Thread: Weekly Poll: What does your daily schedule look like?

I'm a morning person. No doubt about it. I don't even drink coffee in the morning -- don't need it. I'm awake at 6'ish every day and ready to go. So early in our homeschool adventure, I scheduled everything around this fact about myself. I woke the boys up by 7, and got them started ed-ju-macating by no later than 8. This worked terrific!!

For about a day.

Then, reality kicked in, and I realized that my morning-chipper-ness didn't necessarily rub off on the old genetic code. Pretty soon, I figured out that while my youngest offspring was pretty geared-in by 9am or so, my oldest didn't even become fully human until after lunch. So for my younger son, the bulk of our homeschooling happened in the morning, and with my older one, we dug in later in the day. This wasn't necessarily the easiest route for me (I REALLY wanted everything to be done and behind us by early afternoon), but it was the necessary one.

Live and learn.

What about you, what kind of daily rhythm are you finding works best for your family?

This is our first year, so I still feel like we're getting our feet wet. It would be nice to do all the school work in one fell swoop in the morning and have afternoons free. But my kids really only work in short spurts and then want a break. They don't seem to have any preference of mornings or afternoon. Actually they would pick "none of the above" and just play all day rather than do seat work if I let them. So we try to take care of the seat work first thing (it could begin anywhere from 9:30 to 11:00, depending on what I need to do in the morning). I take turns with them at the dining room table doing short writing and math lessons while the other one reads in the living room. Then I read to them, usually something related to history, science, or geography. They we break until lunch. I usually read to them while they are finishing up their lunches. Just recently, I've been trying to send them to their rooms for an hour of "quiet time" for an hour after lunch. Most of their outside-the-house activities are in the afternoon, so any other school work (usually more reading or art projects) is worked around them.

Neither my son or myself are morning people. We like to stay up late, sleep in a bit, and then tackle homeschooling after a few hours. We usually start around 1pm, and finish around 4-4:30pm. I found if my son works in the morning he'll make more errors, and just really doesn't have his heart in it yet.

We are all 3 of us night people... (that includes the one still in PS)... We have to get motivated to get the one to PS..and DD doesnt get the majority of her work done until late late evening. She does a lot of daytime hours working on her novels though... We are as laid back as it is possible to be with a special child in the house. His home work from public school should only take him about 45 minutes... but reality is it takes almost 4 hours...

I voted it depends on outside activities, but really, we don't have that many. Our homeschool group generally only meets up once every 2 weeks so otherwise we have a normal schedule. DD2 goes down for a nap around 9:30-10am and we start school then. If DD1 is actually focusing, we're done by noon. Other days, like today, we're still working at 4pm... But we do start in the mornings everyday unless we're at the homeschool group.

Ds and I are morning people, but my daughter is not. I answered that every day is different; it depends on outside activities, my work schedule, hubby's work schedule. Generally, our agreement is that what is assigned that day gets done that day, whenever the kids decide to tackle it.

The boys and I all seem to be morning people. They are up by 7 (probably earlier but they aren't allowed downstairs until 7), I usually read for a bit in bed before getting up by 8. School starts at 9 and we try to be done by lunch. DS7 has a tough time the later it gets in the day and seems to do better if we move from one thing to the next rather than having to go later into the afternoon.

We do all of our traditional book type homeschooling in the morning. Most days we have outside activities so if it's not done by the time we need to leave around 9:30 or 10:00, then it doesn't happen that day. End of story. But, of course, ballet class, co-ops, DI team, Shakespeare rehearsal, etc. is all homeschooling too. Just not sit down and do math homeschooling. And there are read-alouds in the evening and sometimes games in the afternoons.

We do our table work (math, L/A) first thing in the morning; it's best if we start by 8 am when DH leaves for work. After that comes history and science and we're usually done by lunch. Sometimes history consists of a book read at bedtime and science projects might happen in the afternoon, but if math and grammar don't get done right away, they just never will. DS would spend all day reading and being read to if he could get away with it, but I've learned that reading has to wait until the core subjects are done or it will take over our day. Not the worst problem, mind you!

I try to start school in the morning, some days we can work straight through everything until lunch, other days we break things up. Some days if we are going out somewhere I may do some work in the evening. Mostly now though if I can't at least start the school work in the morning then I just write the whole day off. The focus is just not there for either of us if we start later in the day.