Attn: Homeschool Families - Daily Order of Business Question!

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jmjZelie

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Hi All!

I am needing some ideas of how to arrange my daily schedule to make sure I am addressing everything with homeschooling my children. My families needs have changed dramatically in the past year and I am running circles sometimes, trying to figure out what to do next. I have five kids, with three of them in school now, plus a toddler and an infant (actually almost two toddlers now!).

I would love to see some descriptions of how you other families manage to get all the subjects done each week, including religion, while still spending time playing and resting and having sufficient time for cooking and cleaning for a healthy home and family.

Would you PLEASE share your hard-earned wisdom with me? :o
Thanks in advance. And God bless you!🙂
 
I bought this schedule from I think Amazon but the website is www.lovemyschedule.com. It allowed me to organize everyone in the family, adults included. It sticks to my fridge and has is broken up into time intervals and comes with an erasable pen. You can even separate the days so you don’t overwhelm. I put today’s schedule up there and we all knew what to expect, including therapy and doctor appointments. Best planner I found, and I looked high and low!
 
1990Domer said:
I bought this schedule from I think Amazon but the website is www.lovemyschedule.com. It allowed me to organize everyone in the family, adults included. It sticks to my fridge and has is broken up into time intervals and comes with an erasable pen. You can even separate the days so you don’t overwhelm. I put today’s schedule up there and we all knew what to expect, including therapy and doctor appointments. Best planner I found, and I looked high and low!
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I have the same sort of thing using my computer to make (and remake and remake) our daily and weekly schedule. My question is more about how you schedule, and not so much the type of scheduling materials you use. Does that make sense?

For instance, trying to schedule teaching religion to three kids requires over an hour each day, and that is just one subject! Trying to coordinate it all, and fit it all in between mealtimes, so that I can flow from one thing to the next without having to think too hard about it, well, so far I am failing miserably at that! :confused:
 
What I do in sceduling religion is have a five-day plan. One day is a Liturgical year activity, craft, or book. Second day is a saint story, perhaps with some sort of coloring page or trreat, depending how ambitious I feel. Third day is a Bible story. fourth day is for learning about the Mass or one of the sacraments. Fifth day is for catechism.
History, Geography, science, Art, etc are all planned to cover the same basic theme for all the kids, just at different levels.
 
🙂 It’s so different now that my youngest is school-aged and doing school work along with the rest! Homeschooling with a baby or toddlers requires just the right blend of flexibility with consistency and routine. It’s a lot like juggling :juggle: with just one hand while the other arm holds the baby.

I need a routine to get things done. We always start our school days with prayer. (I tried the whole rosary, but eventually cut it to just a decade to keep the toddler chaos to a minimum.) My survival mode schedule was to do prayer, handwriting, math, and reading daily. We did lots and lots of reading aloud on various subjects.

I read out loud to my children even after they are able to read for themselves. We take turns reading things together. I preferred using “Real Books” over textbooks. (There’s a book called, “Real Learning” by Elizabeth Foss that inspired much of my homeschooling style when I had multiple children in grammar school + baby and toddlers, although I developed my own style to meet my family’s needs.) I also used a lot of workbooks from Catholic Heritage in those days.

I have some that are very close in age, and I combined subjects whenever possible. For example, science and history books can cover various age levels, and the related written assignments can be adjusted to ability/grade level. I don’t do that so much anymore, but I did back then.

I prefer to read through books faster than how most schools go through books just a few pages a day. We cover more at once, but not all subjects every day. That saves me from having to juggle 7 subjects with every child every day.

The material in the grammar school age is often reflective of life that’s going on all around us anyway, so we’d talk as we went about life. Education took place in the context of our whole life, not just during “school”. Our basement was filled with lots of educational toys and books. I remember starting back to “homeschooling” after taking a short break to have a baby, and it occurred to me that they seemed to be doing more “educational stuff” on their own when I wasn’t trying to educate them.

Our old schedule from those days:
8:30 prayer
Then I might read from someone’s Catechism out loud to the whole group, or read something from a history book. Then they’d start handwriting. (I wanted them to start with handwriting practice before they did any other written work.)
Then as they finished handwriting, one-by-one they’d come to me with grammar workbook, then spelling workbook, maybe math. I’d correct the previous days work with the child then go over the next lesson. I often did that while holding a baby. Toddler often colored.

