Everyone wonders just how homeschoolers manage to get everything done, how long it takes you each and everyday to get all the subjects done, and how many hours per week you spend homeschooling. I am in a lot of groups on Facebook for homeschoolers and I see the question all the time. How long it takes my children to get their work done each day is going to be different each day, let alone how it compares to your children. It’s all about time management in the end.
Time Management for Homeschoolers
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I cheated on the planning for this school year for a lot of it, I had BookShark do all the planning for me. And I love it, the schedule and the curriculum but shiny new curriculum is hitting me, and I feel like I want to try something different. And with that in mind, I’m thinking about elements that are important, like time management.
I’m also working on getting us back into a library routine, going more consistently on a certain day of the week again instead of whenever we feel like going. It also makes for less late fees.
A Four Day Schedule
We work best right now on a four day work week. We did four day weeks before we started using BookShark, so we really lucked out there. We do school Monday and Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. We’re still in lower elementary grades right now so I’m not pushing long hours sitting at the table or computer just yet, because I’m a big believer in kids playing, and my oldest who is nine years old loves to build with her Lego sets and I think it’s great, she learning while doing so. My kid can put together a Lego set, following the instructions far better than I.
Our off day through the week gives us a day to relax, a day for field trips, and such. It also gives us a catch up day if need be, if someone was sick or we had to be somewhere and were unable to get to our school.
When We Do School
Our homeschool start time bounces back and forth on this one: first thing in the morning to after lunch. In the beginning of the year, right up until about Spring we tend to pick mornings for school time. Come Spring school work tends to happen after lunch. I think seeing and feeling the heat from the sun again just makes us more relaxed in the mornings and more focused in the afternoons. It doesn’t matter what time of day we start, we still follow the same routine…
Time Management Routine
The routine that works best for us, is to always start with reading. Reading from our history book, our read aloud, and then our science. These are the subjects that we do together. Our reading happens on the sofa, with a cat or dog curled up with us. Then we move on to subjects such as language arts and math, that are individual subjects.
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