Homeschool: A Typical Week (or Two)

I was thinking that I'd post our usual homeschool week, with added activities, but then I realized that we actually run on a two week schedule. We do have some things every week, but there are several things that we only have fortnightly. I also find that the lines between homeschool and other life stuff gets blurred, so not all of this is directly related to the girls' education. There's not really a separation between what is part of the homeschool lifestyle and what is not. I work to balance it all and find a good rhythm for our family. So here's a breakdown of what a typical week looks like and what is weekly as opposed to fortnightly. I'm including mention of some of my usual chores so you can see how I fit those in.

Monday - We do our usual routine, and then we visit our neighbor. E has ballet in the evening, so this is the one day we do not eat together, as her class is so late that she needs a full meal beforehand, or she wouldn't get through it in a good humor. So after the neighbor visit, I make and serve dinner, and then E gets ready for ballet, and we head out. I do clothing laundry on Mondays, or at least it gets washed and dried/hung out to dry. It rarely gets folded on this day because this is one of the days that we've got two activities. (I usually try to keep it to one per day, but it doesn't always work out.) Our neighbor visit takes an hour, and ballet takes upwards of an hour and a half, including transit time, and that uses up most of the extra time in our day.

Tuesday - We do our usual routine, and I try to do an extra project or two that I've got on my list before taking Z to her violin lesson in the early evening. If we have our homeschool meet up the next day, the extra project I work on is usually preparing everything we need for the meet up. I need to make the example for the craft project and gather the materials that we take along. On the other Tuesdays, I'll do things like mending clothing, editing and uploading photos to a stock photography app, organizing something (the need for organizing never ends), or...whatever. My list of things to do is long and somewhat weird. If I've not folded laundry on Monday, I do it on Tuesday, unless there's a circumstance that prevents this.

Wednesday - Every two weeks, we have our semi-structured home education meet up on this day. When we have the meet up, we do not do our usual routine. Both girls usually prepare a presentation for the meet up, and so we spend the morning finishing those up. Because I am the one who organizes and facilitates this meet up, we have to take all the supplies for the meet up with us. By the time we've gotten there, set everything up, had the meet up, and gotten everything packed up and home again, I am exhausted. If I feel revived after a snack and a cup of tea, I might do a reading that both girls will enjoy, but otherwise I don't worry about it.

On the Wednesdays that we do not have this meet up, I reserve the day to do our usual routine and nothing else. We can all stay in our pajamas if we want. Wednesday night is Minecraft night, so there's preparation for that regardless. Z plays with J, and E can either watch or have some active screen time of her own, but they have to earn this. Both girls have to have all their own things put away in their rooms and around the house, and Z must clean the bathroom, so that keeps them both busy for much of the time they have free after either the meet up or our usual routine. I will either do a project from my list or work on laundry, sometimes both! (How exciting for me, am I right?) From time to time we'll get an invitation to meet with friends on a Wednesday that is not a meet up Wednesday, and we almost always say yes if this happens.

Thursday - This is the day I normally arrange for the grocery delivery to arrive, so we get our lessons started after that's shown up and everything has gotten put away. We visit our neighbor on Thursday afternoon, and then we get ready to go meet J at the end of his workday so that he can take the kids with him and I can go for a short run and take dinner to a homeless friend. Z usually cooks our dinner on this night; we nearly always have breakfast for dinner on Thursdays, and she's really good at preparing it. I can breeze into the house after my run and tuck right into dinner. It's pretty brilliant.

Friday - This day is kind of a wild card. If it's a week that we've had our meet up, I try to keep it free so that we can have a day to chill. We still do our routine on our chill day, but I don't plan anything else. We might go to the nearby playground or do some other fun little project, but because the weekend after we've had our Wednesday meet up is usually followed by a full weekend, the kids really need some down time. If it's not the week we have a Wednesday meet up, this is the day I will plan something fun if we'd like. We might have friends over or go visit someone, or we'll do a museum visit or some other kind of outing. If we go somewhat far, we won't do our usual routine. If our activity keeps us somewhat close to home, we will fit in at least part of our usual readings.