10:00 snack break. We’d read together the story of the saint of the day while eating snack. (And I’d throw a load of wash that had been started earlier from the washer to the dryer.)

After snack, we’d finish math and likely get to another subject.

Lunch at noon. Then recess outside.

After they came in from outside, I’d read a chapter or maybe more from a classic children’s novel to them. I was really good at holding a book in one hand and reading out loud while nursing a baby. (I can also type on a forum with one hand while nursing a baby.) While I read, they could color or play with toys. (Noisy electronic toys were kept in a different part of the house, and I never replaced their batteries. :D)

Somewhere in there I’d fold the laundry and put it away. I keep hampers in each bedroom and do loads only from one bedroom at a time to make sorting easier.

3:00 snack time again.

Television stayed off until 4:00.

I’d make dinner in the afternoon, and tidy the house just before my husband came home. (Not much point in putting things away earlier or it would just be messy again by the time he got home.)

Deeper housecleaning took place on Fridays. If I’d vacuumed and dusted and cleaned the bathrooms, I felt successful. Hubby brought home pizza on Friday, so I didn’t have to cook the same day that I cleaned. Older kids helped with dishes, and they did dishes right away after every meal so I could see a clean kitchen sooner than later. I instituted regular snack times so that the kitchen stayed cleaner since it wasn’t in constant use. It helped the toddlers know that food was coming on a predictable schedule.
 
Well, I see a couple of angles of attack here. First, the global aspect. How is your overall rhythm for your days? Wake-ups, routines, daily/weekly/monthly rhythms as a family, for yourself, for your schooltime? A weak rhythm makes it easier to lose track, skip, or otherwise get derailed with the educational piece. I don’t know what “style” of HS you use, but I find the Waldorf system encourages a super-strong rhythm. You might check out the resources at WaldorfEssentials.com - she has useful discussions about rhythm (and she’s very active online - if you PM me, I’d be happy to introduce you). A book like “Seven Times the Sun” may help, too, in terms of working out your daily and weekly rhythms.

And the second line of attack is the education component. I don’t recall the ages of your children. How has your planning been, this year? Do you feel prepared, on a daily basis, for what you’ve planned out? When you say, for example, your religion lesson is taking an hour a day, can you describe what is happening in that hour? Rather than look at our days, it may be more useful for us to take a peek at yours, to see where it might be tightened up, or how it’s going off the rails?
 
jmjZelie said:
…For instance, trying to schedule teaching religion to three kids requires over an hour each day, and that is just one subject! Trying to coordinate it all, and fit it all in between mealtimes, so that I can flow from one thing to the next without having to think too hard about it, well, so far I am failing miserably at that! :confused:
Click to expand...
(((hugs!)))
You are not failing miserably!!!

My current pastor requires the kids to be in his religious ed program to receive the sacraments, and I was not up to arguing over it. The first week, the class didn’t even open their books. The amount that they cover in class is far, far less than what we covered when homeschooling Catechism. Feel good about what you’re doing!

When homeschooling Catechism, I often would read a whole chapter from one child’s book out loud to the whole family. We used Faith and Life. The child whose book it was would do the workbook, but not always the entire workbook. The others just listened or took turns reading. Then we’d do a different child’s Catechism, in a similar way. Sometimes we’d go through one whole Catechism books, a chapter each day until finished with one, then move to the next. Sometimes we’d rotate between books. And sometimes I’d read with the children individually on Monday, then they’d do their workbook pages on their own T, W, Th, F. Some of in work more independent than others–and it doesn’t just relate to their ages.
 
Thank you all so much for responding so generously. I know it was a sacrifice to spend all that time typing out your ideas. I do not have the ability to respond more fully know, but tomorrow morning, I intend to go through each post again and answer the questions and ask a few more of my own. I am on West Coast time, though, so it will be later in the day for many of you who already responded. But before I sign off for the night, I just wanted to thank you all sincerely for these ideas. This is precisely the kind of help I am looking for. God bless you all!
 
