Article: It is important to make sure that you child’s school routine will mesh well with your family’s normal daily routine. Before you set up a daily school routine for your child, think about what your normal daily routine already looks like.  Examine your normal daily routine to figure out how much time you have available to homeschool your children. Then, work within this amount of time. For example, if you find that you have four hours of time free each day, then this is the amount of time that you will have to homeschool your children. It is also a good idea to maintain your regular daily tasks in your schedule to help structure your days, such as getting dressed in the morning, running errands on a specific day, or preparing meals at a certain time. Setting a time boundary is important when you are homeschooling because this will help to prevent you from working too long or starting too late. Try to set a daily start time and identify the days of the week that will be “school” days.  For example, you might decide to start school at 9am every day and end school at 3pm every day. Make sure that you make your kids aware of these start and end times, such as by posting them somewhere visible. It can be hard for kids to focus on one task for too long, so you might want to schedule tasks in 15 minute blocks. If your child ends up needing less time to complete a task, then that is fine. Just try to avoid scheduling tasks that might take more than 15 minutes to complete.  For example, you might schedule a short reading or a worksheet for one 15 minute block. However, scheduling an entire book chapter, or a packet of worksheets would be too much for 15 minutes. Including meal and break times on the schedule is also important to maintain structure in your child’s environment. Make sure that you include snack times, meal times, and other important breaks on the schedule. For example, you might schedule in a snack from 10 to 10:15am and then schedule lunch for 12:30 to 1:30pm. To ensure that your kids can always find out what tasks they should be working on at a given time, post the schedule somewhere that is easy for them to access, such as on the kitchen table or on the refrigerator. You might even want to take a few minutes each day to review the schedule with your kids and make sure that they know what tasks they will be working on and when they will be working on those tasks.
What is a summary of what this article is about?
Keep your family’s regular routine in mind. Determine when school will begin and end. Schedule tasks in 15 minute blocks. Include meal and break times on the schedule. Put the schedule somewhere visible.