Saturday - Both girls now have theatre class, at separate times, on Saturdays. J takes them to these, as Saturday is my day off, or at least it is until late afternoon. Once a month we have children's vespers on Saturday, and that happens after Z's theatre class is over. I don't cook dinner on Saturdays, so we always eat something nice that someone else has made, which is something we can all look forward to. On Saturday, there is always dessert.

Sunday - Our church does not have liturgy every Sunday, so we attend church on alternating Sundays unless there's a fifth Sunday in the month, in which case we attend two in a row. Our church is about an hour away, and liturgy is pretty long, after which there is a late lunch. So this takes up most of the day on Sundays that we attend. On the Sundays we do not attend, we mostly relax, and I make Ethiopian food, but if we want to do something fun as a family, a non-liturgy Sunday is the day to do it.

Random Stuff We Work In - Both girls have things that the need to do a few times a week. Z is working on learning to type, and I want her to work on that thrice weekly, at least. I'd like for both girls to study French every day, but it's not always realistic to cram it in, so we aim for thrice weekly for that as well. Both have a couple of learning programs that they are doing either on an iPhone or a computer, and we are working on doing the thrice weekly thing for those as well. I am aiming to get some sort of check off system going so we make sure we get all these little things done, but we've been so busy this week with extra things that are not part of our usual routines that I haven't gotten that done yet. But it will happen. In the meantime, I'm committed to reminding them to do these things when they announce that they have nothing to do.

I am sure I am leaving some things out, but this will give you an idea of how things work for us. As with the daily routine, we adjust as necessary. For now, this is working pretty well. We like it. We will carry on.

Homeschool: A Typical Day

While we don't have a daily homeschool schedule, per se, over the years we've worked our way into a routine. We adjust this as necessary, but most days contain these elements. There are some things that we do throughout the week, and tomorrow I'll write about what the full week looks like, with activities and lessons which are not daily ones thrown in. This is a quick rundown of the part of the day that is generally the same.

We do some schoolwork together, and other things my kids do on their own. I aim to get the part in which I am involved done by 3pm, as that is the time we visit our neighbor twice a week, and it also means that we won't get started too late. It is all too easy to stay in bed a bit longer or to keep working on a project instead of getting started with the kids' work. Some days it's worth it to do those things, but mostly I try to follow this routine.

I usually wake up between 7:30 and 8am. I do not use an alarm clock, so this varies. After J leaves for work around 8am, I go downstairs and get a cup of coffee, then sit in bed with the cats for half an hour, checking and responding to messages and taking a glance at Instagram and the news. Sometimes E will wake up during this time, and other times she doesn't wake until I go in and turn off the girls' sound machine and open their blinds at 8:30, or if we've had a late night the night before, 9. Z is my heavy sleeper, and she always needs a bit of prodding to get moving. Once everyone is awake and somewhat upright, the girls will do a few little things on their own, sometimes playing together, sometimes cleaning up their things if they want to have non-educational screen time. During this time, we all grab something to eat, though our days of sitting down together for breakfast are largely over. I use this time to do any tasks that need attention that are computer-based, as well as get laundry started, and if we need groceries, I schedule them to be delivered during this time.

Sometime between 10 and 11am, we get started with schoolwork. E goes first, and Z goes second. While each of them is having their lesson time with me, the other can either listen along or do education apps on old iPhones that they have access to. Z also has the option of doing typing lessons on my computer. With each child, I do two to three readings from literature, history, or science texts.  During the readings, I will incorporate other appropriate materials such as maps or diagrams or manipulatives. We discuss the readings as we go along, and I note things that have piqued the children's interest so we can do further study. I try to answer any questions I can on the spot. Once we've done the readings for literature, history and/or science, we do two chapters from Life of Fred math. Mostly, I do these readings for each girl separately, but from time to time there will be a reading that would be good for both, and I do that at the end. For example, today I read King Lear to both girls once I was done with their individual lessons.

