I always enjoy reading about other people’s homeschool routines. I don’t entirely know why. Sometimes I think it’s because I’m looking for ideas to steal, and sometimes I think it’s because I wish my life were that organized. On paper, I think our days probably look pretty organized, too, even though they feel chaotic and thrown-together. For a while, when I was first considering homeschooling, I clicked on every single Pinterest Pin I came across that said, “Our homeschool routine.”
So I figured, why not share ours?
As of this writing, my kids are 3 and 5. We have been following this routine for about nine months so far. We had been doing a different routine before, but it wasn’t working out for us. This new one is much better! As I read, and learned through doing, that’s part of the homeschool journey–figuring out what works for your family.
My kids are early risers. My 3-year-old will wake up anywhere between 5:00 and 7:00, though it averages about 6:00 every morning. My 5-year-old usually wakes up around 7:00. When they wake up, I’m usually doing something–working on a lesson plan, writing, reading, etc. So they sit and watch their Amazon Fire Kids tablets (which I absolutely love and cannot recommend enough) while I finish up whatever I’m doing.
Around 8:00 – 8:30, I announce, “Table Time!” (Table Time is our version of Circle Time.) We’ve been doing Table Time for about 2-3 years now, so the kids know exactly what to expect. They turn off their tablets and go sit at their little table. I sit down with them and we go through:
- What day of the week it is.
- Today’s date.
- The weather.
- The letter of the day. (Recently I’ve been picking letters that are in all of our names so my 3-year-old can start recognizing our names. We say what letter it is and how it sounds.)
- The number of the day. (I pick random numbers that I want my 3-year-old to work on.)
- How each kid is feeling that day.
- Our ASL sign for the day. (We learn or review a new sign every day.)
- Our schedule/plan for the day.
You can purchase our Table Time template here. It includes a number of clipart activities to make your own daily visual schedule that you can move around as you need. The amazing Mariia Kurochka created and designed all of the images, and all of the credit for their cuteness goes to her!
After Table Time is over, we move on to our lesson and activity. If there’s something I want to teach them, I do it here. (E.g., this is when we discussed nouns, adjectives, and verbs or when I introduce new vocabulary words and new concepts.) This is also when we do any worksheets or book activities. Lately, I’ve been having the 3-year-old focus on writing the letter of the day while my 5-year-old works his way through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. (I read some mixed reviews of the book, but I LOVE it for my kid.)
After our lesson and activity, we move on to our religion study. We use the Preschool Daily Devotional and I love it. We’ve gone through a couple of different children’s Bible books, but I keep coming back to the devotional. I think it does a great job at speaking to the kids in ways they can relate to, and I love that it includes a Bible quote every day along with a little prayer.
After we pray, the kids get their allowance and their “bonus,” which is the monetary equivalent of a grade. So, for example, they get $0.25 for an “A,” $0.20-$0.15 for a “B,” $0.10 for a “C,” $0.05 for a “D,” and no bonus for an “F” or incomplete assignment. Their allowance is exactly the same, although my 3-year-old gets five pennies and my 5-year-old gets a nickel.
For $0.05, they can buy 15 minutes of tablet time during the day. For $0.25, they can buy one piece of candy. To encourage cooperation and prevent jealousy or strife between the kids, if one of them buys either tablet time or candy, the other one gets it, too. So they often work together to get double the candy and frequently buy each other tablet time if one of them runs out of coins. (Which is actually SO sweet to see.)
Pretty much every day, as soon as they get their allowance and bonus, they buy candy and tablet time. This is usually around 9:00 – 9:30. I use the time to document what we did for our lesson and activities, their grades, and add in any pictures I took of their work. I also check the goals I set for us at the beginning of the month to see how we’re tracking. (E.g., one month, my goal for my son was, “Finish 15 lessons of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.” For my daughter, it was, “Learn all the letters and letter sounds in all of our names.” …we’re still working on that one. :))
When tablet time is over, I get the kids dressed, and from there, it’s a mixed bag of what comes next. Sometimes we go to the store, to a class, clean up the house, go to the park, go somewhere fun–it all depends on the weather, if we have somewhere to be, etc.
We eat lunch anywhere from 11:00 A.M. – 1:00 P.M.. After lunch, we read a book to get ready for nap time. This is where I sneak in our lesson books! I used to try to read them a book as part of our lesson after Table Time and it NEVER worked. I couldn’t get them to sit still for all of it! I could read them a book OR I could have them do an activity–not both. So one day I read them the “lesson book” at nap time, and the next day after Table Time, we briefly reviewed the book and did the activities in my lesson plan. Worked perfectly, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
After we finish reading, my 3-year-old and I usually nap. My 5-year-old plays quietly in the bedroom while we sleep. When we wake up, we’ll either play some more or start cleaning up. Then I start making dinner or doing some more work while the kids play.
Once a week I try to do “one-on-one time” with my kids. (I used to try to do it every day, but we frequently had to cancel it for something else we were doing.) I have one kid play alone in one room while the other kid and I play together. Most of the time, I let my kid decide what we do, although sometimes I’ll force them to play a game with me like Memory or Go Fish. After 30 minutes, the kids trade places. When that 30 minutes is over, I have the kids play together without me for 45 minutes. This is when I try to get a little more work done or just sit on the couch and enjoy not moving for five minutes. 😉 I got the idea for the 1:1 time from my days working in an office, and I LOVE doing it with my kids. When you have more than one kid, you rarely get a chance to just focus solely on one kid and fully engage with them in activity or conversation because you’re usually busy trying to play referee or answering an endless tag-team of questions. The 1:1 time lets me pay complete attention to them and have them show me what they’re interested in or dealing with based on what they want to do. I highly recommend incorporating 1:1 times with your kids.
After my husband gets home from work, we eat dinner together as a family, and then the kids get free tablet time until bed. At bedtime, we read a story and then it’s lights out so we can wake up and do it all over again!
And that’s it! We’re usually done with school in about an hour, maximum two. Then it’s errands and play time!
Homeschooling is pretty freeing, isn’t it?
KC Aubin 