I kind of can’t believe we’ve essentially been homeschooling for a year now. While we’d considered doing a homeschool curriculum previously, our kids really enjoy classroom instruction with friends. I didn’t want to push them into doing something they didn’t … Read More
Hiking is one of our favorite ways to explore any National Park. And the great thing about a lot of Saguaro National Park hikes is that you get major bang for your buck even when just going a short distance! … Read More
A couple weeks ago, I shared some of our year round family traditions ideas. Friday pizza and movie night is one of our most beloved and longest standing! And this potato pizza recipe is everyone’s favorite. I was first introduced … Read More
We love learning about holidays around the world, as well as the customs and history behind them. This guide on how to celebrate Lunar New Year festival with kids has books, videos, crafts, recipes, science activities, and more to help … Read More
When I shared on Instagram that we started online language classes for kids this year, I got tons of questions on how we found our foreign language teacher. Here are all the details of where we found her, how often … Read More
Conversation starters about race can be tricky, especially when talking to kids. As a mom of 5, I know that I want to proactively bring it up, but I also sometimes fumble for words. But usually, if I can ask … Read More
Growing up, the only kids books about love that I saw included white, heterosexual protagonists. I never once read a book with a family of color or biracial couple, like my husband and I are now. I also grew up … Read More
We love traveling with our kids, of course. We love the experiences and the connection and the learning. And while we like to be present and in the moment, we also like to document our experiences through photos! We’re certainly … Read More
One thing we as parents have discussed a number of times is how to manage screen time at home. It’s tricky mostly because it’s constantly evolving! With different ages, school needs, and family time, it definitely feels like an evolution … Read More
I can’t believe it, but we’re coming up on our 5 year anniversary of living in the California Bay Area. We’ve loved exploring literally hundreds of hikes, museums, restaurants, festivals, and more. It’s so fun finding hidden gems, but it’s … Read More
Have you visited another planet before? We haven’t but these Petrified Forest National Park hikes sure made it feel like it! The park itself is not hugely popular, which is wonderful for feeling like you have it all to yourself. … Read More
Join us as we learn with these Black History Month activities for the February Global Children’s Book Club! These Black History Month ideas for schools and families will direct you to Black creators and resources and provide opportunities to discuss … Read More
I kind of can’t believe we’ve essentially been homeschooling for a year now. While we’d considered doing a homeschool curriculum previously, our kids really enjoy classroom instruction with friends. I didn’t want to push them into doing something they didn’t want to do. But when our schools went to distance learning last year, we figured it was a good time to try a homeschool schedule.
In general, we like to get everything done by noon each day so that we can have the afternoon for quiet reading, outside play, chores, and other activities. That obviously wouldn’t work for every family, but it’s been a good schedule for us.
Also, since my kids are still fairly young, I don’t feel that we need to be overly intense. Our homeschool schedule for kindergarten generally follows the same rhythm as for my 2nd and 4th graders, but is obviously less rigorous.
Here’s how we usually organize our homeschool day!
There are a couple of essentials each day for us: math, language arts, and music. We usually get around to the other things, but I’m not as set on following the specific curriculum and if we miss even one day every week, I’m not too stressed about it. If we’re missing those, it means we’re doing something else educational and fun (field trip, hike, learning about a special holiday, etc.), so I’m fine with us not following the exact curriculum.
Math and English Language Arts (ELA), however, I feel we need to be more consistent. My kids also practice their instruments daily. We build that into our homeschool morning routine so we don’t need to worry about it later.
Other than those, we try to incorporate social studies into our schedule 2-3 times per week, science a couple times a week, technology 2-3 times per week (here’s what we do for tech time), and we just finished up a specials unit on entrepreneurship, which was really fun.
I think it’s fun to change up our elective every few months. We recently completed an Entrepreneurship unit in which we talked about different aspects of running a small business, and then our kids started their own little small business. Fun and educational. I think I’d like to do a cooking elective next!
There are some electives that I want to incorporate more regularly, though – especially art and music. My kids each play an instrument, and we often pull music into our social studies curriculum. And though I’m abysmal at plastic arts, I do love art history.
My kids always take Friday off of instrument practice, so we use that time for an art history lesson or an art project. (They’ve been LOVING this online kids watercolor class lately, and are always thrilled to pull out their beautiful watercolor palettes.) They also have crafting time each afternoon.
We’re using Singapore Math for our kindergarten math homeschool curriculum, but we don’t do the workbooks every day. I feel it’s important for kindergarten math to be much more hands on and fun, so we like to change things up a bit more.
