What is your family’s typical daily schedule?
The easiest way to start crafting your homeschool schedule is to outline your current family schedule. You know your family’s schedule better than anyone, so ask yourself these simple questions:
- What is a realistic time to start your homeschool lessons without having to rush or make anyone anxious?
- When do you and the kids usually get hungry for a snack or lunch? This is the ideal time to take a quick break.
- What the time of the day do you and the kids need to be finished? When everyone gets a little burnt out, the kids need time to run around outside, and learning time is done…
Your homeschool schedule is going to vary from other families’ schedules, as each one is dependent on their life situation, how many children they’re homeschooling, and what age their children are! Starting with an outline of your family situation will help you create a natural flow for your homeschooling schedule.
Answering these questions will also help provide a framework for how many subjects and lessons you can fit into the day. The next step is planning for breaks that are necessary for every homeschool parent and child.
Optimizing teaching time
Another common question is how to optimize teaching time when homeschooling multiple kids. If you are homeschooling multiple kids, try alternating independent work with teaching time! Integrating this into your schedule can help optimize teaching time and balance multiple kids who may be in different grade levels.
For example, have your older child work independently while you teach a lesson to your younger child. Then, while your younger child does work or practices independently, you can teach a lesson to your older child.
You can also use group lessons as a way to teach multiple children at a time, by adjusting the grade level and practice for each child.
How many hours do you homeschool a day?
This is another big question when you’re creating your homeschool schedule, and depends on a couple of factors:
- The laws in your area, which we discussed in Step 1. There may be state or local laws that determine how many hours you must homeschool a day, so make sure you check those first!
- Your kids’ attention span! Pay attention to this so you can balance academics with other activities.
Sometimes kids love homeschool learning, and would rather spend more time doing lessons and academic activity. For other kids, their homeschool day is something they like to speed through so they can work on other projects. These independent activities should be encouraged – they usually involve learning skills like creating or building things, solving problems, or using strategies to play games.
A learning balance is important so kids feel successful rather than overwhelmed by their academics.
How many subjects do I teach?
Another common question most homeschoolers have is how many subjects to teach at a time. It’s important to consider both:
- State or local laws (may require a certain amount of subjects taught, or which specific subjects you include).
- You and your family’s daily schedule, which will determine how much time you homeschool a day, and therefore how many subjects you can realistically include.
How many subjects you include per school year or even per day will vary from family to family. It’s very common to start with reading, writing, and math, and then rotate through other subjects. Since there’s not enough time to do all subjects every week, you can do a month of science, then a month of social studies, or maybe a music unit followed by an art unit.
Rotating through different areas that are important to you and your child’s education helps bring balance into your homeschooling schedule.
Veteran tip: Adjust your schedule!
Whatever schedule you create for your homeschooled kids, try it out for a week or so and see if it works. Keep track of what works and what doesn’t and make adjustments at the end of the week.
Oftentimes, it takes close to a month of making small changes and adjustments to find the schedule that works for you! Give yourself some flexibility as you make changes, and remember that as life changes, homeschool schedules will, too!
Learn how to choose a homeschool curriculum in step 4: How to Homeschool: Homeschool Organization
Learn about all five steps to get started homeschooling in the How to Homeschool video series.
Amy Michaels is a former teacher turned homeschooler. She creates fun learning activities based on popular children’s books. Connect with her at BookBrilliantKids.com.