Honestly, I don’t have an actual time schedule. I have a list of things that I want to get accomplished (I write list on weekend). I always start with religion because it’s most important. Then each child will work on their hardest subject. Basically, my kids can’t have any “fun” until their list is complete. Of course, some of our school is fun, but DS can’t play Legos until his list is done.

I tried the whole 8-8:30 is math, etc, but we have too many variables for that to work (e.g. Frequent migraines, etc). Plus sometimes I wake up and really want to go to daily mass, which is half an hour away. That totally messes up the schedule. I got too stressed with a strict schedule and didn’t feel like I was able to do things like have friends over for lunch. But our list works.

One thing that has really helped me when I think I’m failing is to remember that my job is to get my kids to heaven, not Harvard.
 
I have 4 kids, and have 2 doing school now. Right now our “schedule” is to hopefully get 2 subjects done in a day! We have no routine…and feel like I need one badly. I’m horrible when it comes to following a routine/schedule. I never stick to it long enough…so i’m reading this as well hoping to get some inspiration!!
 
I have 5 home during the day, 4 of whom are home schooled.

My day begins the night before with a shower, clothes set out and any worksheets printed and ready to go. Showering the night before has been a huge time saver.

I rise early to get my prayer in, then attend morning mass at 6:00 a.m. Three days a week the kids go with me.

We eat breakfast when we return. Kids are free to play but my 7th grader prefers to nap!

8:30 we say our prayers. 1st day of the month we create a prayer list and review our blessings from the previous month. We may talk about the Saint of the day, the feast days coming or the homily at mass. Then all the kids pull out their religion texts and start reading or working on their workbook. I work independently with my one learning to read, and give her an activity to do. As the week goes by I go over each chapter with each child, getting all in by Thursday ready for a short quiz on Friday a.m.

From 9:00ish to 10 or 10:30 the kids check their assignment notebook for that days assignment. They choose independent work if I’m busy with another, but I spend one-on-one time with each, helping with different subjects as they need.

Snack at 10:30 and finished work put away

11:00 back to work for the older kids. My kindergartener is usually done and free to play with the youngest.

11:00-12:00 more work, usually math is finished at this time. They work better in the a.m. than in the afternoon, so I need to make sure it gets in by then.

12:00 lunch

12:30-1:00 out to play

1:00 until each is finished, they work or sit with me to review, explain, etc. Usually at this point it’s just my older two still working.

No fun til the work is done.

I like to read from a book during snack time. I may copy a coloring page that goes with the story for the littles to help keep the fidgets down while listening. I also read in my bed on cold winter days with the little kids gathered around. Some fall asleep 🙂 My older kids take that time to finish their work or do their independent reading.

I HTH. order is a lovely thing, but remember to bend with the day. The schedule I use is my baseline, but we are known to get off track 😃 I usually have their assignment notebooks filled out by Sunday night, so their is no time waisted in figuring out what is next.
 
gardenswithkids said:
Deeper housecleaning took place on Fridays. If I’d vacuumed and dusted and cleaned the bathrooms, I felt successful. Hubby brought home pizza on Friday, so I didn’t have to cook the same day that I cleaned.
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That is pure genius.
 
When I was being homeschooled, my mom has a system that worked pretty well most days. She has 3 in grade school and an infant/toddler. The morning and afternoon were each broken up into 3 study sessions of about 45 minutes with a 15 minute break after each session.

During each session one child took care of the baby, one child did one-on-one school with Mom, and the third child did independent work, or something that they could do once Mom got them started. If we finished our subject early we could move on to the next subject if we wanted to get finished early, or go play until the next session started.

It really worked pretty well, especially since we were old enough to make our own lunches and Mom could use that time to get the baby down for a nap or to do laundry, etc.

Also, we all were trained on household chores at an early age so there was less for Mom and Dad to do. Home Economics is a valid subject for homeschooling and it’s ok to make that the only subject you teach for a few hours (or days) if that can help make the rest of the school year easier. I’m realizing now that we may have let our oldest (6yrs) get out of chores for a little too long, but we are working on correcting that this fall. He is great at getting the laundry down to the basement and running it through the machines (front loaders) but could really use some practice sweeping the floor.
 