During our lessons, one or all of us often become hungry. We each usually have a drink in the living room with us when we are working, and sometimes I also bring in a light snack. But if we need to stop for something more substantial, we just do it. I also find that I need small breaks between readings to rest my voice (and my brain if there have been lots of questions) a little bit. So we work that in, but not in a structured way, just as needed.

Once each girl has had her turn working with me, they are welcome to pursue other projects or simply to play together. Z must practice her violin, and E is required to do work on one of her reading apps if she hasn't done so while I was teaching Z, but there is no firm time schedule for this; it just needs to be done before we have dinner. At this point, I work on whatever projects I have that need to be done. This might be cooking things to freeze (today I slow roasted more tomatoes to put in the freezer), working on organizing our homeschool meet up or coming up with a craft, or any other thing that needs to be done for our family or for my volunteer commitments. I suppose you could say it's a bit of free time.

Free time is ended either when we have another commitment to attend to, or when it is dinner time. This varies by the day. Most evenings, we eat dinner together, after which we begin the slow march toward bedtime. There are baths at various times for various people, quiet play (which may or may not include something educational), and finally, we read a from a chapter book while the girls get settled into bed. We say prayers together, and if they want, J or I sit in their room with them while they fall asleep. The day is over, and we are ready to rest up for the next one.

Why We Homeschool, Updated Reasons

This week is the first week of our full on term time schedule. We attended our first home ed group last Wednesday and started our book work late last week, but extracurricular activities didn't begin until today. Now we'll add ballet, violin, and theatre classes into the mix. This week starts the real deal of what our school year will look like. It feels...busy. But it's manageable. And I thought this would be a good time to write a series of posts about homeschooling. We've been doing it now for six years, and I'd love to say that I'm an old pro, but that's not true. We are constantly adjusting things and working to make home education the best possible experience we can for our kids.

I wrote a post three years ago about why we homeschool, but as our methods have changed and grown along with our children, so have our reasons. Some of these are the same ones we had from the beginning, but others have emerged as we have gone along. Here are our current reasons that we keep the responsibility for our kids' education on our own shoulders.

1. Customized Education - This was always a good reason to homeschool, but it wasn't my top reason initially. It was firmly in the number two slot. Now it's the primary reason I see for continuing to do this. My kids can work at their own pace, in the way that works best for them. I can address both their strengths and weaknesses. They do not look at others and see themselves as ahead or behind. They progress as they are developmentally ready to do so. Within our curriculum, if we discover something that piques their interest, we can pause what we are doing to explore it further. Children are most motivated to learn things that interest them, and I can weave a lot of learning into the pursuit of their interests.

2. Low(er) Stress - Many people would argue that children need to experience stress in order to know how to handle it, but I think that's bonkers. I do push my kids to do their best, but I have no interest in introducing stressful situations where they are unnecessary. There is no high stakes testing here. In fact, my kids don't take tests at all, and I don't mark their work in the traditional way. They do written work, and I go over it with them after they are done, and they correct what needs to be corrected. I don't need to test them because I am working one on one with them daily, so I always know how they are progressing. Additionally, I make sure that I balance what is going on outside our education time so they do not become overwhelmed. Here in the UK, there is a mental health crisis among children. While I can't guard my children from every mental health difficulty - some of this is beyond anyone's control - I can give them a life that is as peaceful as possible, in which additional stressors are not introduced with good cause.

3. Flexibility - This used to be our number one reason for homeschooling. It is still important, and it could be said that numbers one and two are partly affected by this ability to have flexibility in our lives. In some ways, our lives are less flexible due to both kids taking two extracurricular classes each, but we are still able to travel during term time, and we can visit family that is far away when we choose. I can choose to have them miss some of their extracurricular activities in favor of something more important. And we can structure our days as we choose. We seem to keep to the same workable daily and weekly routine, but we can change it up when we need to or even take a day off if we are all feeling burned out. But beyond that, we have flexibility with how our children progress through their education. They are never ahead or behind. If it takes a shorter time or a longer time for them to be ready to progress to the next level of education, or into a career, then that's okay. There is no one dictating when they need to be done with this phase of their learning.

