We are about one month away from starting our homeschool year. I want to go into this school year with high expectations, because I believe in myself and I also believe in my daughter and what she is capable of. My personality is not one for going half way either, I'm a little more all or nothing. That being said, I do want to keep my expectations realistic and light.
Last year I was super flexible with our homeschool since it was technically just preschool still. Despite missing days or keeping it simple, we still got through almost everything we set out to do. With that experience behind me, I know that slow and steady really does work out in the end. There is no need for overload or overwhelm. But I'd still like to have a plan, and today I want to share my plan with you!
Four Days a Week
First my daughter is in Kindergarten this year. I kind of feel like this is a transition year to more full-time schooling (although I'm not sure what that looks like for us either). That being said, it is my plan to have more structured, formal school days Monday-Thursday. Four days a week feels really good to me. It will leave Friday open for exploration and creativity or just as an additional day of rest. The school we were planning on attending in the fall only does school four days a week, and that is one of the things I loved about it, so I have adopted that as our plan.
Three to Four Hours a Day
I am also planning on only spending three to four hours a day on homeschool stuff. This will leave plenty of time open for childhood and creative play. I don't have a schedule with blocks of time for different subjects, instead we will work through lessons for as long as they take and then move onto the next lesson. I suspect that this along with quiet reading time, crafts, physical activity, and whatever else we want to include in our schooling will pan out to being about 3-4 hours of time a day.
Subjects We Will Work On Every Day
Each day we will begin the morning by engaging in basic life skills like making breakfast, putting the dishes away, brushing teeth, getting dressed, etc. We would do these things in a timely fashion if we were trying to get out the door to school, so I expect us to do these things (including me) before we begin our own school day.
After we are all ready for the day, I plan on us having a routine around how we start school. I really believe in teaching not only standard curriculum, but also engaging in learning about your body, mind, and spirit. Each day we plan on starting with practicing a yoga pose and stating a positive affirmation. Yoga can connect you to your body and affirmations are such a great way to be intentional about being positive. After that we will do a 1 minute quiet meditation where we just focus on our breath. This teaches us to be still and present. Then we will sing a song together and read a story together. I think this daily routine will really set the homeschool day up nicely and be something that can help us transition from what we were doing before homeschool into our homeschool learning.
After our daily routine we will get into our standard curriculum. I am planning on working on Language Arts, Handwriting, and Math every day. We will get those three things done together first. We generally do these things in the same order every day, but I am flexible if my daughter wants to change it up. As long as these three things are completed, I am happy.
Subjects We Will Work On Weekly
Once we finish those three subjects, I am pretty open to doing whatever seems to work with the rest of our time. We have science units to complete, crafts and activities, drawing books, and a nature notebook. Depending on the season we may choose to do any of those activities in a day. I am hoping we will be able to do each of these things at least once a week.
I also have collected a library of books that Kennedy has never read. I plan on her reading one book each week and then planning an activity that will bring the book to life. I am really excited about this and can see her spending time on that when we are finished with our normal routine.
And that is what I am planning for our daily homeschool schedule. I will see how it works and how to tweak it here and there as the year goes by. I will also be open to holidays and normal school breaks. We will enjoy working around those like a normal school would.
What are your homeschooling plans? I'd love to know what you will be doing to make your homeschool experience just right for your family!
Mallory
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