Written by contributor Amida of Journey Into Unschooling

A lot of people assume that, just because we are homeschoolers, we spend the majority of our days at home. But between field trips and lessons for three kids, there are days where we are anywhere but home.

So when my son suggested we have a Stay At Home Day, I was all for it.

It happened to be rainy that day and we didn’t have anywhere to be until 6pm. We ate a leisurely breakfast before spreading out some plastic on the table in preparation for art time. I had recently learned a new technique called Visual Teaching Strategies, and wanted to test it out on the kids.

It involved showing them a picture, in our case, a Ranger Rick photo, and asking them three questions:

• What do you see?
• What more do you see?
• Why do you say that?

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Written by contributor Lora Lynn Fanning of Vitafamiliae, currently on her way to Uganda to meet her 6th child!

I worked hard to come up with a workable daily routine for our busy family.  I’m proud of what I do and the fact that it works for us.  But the truth is, school days with children in the younger years are all about flexibility.

Take this morning, for example…

Chores

Written by Renee Tougas of FIMBY.

I have so enjoyed this Day in the Life series here at Simple Homeschool. For my contribution I am sharing notes I took during an actual day earlier this month.

On this particular Friday we were just returning to our regular schedule after a long Christmas holiday.

It goes without saying the day didn’t go quite according to plan.

Each day is different in our home but we do have a weekly routine, that changes with the seasons of life and time of year. Currently:

• Mornings are for homemaking chores, which everyone does, and a small amount of structured learning. One day a week we do shopping and errands. Starting in February two mornings per month we will have homeschool co-op.
• Afternoons are for independent projects and play. I write, manage our home and help the kids with their learning. This is also the time for playdates and outings.
• We read throughout the day individually and all together most often in the morning and before bed.

Here’s what our schedule looks like “in real life.”

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Written by Simple Homeschool contributor Heidi Scovel of Mt. Hope Chronicles.

The beautiful days of quiet rhythms. The hush of early morning productivity. The year in, year out steady march of progress. Do you wistfully wonder how to transform your home into this wonder-land of peace and earnest learning?

You won’t learn how from me.

We have spent the past year in survival mode. Pregnancy (which I’m afraid I didn’t handle gracefully), a newborn, illnesses, and a husband whose work routine changed drastically challenged my notions of what a homeschool day ‘should’ look like. Add in three young, extroverted, physical boys, and quiet anything was all but impossible.

I have embraced the concept of life seasons. It is counterproductive for me to dream of days that belong in a season other than the one I’m in.

After a period of letting go of expectations and riding the waves of life, we are using the freshness of a new year to move into a season of more focused academics.

We spend Monday mornings at our Classical Conversations group, and the rest of our week we spend learning at home. As our rhythm has yet to find a steady beat, I’ll share a specific day rather than a general routine.

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Written by Amida of Journey into Unschooling

Perhaps one of the most interesting topics for homeschoolers is that of scheduling, specifically the day to day, hour by hour activities of individual families. If you’re like me, you’ve been following our series, tuning in each week to get yet another peek at how someone else does it.

When it comes to writing out our own schedule, however, it’s not met with the same enthusiasm. Feelings of inferiority and not doing “enough” start to creep in.

What will people think? And of course, with each day being completely different, which to write about? I’ve considered sharing one of our more academically productive days, in which lessons are cranked out at an impressive rate, but that, while authentic, would be deceiving. It certainly doesn’t reflect our day to day life.
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