Anna_jane said:
What I do in sceduling religion is have a five-day plan. One day is a Liturgical year activity, craft, or book. Second day is a saint story, perhaps with some sort of coloring page or trreat, depending how ambitious I feel. Third day is a Bible story. fourth day is for learning about the Mass or one of the sacraments. Fifth day is for catechism.
History, Geography, science, Art, etc are all planned to cover the same basic theme for all the kids, just at different levels.
Click to expand...
This sounds wonderful and you sound like a creative and knowledgeable mother. I am not sure if this plan would work for my family (certainly not for this year), but it does give me some food for thought. Thank you for sharing. 🙂
 
gardenswithkids said:
"It’s so different now that my youngest is school-aged and doing school work along with the rest! Homeschooling with a baby or toddlers requires just the right blend of flexibility with consistency and routine. It’s a lot like juggling with just one hand while the other arm holds the baby.

I need a routine to get things done. We always start our school days with prayer. (I tried the whole rosary, but eventually cut it to just a decade to keep the toddler chaos to a minimum.) My survival mode schedule was to do prayer, handwriting, math, and reading daily. We did lots and lots of reading aloud on various subjects. "

My reply:
I am working very hard on developing a routine now. It has been difficult because I am also battling a severe depression that snuck up on me these past two years (and just got a diagnosis two weeks ago). Your description here really spoke to me. I will respond the rest of your awesome post, but I just wanted to highlight how much this meant to me. Thank you.
 
gardenswithkids said:
"I read out loud to my children even after they are able to read for themselves. We take turns reading things together. I preferred using “Real Books” over textbooks. (There’s a book called, “Real Learning” by Elizabeth Foss that inspired much of my homeschooling style when I had multiple children in grammar school + baby and toddlers, although I developed my own style to meet my family’s needs.) I also used a lot of workbooks from Catholic Heritage in those days.

I will have to look into that book. I am using CHC this year for the first time. We LOVE it. We had been using Kolbe, and it became too burdensome for our family, so we switched. I am so glad we did.

I have some that are very close in age, and I combined subjects whenever possible. For example, science and history books can cover various age levels, and the related written assignments can be adjusted to ability/grade level. I don’t do that so much anymore, but I did back then.

I don’t do this anymore for academic subjects, but I did a couple years ago for science. Now I still take this approach for art and music and PE and health and, for the first time this year, Latin.

I prefer to read through books faster than how most schools go through books just a few pages a day. We cover more at once, but not all subjects every day. That saves me from having to juggle 7 subjects with every child every day.

The material in the grammar school age is often reflective of life that’s going on all around us anyway, so we’d talk as we went about life. Education took place in the context of our whole life, not just during “school”. Our basement was filled with lots of educational toys and books. I remember starting back to “homeschooling” after taking a short break to have a baby, and it occurred to me that they seemed to be doing more “educational stuff” on their own when I wasn’t trying to educate them."

We might have a tiny apartment, but we placed a high priority on having an ample home library, and plenty of educational toys and manipulatives. It has helped me greatly because so much of their self-directed play can be counted toward their homeschool records.

my replies in red
 
my replies in red

gardenswithkids said:
"Our old schedule from those days:
8:30 prayer
Then I might read from someone’s Catechism out loud to the whole group, or read something from a history book. Then they’d start handwriting. (I wanted them to start with handwriting practice before they did any other written work.)
Then as they finished handwriting, one-by-one they’d come to me with grammar workbook, then spelling workbook, maybe math. I’d correct the previous days work with the child then go over the next lesson. I often did that while holding a baby. Toddler often colored.

Our morning session is 9-12, during which time I am working through religion and science or social studies with my oldest two, and kindergarten work with my almost-5yo. The toddler is given activity boxes or other things to do. The kids often participate in each other’s religion or catechism lessons, or at least eavesdrop. 🙂

10:00 snack break. We’d read together the story of the saint of the day while eating snack. (And I’d throw a load of wash that had been started earlier from the washer to the dryer.)

After snack, we’d finish math and likely get to another subject.

My husband teaches math when he gets home about 3:30 or so. Then he takes the kids out for recess. I may or may not join them, depending on how I am doing and what my plans are for that time.

