You have officially completed Day 1 of Homeschooling! Yay! I hope you had a fun day exploring what homeschool might look like. Kids were excited for a new journey and maybe you were too (even a little bit??). As you move forward, you might be asking how to keep it going all while making sure you accomplish all the things. Here is an outline of our daily schedule. Make adjustments for your schedule, your kids, their curriculum, and what works for your family.
- Get Ready. I start my day by getting ready-ish (these days there is no fixing hair or doing makeup). I do make sure we all get dressed and don’t stay in our pajamas every day…and just so you know “comfy clothes” count as getting dressed 🙂
- Quiet Time. I have my daily quiet time, read my devotional, spend some time in prayer. This helps me focus and gets me in the right mindset for the day. (This is usually when the kids are getting up, getting dressed, watching a show, and getting their water bottles ready for the day. They also know to leave me alone-which takes some practice-but teach them this important skill!)
- Exercise. We spend 20-30 minutes stretching and doing exercise. You can make a list of what you like to do and teach them, just start with basics, or play a game to choose what exercises to do.
- Think stretches, jumping jacks, windmills, push-ups, squats, mountain climbers, arm circles, high knees, sit-ups, jog in place, burpees. No equipment required.
- Breakfast. I have a schedule for what we have each day. It has taken the kids some time to get used to this, but it is easy-peasy, great for planning, and provides variety. (More on food schedules another time.) I get the kids their breakfast and have my protein shake. I am also trying to all sit together if I am not needing to get something prepped for the day. Once the kids are finished, they wash up and brush their teeth.
- Time for School.
- Prayer. I use “Teach Me to Pray” Hand Prayer for this (see Printables). They each do this independently, then we take turns praying our prayers all together. This is such a sweet time.
- Calendar/Notebooks. This consists of our calendar where they put a sticker on the day and we add what day # of school it is. We also go over the weather by charting, review our address and phone numbers (including grandparents or emergency contacts), and once a month they write their name as neat as possible so we can see their improvement month-to-month.
- Bible. We spend a few minutes on verse memory work (which is Awana verses when Awana is in session). You can customize this to whatever verses/topics you need to work on.
- English
- Grammar- we use “Evan Moor Grammar and Punctuation” for grammar rules
- Spelling- we use All About Spelling (or Reading Eggs) and then work on our spelling lists from Spelling Plus. We have Pre-tests at the beginning of the week and Spelling tests at the end of the week.
- Handwriting- for this we use Handwriting Without Tears. We alternate every other day with the writing/cursive workbooks and the Building Writers workbooks.
- Math
- For Math we use Saxon. This is when I get one child started on their worksheets and work with the other. Then switch. Sometimes it’s hard to do math with the kids at the same time depending on the amount of teaching that is required for their lessons. If that’s the case, then I might have one kid do a lesson of Math Seeds on the iPad while I work with the other on Math and then we switch.
- CC Review (Classical Conversations, our Homeschool program)
- Timeline, History, Geography, Latin, English, Math, Science, Music/Art
- Presentations
- We prepare presentations for our CC Community day each week. It has been so wonderful to prepare kids for public speaking by teaching them speaking AND listening skills. CC starts doing this at age 4!!
- Character Education
- Learning character traits and how to deal with life. I have several resources, that I will continue to add to, on my Character Education page.
- Journal
- I give topics for the kids to write independently. They write and draw a picture. This is a glimpse into their hearts and minds. I love their journals!!
- Reading
- We spend about 30 minutes for the kids to read independently and then read aloud to me. Again we switch. One reads independently while the other reads to me and vice-versa.
- Lunch Time
That is our school day in a nutshell. This is also subject to change because I am a work-at-home mom. I may add a version of this to my Exploring Lists page at another time. Please feel free to ask questions, ask for suggestions, or ask for more details!! I’d love to help you figure out all the scheduling things!!