Why You Need Homeschool Routines Rather Than Schedules

Schedules are for traditional schools. If you’re trying to keep schedules in your homeschool and feeling frazzled as you do it, you might be making homeschool harder than it needs to be. What you need are homeschool routines.

What are homeschool routines?

Here’s the difference. Schedules look like this:

• 7:00 wake up
• 7:30 breakfast
• 8:00 kids start spelling
• 8:30 math lesson

Routines look like this:

• wake up
• eat breakfast
• when kids are ready for the day, have them start spelling assignment
• next is math lesson

Routines are flexible, while schedules are rigid.

And we know that homeschooling goes so much smoother when everything about it is flexible, including your time management.

Because sometimes the weather interrupts your day (impromptu snow fort, anyone?)

Sometimes the dog throws up on the carpet or the kids throw up on the couch. Yeah, those days are fun.

Some days the math lesson is easily understood and successfully completed in 30 minutes tops. Other days, we’re all still crying after 45 minutes of trying to find x.

If you use rigid schedules, then the first hint of falling of the bandwagon might leave you stressed, frustrated, and feeling like your day has been a disaster (even though it hasn’t!). You might always feel behind.

But, if you use routines, then you have built in the fabric of your time the realization that life will happen. You are homeschooling, of course.

What Routines Are Not

Routines are not willy-nilly. They are not “just do whatever you want, whenever you want” types of plans.

Rather, they are general flows to your day. And you have to communicate them well to your kids if you want it to work properly.

So, ask these questions to see if you have established routines:

• do your kids know what to do when they wake up?
• do they know what to do after they eat breakfast?
• do they know what to work on if you’re not able to help them?
• do they know where to find their assignments for the day?
• do they know generally how the school day flows?

There is no one right way to homeschool. Some of you do morning time, some do tea time with poetry, some of us have very independent high schoolers who work a lot on their own. But you can still use routines to keep a sanity, clarity, and order throughout your school day.

>> Find the entire Time Management for Homeschool Moms series <<

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