A few years ago, I posted our working daily homeschool schedule. It was based on the needs of my family at the time. One of the most beautiful facets was that it relied on chunks of time during the day. So if the baby didn’t nap like he should have or if someone needed to go to the doctor, the entire day wasn’t wasted. We could easily get back on schedule, even with disruptions.
As my kids have grown, so has the schedule. I’ve found that we needed to have a little more structure, mostly due to my work schedule. I’ve also found that with a little less flexibility, my children can get more accomplished, as they are certain what they should be doing at any given moment. I’ve been testing it out and growing into it for several months now. The overall family consensus is that it works very well for us. So we thought we would share it with you!
Simple Homeschool Schedule for Working Moms
In a sense, the schedule is still in chunks. Although I haven’t outlined it as such on the schedule. It still follows a similar regimen to the old one: morning chunk, lunch chunk, afternoon chunk, and evening chunk. The difference really is in the detail that we follow in that chunk. Instead of a loose list of things to accomplish, I’ve assigned more structured time frames.
Morning Chunk
This is the part of the day BEFORE we start school. It starts with me getting up and starting my day off right with God’s word, and then utilizing a fresh mind to work on upcoming projects. When the kids get up, the start with the morning checklist to help them accomplish a morning devotion time, breakfast, and morning chores.
School Chunk
I’ve done the school chunk many different ways. But in this stage of life, it’s working best as a concentrated chunk in the morning. (Remember to do what is right for you! It doesn’t have to be done in the morning.)
I start the day off by teaching our worldview curriculum to everyone. They work in the accompanying notebooks as I read. Then I have a little time with Luke (pre-k). We will do a few pages in his books and read together. Meanwhile, Nathan (2nd grade) is reading his story to himself. Once I am done with Luke, Nathan will read the story to me.
Teaching tip—> It’s really helpful to have your child practice reading the text at least once before reading with you. It builds fluency and accuracy!
By this point, everyone is usually settled in with their school work. I work at the table with them answering questions as they arise. During this time, I keep my work schedule light. I want the children to be able to interrupt me if they get stuck on something.
Do I teach them every single subject directly? No way! I’ve worked really hard to teach them to love to learn. I’ve taught them that they can learn anything by teaching themselves. I do help as needed and somedays that is a lot. But my older children (4th and 5th grade) do not need me to micromanage their lessons. See more about the specific curriculum and methods I use here.
Lunchtime Chunk
At noon, I check their weekly checklists by grading the day’s work. Occasionally my 5th grader is not done with her assignments at this point in the day, but not too often.
Next we prepare lunch and I read aloud something to everyone while they eat. We love missionary stories like Hudson Taylor.
Click the image above for a closer look at the schedule or click here.
Afternoon Chunk
This part of the day actually varies, but you won’t find that listed above.
On Mondays and Wednesdays, my kids have an “after-school” sitter that comes. She works through the schedule with them, meets their needs, and keeps the out of my office. Haha.
When she is here, I work in my bedroom with my laptop (that’s what I call my office). It gives me concentrated time to make business phone calls, work with companies on campaigns, and create new project ideas.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are reserved for appointments, if at all possible. The 3 oldest have piano on Tuesday and Leah (5th grade) volunteers at a ranch on Thursday afternoons. If we are home during a particular time in the afternoon, we revert to the schedule.
Fridays during the school year are co-op days. The children enjoy PE, music, art, and the girls even take a writing class (IEW).
Evening Chunk
At 5pm, the official work day ends and we head into the kitchen. Each day of the week, one child is assigned to help me prepare dinner. I’m so glad that I started this last year. The girls can make most anything for dinner now. During this time someone is assigned to help Luke and the others are to clean their room and work on chores.
From 6-7:30 we have family time. This time can be anything really…except work and school. Most nights we go on a walk around the neighborhood. Sometimes we go grocery shopping or to run an errand. Other times we just read together or play games. I’ll be honest. I’m still working on this part. Sometimes there is just so much to do that it seeps into our family time.
Around 7:30pm we start winding down with showers, stories, prayers, and bedtime. The boys go down between 8 and 8:30pm. The girls stay up later, but must be completing a quiet activity during this time.
That’s about it. Our day in a nutshell. How does it compare to yours? I’d love to hear your feedback!
I love all the interesting ways different families homeschool. I am excited to see the visual schedule that you posted. I may have to copy the format and use it in my planner. 🙂
You’ve given me some really good things to think about, we’ve used a chunk schedule in the past but it really needs to be revamped. I especially love the idea of rotating dinner helpers!!
I just came across this page on pinterest and it was definitely a ‘God’ thing. =) I’ve been contemplating homeschooling since we had kids. My littles are 3 1/2 and 1 1/2. Your schedule looks so easy and doable! I’ve definitely been encouraged. I look forward to receiving your posts in my inbox.
Thanks for the example. I’m in the midst of trying to come up with a schedule while I work, and also try to fit in homeschooling, kids’ activities, and co-op class. It’s nice to see a concrete example! I like the rotating helpers with dinner idea.
So very helpful! I am VERY new to homeschooling and love to take a peek at what works for other families to see if an new idea might fit into our routine. Thank you for sharing!
Praying for your journey, Nicole! It’s so fun and so intimidating,too! You can do this with God’s help. Never doubt that! 🙂
I love this! I am sooo not organized (of course my little ones are 5, 3, and 1.5), I want to implement this schedule now as we head into summer so I can have it down by the time my daughter starts K in the Fall.