Lunch at noon. Then recess outside.

Lunch is at noon for us, but my kids are SLOW eaters, so it is over at 1pm and then it is nap time for the baby and afternoon session.

After they came in from outside, I’d read a chapter or maybe more from a classic children’s novel to them. I was really good at holding a book in one hand and reading out loud while nursing a baby. (I can also type on a forum with one hand while nursing a baby.) While I read, they could color or play with toys. (Noisy electronic toys were kept in a different part of the house, and I never replaced their batteries. )

Afternoon session is supposed to be for language arts and study time. I have tried to carve out a time for me to rest if I need to. But in reality, this is not happening nearly as often as it should.

Somewhere in there I’d fold the laundry and put it away. I keep hampers in each bedroom and do loads only from one bedroom at a time to make sorting easier.

I get it washed but never folded or put away during the day.

3:00 snack time again.

Us too.

Television stayed off until 4:00.

I am using the TV or iPad games WAY more than I would normally do, eapecially as compared to a couple years ago. It has become a crutch to me to try to keep the youngest three from hollering at me too much and stressing me out. I want to work my way back to no TV/electronics until the late afternoon again, but I have to get my emotional stability back on track again.

I’d make dinner in the afternoon, and tidy the house just before my husband came home. (Not much point in putting things away earlier or it would just be messy again by the time he got home.)

Deeper housecleaning took place on Fridays. If I’d vacuumed and dusted and cleaned the bathrooms, I felt successful. Hubby brought home pizza on Friday, so I didn’t have to cook the same day that I cleaned. Older kids helped with dishes, and they did dishes right away after every meal so I could see a clean kitchen sooner than later. I instituted regular snack times so that the kitchen stayed cleaner since it wasn’t in constant use. It helped the toddlers know that food was coming on a predictable schedule."

Our mealtimes and snacks are predictable, and our deep house cleaning is every Saturday morning. The older kids have little jobs that are theirs to do to contribute to the overall tidiness and order, and they are suddenly showing a new helpful attitude with it. I have been so thankful for their new generosity and proactiveness, and have told them so often. I think they have seen my exhaustion and struggles and they want to help. It is a recent change but all of a sudden, it feels like things are moving together in the right direction again in that regard. And I appreciate not having the entire burden of home order and cleanliness be on my shoulders.

All of what I have shared thus far is best day scenario. We are still often not meeting all of those marks, except for meals and grooming and routines for waking and sleeping, which we have placed highest priority upon.
 
gardenswithkids said:
(((hugs!)))
You are not failing miserably!!!

My current pastor requires the kids to be in his religious ed program to receive the sacraments, and I was not up to arguing over it. The first week, the class didn’t even open their books. The amount that they cover in class is far, far less than what we covered when homeschooling Catechism. Feel good about what you’re doing!

When homeschooling Catechism, I often would read a whole chapter from one child’s book out loud to the whole family. We used Faith and Life. The child whose book it was would do the workbook, but not always the entire workbook. The others just listened or took turns reading. Then we’d do a different child’s Catechism, in a similar way. Sometimes we’d go through one whole Catechism books, a chapter each day until finished with one, then move to the next. Sometimes we’d rotate between books. And sometimes I’d read with the children individually on Monday, then they’d do their workbook pages on their own T, W, Th, F. Some of in work more independent than others–and it doesn’t just relate to their ages.
Click to expand...
We do Faith and Life for religion, as well as using a supplemental catechism series. I use the teacher’s manuals, which I love, love, love.

I also voluntarily enrolled them in RE at our geographic parish (we attend Latin masses at various parishes for our Sunday Mass however) and I have already become a volunteer in RE. I am the assistant teacher for the First Communion class this year, which also happens to be my son’s class. The teacher and I lament the challenges of catechizing the children with only one hour per week, and she is pleased with my work at home with my children and wishes it was the kind of thing that could be offered to more families, but it is just not possible (unless all the families start doing daily work with their children at home).

So that is the one area where we do not cut corners. I know my primary job is to get them to heaven, not to assure material success. I do my best with the other areas of education, and heavily emphasize language arts and math, but religion has highest place in our day.
 
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