Generally, we do 2-3 days of some of the workbook pages. Sometimes they require a bit of explanation, but for the most part, the kindergarten workbook has been easy for our kinder kiddo and he just moved up to the 1st grade workbook. Since Singapore Math is fairly rigorous, I wanted to make sure he had a solid grasp of the kinder concepts before moving on.
On the days he doesn’t do his workbook, he does a variety of other activities: working with manipulatives, doing this train sequencing puzzle, or just playing logic and strategy games. I find those types of games are great for spatial understanding and cognitive development – super important foundations for further math education. This 3D strategy puzzle is one of my very favorites.
Since my kinder kiddo is already reading fairly fluently, we’re not reviewing much on the mechanics of reading. Instead, we sit and he reads a book to me, and I help him with any difficult words. He just finished this one, and read this one before that. And he’s read this series a number of times but we always love going back to it!
For writing practice, he keeps a daily journal and writes 2-3 sentences in it. Simple, but good practice.
One of the trickiest things with homeschooling is giving our preschooler the attention he needs. To be perfectly honest, he’s started using more attention-seeking behaviors like yelling and such since we started homeschooling, But he does so much better when we take the time to fill his bucket a bit!
Mostly, we read books and do a bit with letters and numbers. We have a couple of basic workbooks (this is a great basic and inexpensive one) and do some Starfall. He loves doing letters with these dot markers. We also sing songs (like 5 little ducks), do some cooking, and play games and puzzles. (This is our current favorite.)
We generally try to do these things while our other kids are working independently. We don’t spend more than 15 minutes or so on straight academic time and try to focus on books, play, games, etc.
One tricky thing with having a lot of kids is managing everyone’s assignments at the same time! Especially with a toddler and a baby at home, it definitely gets complex. Fortunately, Dan has been working from home this whole time, so he’s been able to help out, as well, but it can still get challenging.
In general, Dan manages the math assignments, while I manage ELA. We trade off for the other subjects. It’s also been really nice to find an online world language teacher for the kids to do a foreign language class 2x/week in the evenings.
It’s really important to me that my kids are moving their bodies each day. We all do better with a bit of physical movement first thing so they exercise in the morning. This is always something fun – playing outside, jumping on the trampoline (here are some great recommendations for the best trampoline!), playing basketball out front, etc.
They also have a half hour mid-morning to eat a snack and play outside. It’s a nice break for everyone. Finally, they always play outside a bit in the afternoon. Some days, it’s more trampoline or swing time, and other days we do a walk or bike ride. And other days, we totally change things up and go on a hike in the morning, and do a bit of schooling later on. It’s nice to switch things up each day!
When we’re on the road in the RV, our schedule obviously changes a bit and our RV homeschool schedule is affected by the places we are. Sometimes, we may take off a whole day for a long hike. Other days, we may do school in the afternoon during naptime.
In general, we try to still have the kids practice their instruments first thing so they don’t need to do it later when they’re tired or we need quiet for napping kiddos. Then, if we do a hike or activity in the morning and are driving in the afternoon, they’ll do their math and ELA while we’re moving.
Beyond that, we don’t usually don’t do a ton with the other subjects while we’re on the road. The kids always do Junior Ranger booklets at any National Park sites we visit (and state parks when they have them), and also keep travel journals. I figure there’s lots of experience learning happening!
Here’s a general idea of how our daily homeschool schedule works.
Before 8am:Â Â Â Â Get dressed, make beds, breakfast, scriptures
8-8:30am:Â Â Â Â Â Exercise
8:30-9am:Â Â Â Â Â School Zoom attendance calls (these are the only calls they need to do each day)
9-9:30am:Â Â Â Â Â Practice instruments (Art on Fridays)
9:30-10am:Â Â Â Â Math
10-10:30am:Â Â Â English Language Arts (Writing for the older kids, reading practice + writing for the kindergartener)
10:30-11am:Â Â Â Snack + recess
11-11:30am:Â Â Â Social studies/global learning (MWF) or Science (T/Th)
11:30am-12pm: Technology (MWF) or Elective (like Entrepreneurship, T/Th)
12-12:30pm:Â Â Â Lunch
12:30-1pm:Â Â Â Â Games
1pm-2pm:Â Â Â Â Â Quiet reading
2-2:30pm:Â Â Â Â Â Creative time
2:30-3pm:Â Â Â Â Â Chores
3pm-5pm:Â Â Â Â Â Free time + outside time
Do you homeschool, and does your schedule look anything like this? If you’re not homeschooling, are there aspects of this schedule that you still incorporate into your family life? I hope this was helpful to share!
