We were just a few weeks into our 2020 spring/summer homeschool rhythm and my plans to continue on with morning basket fizzled out pretty quickly. My older three are sleeping in later than they normally do, then head outside when they wake up. Being the Charlotte Mason homeschool mom that I am…..how could I stop them from spending most of their waking hours out of doors? 😉
I’m enjoying the change. I’m liking a later start time and the low key mornings. I also know that we don’t have a solid history, geography, or natural science curriculum scheduled for the next few months so there’s really no need for us to start the day earlier in order to fit it all in.Â
Long story short, we were all ready for a little break, and I think it will make coming back to our beloved AGF rhythm in August all the sweeter.Â
The best way for me to create a homeschool rhythm that sticks is to take a look at what my family is already doing and then work around that. This means that things will naturally change every so often. The days of having a newborn, toddler, preschooler AND kindergartner all at once looked vastly different than they do today. No way in the world would I have even considered doing morning basket before breakfast after staying up with a baby all night. Instead, we gathered in the afternoons. You better believe I took advantage of “nap school” during those few short years. We had little bursts of lesson time where I would announce “The baby is sleeping, hurry up, let’s do a little school!” And I saved the long read aloud for bedtime.Â
In other words, do what works for you. If your carefully planned rhythm fizzled out like mine did with morning basket, then take a look at what you’re already doing naturally, then build a school routine around that.Â
Here is our spring/summer school rhythm that we landed on naturally:
6:00 am: 2 yr old wakes up. Hello, early riser! He plays, gets a morning snack while I sip on some tea/read my daily devotion. I also take this time to start morning chores like empty the dishwasher and start a load of laundry with my little helper. If there’s time, I try to get a little writing done while it’s semi quiet.Â
7:30-8:00 am: sometime around here the big kids start waking up. They don’t skip a beat and head straight outside (or to the kitchen for food). Texas summers are pretty hot, so we have to take advantage of the beautiful mornings while we can which is another reason for us to push lesson time back to later in the day.
8:00 am:Breakfast/Bible time/morning chores.
10:00 am: Book Basket/lesson with FIAR or AYOT with a light snack and more free play. We take it outside when we can! We also like to read from a set of illustrated encyclopedias. We read one section at a time and it’s so fun to learn about a completely random subject each day. This sparked an interest in airplanes for my oldest and we pushed pause on the encyclopedia so we could dig deeper with his newfound fascination. We spent a few weeks learning about airplanes and read a book about the Wright brothers which was super interesting!
12:00 pm:Â Lunch
1:00 pm:Â Table time. I do one on one time with each kid. The 2 year old usually stays near me at first, then plays with his siblings after awhile. Table time is math and language arts, it takes about and hour total.Â
2:00 pm:Â Break time for me! I shoot for 30 minutes to 1 hour of uninterrupted time to myself. Unless it’s an emergency, they must let me have some quiet time! Of course this doesn’t always happen with the two littlest ones, but it’s good practice for them to see that I also need a break and time for my own interests.Â
3:00 pm:Â Afternoon tea/family read aloud OR art craft/nature study with a light snack.
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4:00-5:30 pm: Dinner prep/kids play or watch a show/listen to audio book.
5:30-8:00 pm: Dinner/family time/bedtime routine
Bedtime books- I’ll read a few picture books of their choice or my husband chooses his read aloud. Right now he’s reading them The Hobbit.
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