Amida’s homeschool day in the life (with a 2-, 6-, 11-, and 14-year-old)

Contributor Amida writes for Journey into Unschooling

Homeschoolers as a whole, I think, are quite fascinated about other homeschoolers, specifically their schedules. I know I am. “What are you doing for school?” is one of the most frequently asked questions among my friends.

The answer, of course, depends on many factors — time of the year, grade level, and energy level. For the most part, we work around a cycle of accumulating school work and not really doing school.

Our schedule is very loose and mostly made up as we go. The only constants are the extracurricular or otherwise outside classes, so almost everything else gets scheduled around them. As such, our days will differ depending on the day of the week.

Usually, my kids work best without distraction, so when there is an afternoon class, we try to squeeze in some schoolwork before then, when their minds are focused and alert.

For the most part, we have three typical schedules, depending on the time of the outside classes. On a busy day, we do something like this:

• Breakfast
• School work
• Class
• Lunch
• School work
• Class
• Dinner

At least once a week, we only have an evening class to account for, so the day may go something like this:

• Breakfast
• Schoolwork
• Lunch
• Schoolwork
• Class
• Dinner

Then there are those days in which classes rule our lives and I play chauffeur:

• Breakfast
• Class
• Lunch
• Class
• Dinner

Yes, everything ends after dinner. There are exceptions of course, but I typically don’t require any work at night and don’t like assigning “homework” to my homeschoolers.

These schedules help me out greatly those times when my priority is getting work done and providing concrete samples for their school portfolios.

Once those are done for the cycle, I fall back to “easy mode”, letting creative energy flow by allowing lots of free play. These days look something like this:

• Playtime
• Breakfast
• Playtime
• Schoolwork
• Playtime
• Lunch
• Playtime
• Class
• Playtime
• Dinner
• Playtime

Lots of playtime = Happy kids. Happy kids =  Happy mom.

I have learned early on that if we were to follow rigid schedules day in and day out, we would quickly crash and burn, so I pretty much let the day dictate itself. Sick days, doctor’s appointments, field trips, play dates, and chore days means no school work gets done (Hey, somebody has to sort that mountain of laundry!).

Working in cycles allows for lots of breathing room and needed breaks. I am not constantly worried that they aren’t doing enough because I know we will have hardcore school days, when we get lots of assignments done, which will balance out the days we sit around and do a whole lot of nothing.

A look back at Amida’s homeschool days:

• 2012 – (with a 1, 5, 10, and 13-year-old)
• 2011 – (with a newborn, 4-, 9-, & 12-year-old)

Do you have varied schedules for busy school days and lighter school days?