Side note: I just realized I’ve been pinning your posts for the last few years, now I’m reading your website I’ve finally put two and two together. Your website is a treasure trove! This last year especially is when my world came crashing down. Now I’ve had you “in my back pocket” for this time when I need your wisdom, experience and grace. Thanks! I appreciate you.
Thank you for your sweet words, Hannah. So glad to have you here!
It sounds like you have developed a very balanced schedule, but it looks like it only adds up to 2 hours a day of school time. Of course you know what is right for your family, but for others seeking guidance from your blog I worry that they will not realize that for most children this is not enough.
2 hours is more than enough school in a day! Public educated children don’t even get that. They spend most of the day sharpening pencils and standing in line for the bathroom.
However, My kids generally get about 3 hours of straight “table” school work, in addition to life skills and quite a bit of reading, writing and analyzing during quiet times and devotions. 🙂
This is HUGELY normalizing for me. I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how to do the HOURS of schoolwork…I like seeing that we can do it like this. My kids are learning all day!
I saw this on Pinterest and am a planner addict!! After all, to effectively run a household AND homeschool there needs to be a planner in there somewhere right?! ANYWAY!!!….. I love your article and the arrangement of your schedule. It is funny how our home and school cycle through various seasons as our children grow. I like the chunking method you are using. We have used it as well with great success, but what I like most is how you planned out your afternoon/evening as far as free time, family time and even help with dinner. As we consider our plans for fall I think I will use some of your advice! Thank you!!
This is great! I use a lot of the same techniques, but we use the Love My Schedule system. It’s a magnetic wet erase schedule that I keep on the fridge. That way I don’t have to print out a new schedule when I want to change it. I also have the chore charts so I can check off their chores as they get done. Their website is LoveMySchedule.com if anyone wants to check it out 🙂
I have a sewing business in our home. This school year is my first year homeschooling. I have a kindergartener, a four year old and an almost 1 year old. So many homeschooling moms told me not to do much for kindergarten so I just purchased some workbooks at the beginning of the year and tried to do some five in a row cirriculum . It stressed me out to no end! I felt like I was spinning my wheels and accomplishing nothing.
In October I got abeka video school and it has worked really well!
However I am not sure if I want to continue for future grades for several reasons a. I feel like the video classroom time wastes a bit of my child’s time b. it is a lot of screen time (although I don’t make him watch every single video it is an hour and a half )
I am nervous about exploring my other options because I don’t want to spend a lot of time preparing for the school day. But what else is out there?
My teenage son has that sleep phase delay most kids get at around puberty so mornings are not ever going to be school time for him anymore. I use mornings for my own work; mainly school for me (I am working on my master’s degree) and to run any errands I need done.
This is very close to ours and works well! My struggle at the moment is that my hubby works 9 to 9 and I’m trying to find a way to fit in daily work fr home a couple hrs, ur idea is a good one, might see if this would benefit me to pay a sitter later… but right now I’m just getting started so I need to do bulk of work by getting up super early, which has been challenging getting myself to rise at 4, w hubbys late work hrs….
Hey Kim great schedule, we follow a similar one. Glad to see great moms think alike.
Hi,
for some reason some of your checklists (morning and school) aren’t coming up with i click on them…says error 404. FYI 🙂 Thank you for them!
Kari
Thank you for letting me know. We had some issues with the links, but they are all fixed now.
I love this! Thankyou for being so honest, including things like having a sitter in the afternoon, and that you haven’t quite got the ‘work creep’ out of family time yet! This just seems like a really do-able homeschool plan! I love it!
My son is still struggling with the ‘if you just knuckle down and do the work it leaves more time for other activities’ idea, so our school time is 8.00-2.00, with one 30min break and one hour break. I am not sure how he would go with school from 8.00-12.30 (with no breaks – if I took the breaks out and finished early instead) In fact, you have inspired me to try that today, and see if he likes the whole afternoon ‘off’!
Can’t wait to hear how it goes!
I really like this schedule even though my sons do school through k12 online schools instead us actually homeschooling them. I do work outside of the house and I think that this schedule will help with my 4th grader so that my husband can help keep him on track while I am gone to work during the day. My 12th grader could use one also because he is asutic and needs reminders. 4th grader has cub scouts on wednesdays and 12th grader works monday to friday at 5 pm plus he helps with cooking.
All great advice! Our family uses the Love My Schedule system. It’s a magnetic wet erase schedule that I keep on the fridge. That way I don’t have to print out a new schedule when I want to change it. I also have the chore charts so they can check off their chores/meals as they get done. Their website is LoveMySchedule.com if anyone wants to check it out.
Thank you! This is our first year homeschooling and this has been helpful as I start planning next year. I struggle with our schedule and your resources for homeschooling has been very beneficial.
Hello:) Would it be possible to break down what that 2 -3 hours of ‘table’ school time looks like for your older kids? We have a similar schedule, but have a playtime in the middle that can make the day longer that I would like at times:) Yet, the break from core classes does give me time to get some of my own work done:) Thank you fir your encouraging posts! I love it! 🙂
We don’t really take breaks, but my kids are older. We pretty much just run down the list of subjects and knock them out. I’m not picky about which subject is first and most often allow my kids to choose unless we are doing something together or they need me. Hope that helps!
Your ideas are so encouraging! I am not a naturally gifted organizer, but I like to homeschool my kids. It is very helpful to have these resources to help me manage our time. Thank you so much!
I have a 12yr old and a 14 yr old and our schedule is constantly changing. I work out side the home, but this chunk schedule looks very doable. We will try it out for home and make necessary changes where needed for us, but thanks it looks very doable for my middle and high school boys.