF math (the girls did not do any book work because they helped the littles with their lapbooks)
-silent reading
Read-Aloud-
-listened to one chapter and completed notebooking page
On Friday we won’t be doing any book work because I have to go grocery shopping- shopping day is always a half-day. I plan on reading a Bible story and a read-aloud to the littles. The older kids will do their silent reading, we will read another chapter of Peter Pan, and we will learn about syllogisms and complete a notebooking page for that.
What’s your week looked like?
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There's No Place Like Home 
I love your home school schedule! I don’t have kids yet but it’s something I will consider when we do.
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Thank you. I have to keep it simple because if I go overboard, we wouldn’t get done until it’s dark outside!
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Love that they do independent work. Now that my youngest is 12 yrs old, I realize his personality still needs accountability and time with mom or dad for his more challenging classes.
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The vast majority of my kids’ work is done with me. They need me yet, too!
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Sounds like you are getting it figured out. We have never started before 10 because I always felt better having some housework done before we start. Enjoy.
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Yes, that’s exactly it. I like to have a cup of coffee, do some laundry, and get straightened up because I can’t concentrate on school whe hte house is a mess!
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Wow, I think we are twins…
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Thank you for sharing your schedule with us. We are still on summer break and I haven’t started to work out ours yet. This post gave me some great ideas 🙂
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This is what we actually did this week. We had a lot of fun!
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Do you teach your big kids chemistry, physics and biology? I feel it’s important to teach those subjects, because otherwise we are effectively ruling out scientific careers for our kids. How do you teach foreign language? What language do you teach? Homeschool for older kids is challenging, and I wondered what you taught yourself (as opposed to books and videos). Do you teach yourself these subjects before teaching the kids, or are you already pretty fluent in sciences, higher math, and foreign language?
Thanks.
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Most homeschoolers do include biology, chemistry, and physics, myself included. I won’t go so far as to say ‘teach’ but rather use the word ‘facilitate’. This year my 17 yr old has chosen to learn chemisry, physics, and quantum physics all in one year, simply because she is interested in them. My 16 yr old wants to be a wildlife photographer, so this year he’ll be focusing on biology. I do want to make a point first, though. Usually by high school, kids will show some sort of proclivity towards or interest in the sciences if they will one day pursue a career on that path. I do not find it necessary to mandate these upper level sciences to someone who, say, is studying to be a dancer and absolutely hates science. Chances are, even if they never become a dancer, they will never be a scientist, either, so it is more beneficial to focus on those areas that will be a help to them. That being said, as homeschoolers, we have the advantage of being able to teach subjects in a way that the children will learn best, rather than the school-style method of textbook, lecture, test. I could write an entire blog post on this (and I think I might) because there are so many ways for a child to learn these things without the typical teacher-heavy instruction. There are tutorials, library books, websites, documentaries, tutors, and probably lots of other ways I haven’t mentioned that enable our children to learn these methods in a home atmosphere. And if you think about it, many homeschool naysayers start from the assumption that, as just parents, we don’t know enough of these upper level subjects to teach them effectively to our kids, but let’s think about the irony of this: If homeschooled parents don’t remember enough from high school, then that means that we weren’t taught effectively there, so attempting to homeschool couldn’t possibly hurt! 🙂 The same goes for foreign languages. I took German for 6 years and only remember a small portion of that. My daughter, on the other hand, loves Japanese (Rosetta Stone), and she has expanded that to teaching herself how to write and read both sets of Japanese writing characters. Again, WHERE something is learned isn’t what matters; it’s how much a child WANTS to learn it.
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I love the flexibility of homeschool schedules. I find some of our prime school time comes between noon and three when my toddler is napping. I like to be totally done by then, though. Thanks for sharing at the #LMMLinkup.
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Oh, I wish my 3 yr old still took naps!
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I can’t believe notebooking only adds about 10 minutes for you! My kids take forever to do their notebooking! I’m actually trying to figure out how to give them enough time for it in our schedule for this year. Thanks for sharing this at Booknificent Thursday on Mommynificent.com this week!
Tina
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We use a word bank, which helps IMMENSELY!
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