4. Family Togetherness - We highly value our family time. At this stage of life, if the kids were in school, it would be really difficult to spend time together as a family daily, and this is a priority for us. Because we can keep a slightly later schedule than most due to not needing our kids to be up by a certain time in the morning, we have time every evening to be together. Most evenings we have dinner together. And in addition to time as a family of four, my kids also have a lot of time with each other. I have noted that when we are busy with activities for which they each go their own way, they have a harder time getting along at home. But when we have a normal homeschool week, they have time to work through their squabbles and figure out how to do things together that they both enjoy. With a five year age gap, this can be a challenge sometimes, but they continue to love to spend time together, even though their personalities and interests often diverge.

5. We Like It - Honestly, maybe this is the most important reason to do it. We like it. It's working. We've built up an amazing group of fellow home educating friends and are well connected with groups that organize activities so we can have the same type of museum visits and other field trips that kids in school can have. And we can do our own field trips, whenever we feel like it! My kids like the slow start in the mornings and how we can take time for them to pursue their passions. (Z is currently writing on three novels, for instance.) While I will admit that some days it feels like drudgery, most days I fully recognize what a privilege it is to pursue this together, and I wouldn't want things any other way. We have always said that we will continue to do this for as long as it is working for us. I feel pretty lucky that, right now at least, it is.

The Weekend! At Last!

I realize that saying "at last" when Monday was technically spent on holiday may seem a bit silly. But can we just agree that the worst part of going on vacation is getting back home? It took all of Monday to haul ourselves and our luggage from Nice back to London. We were worn out by the end of it, and then we jumped right into a busy schedule on Tuesday, with plenty to get done as the week progressed. I felt a lot like I was in an alley, walking steadily toward the light at the end.

But we did it. I completed every necessary task I set out for myself this week. The kitchen is a bit of a disaster, and my desk and the surrounding area...well, let's not talk about it. But we got through our first homeschool meet up of the term (a big task for me since I am the one organizing and facilitating it), and we started our homeschool year officially, and everyone got fed and has clean laundry, and - much to my delight! - my autumn clothing is now in my wardrobe.

Tomorrow, I'll have my usual Saturday break, and that will put everything right in my little home world. I am happy to give up my weekly break during a family holiday, but it does make a difference in my patience and my overall wellness, so it is good to get back to it. I've still got to send one more email and then get my kids to bed tonight, but tomorrow I'll be officially out of the weekday alley and into the weekend sun.

My Favorite Necessary Task

Speaking of doing what's necessary, I am so excited about the necessary task I've got to do tomorrow. It's my favorite time of year, and by that I mean the time when I pull down the suitcase I stow my out-of-season clothes in and take out the autumn/winter ones. As I've mentioned before, autumn is my absolute favorite season, and this is partly because I love what I get to wear in autumn. In the photo above, you can see what it basically my autumn uniform. Dress, leggings, scarf, jacket, boots. With a coffee on the side (though now I carry a reusable cup).

I honestly look forward to this task from the first day I feel sweat running down between my shoulder blades. I might get a bit sick of winter when it stays a long time, but it's nothing compared to how I feel about the misery of summer. I am ready for it to be over from the day it begins. With this summer lasting what seemed like years, I have been ready for a very long time. And here we are, on the cusp of autumn. I know that if I pack away my summer dresses, I won't wish I'd waited for it to get a bit cooler. It's not quite time for the jacket and the boots, but that time will come. And I'll be happy.

Current Life Motto: Do What's Necessary

Despite my efforts to get things done before the trip so that there wasn't too much to get done when we returned home, there was still quite a lot to do both yesterday and today. And there's more for tomorrow. Laundry still won't do itself, our tomato plant that grew itself grew a massive amount of tomatoes that I don't want to go to waste, and our homeschool group started back up today. I am trying to get everything done, but it never works out to get everything done. This is what I am finally coming to accept - there will always be something that doesn't get done.

I can get quite stressed out about those things that don't get done. It feels overwhelming and awful, knowing that no matter how I try, I cannot magic up more hours in the day or more energy in my body. I don't like feeling overwhelmed and awful, so I'm working on shifting my perspective. Here's the bottom line: I don't have to get everything done. It would be nice, but it's not necessary. And right now, in my life, I need to do what's necessary, and not more than that. There are enough necessary things to fill my whole day, and so doing what is necessary is all I can do.

I tend to get confused about what is actually necessary. Honestly, having a chronic heartburn problem helps out a lot with the self care end of things. I'm not going to call it something silly like "a blessing in disguise," but I will say it's a great motivator. If I want to feel good, or even just okay, I have to get enough rest. I have to make sure that I get some time alone on a regular basis. I have to eat in a way that works for me. So I do those things. But beyond that, I need to figure out what is necessary for our family life to run well.

What is necessary always includes making sure that my kids are well cared for and that we all have things to eat. It includes making sure there's something weather-appropriate for each of us to wear. It includes scheduling the kids' classes and making sure that their education is accounted for. Aside from those things, a lot of things that normally would be considered necessary really aren't. And some things that seem unnecessary become necessary.

In the photo above, there are tomatoes which are ready to be put into the oven to slow roast. One might argue that it is not necessary to get those done today, after we'd already been to our homeschool group and gotten all the materials we take along back home with us and put away. One might say it could wait. But I knew that if I left it until tomorrow, I might not manage to do it, and I didn't want to accidentally waste a lot of those tomatoes. The idea of wasting them stressed me out. So I did it.

On the flip side, do you see those crumbs under the pans holding the tomatoes? Those are not new crumbs. Some people feel that it is necessary to keep counters clean on a regular basis, but I don't. I'm not going to leave anything unsanitary in place, but when it comes to crumbs? Wiping those up is really not necessary when I've got a lot of other things on my list of things to do. Eventually, one of the kids or I will wipe down the counters. We'll do it when it becomes necessary. For now, it's not.

Looking at things this way helps me a lot when we are entering into a busy season. It makes me feel like less of a failure. Instead of focusing on what I have not gotten done, asking what is necessary focuses me on what it is possible to do in the time that I have available. At the end of the day, I can look back and see that I have accomplished the necessary, and I know that the day has been a success.

Away and Back Again

We returned very late last night from a week in Nice. I think my kids went to sleep at 12:30am, because far be it from us to sacrifice the book reading portion of our nightly routine, no matter what. Baths? Unnecessary. Brushing teeth? Quick is fine. But reading? That must be done in its entirety, or no one will sleep. There will be a revolt. I do not need revolts at midnight after being on trains all day. It harshes my mellow, and things got pretty mellow in Nice.

I think this was the most relaxing trip we've ever taken as a family. In large part, this is due to the fact that both kids now can handle staying up late, because they will both sleep in. One day they slept until it was nearly noon. Amazing. Because of all the sleeping late, we didn't do as many things as I thought we might, and that is more than okay with me. I would've loved to go to the Matisse museum, but in the end it felt more important to take things slow. I needed slow. We all did.

Now we are back to fast and busy. I am keen on finding a slow rhythm for our weeks, but it's not going to happen right away. This is the cost of taking a week of doing basically nothing, and of choosing the method of education we have chosen for our kids. Now there are schedules to manage, class fees to pay, planning and organising to do for the home education group I facilitate. We start back up with that tomorrow.

Add to that the laundry which didn't get done before the trip and during the trip, the parcel we need to collect from Royal Mail, the overdue books that must get back to the library, the neighbour that needs to know we haven't forgotten her, the hair styles that need a little refresh. Today is full on. I'm off to handle it.