Making A Home School Schedule:

How Scheduling Can Help Homeschooling

Making a home school schedule is something many homeschooling families find useful - it's getting the right amount of scheduling for you that's the problem!

Not only do you vary in the amount of schedule that would suit you, so does your child.

Some children suit routine. They like having a home school schedule.

William has always liked calendars and dates. He loves knowing exactly when things are happening in the week, what time people are arriving, where we are going.

On the other hand, as we've seen when we looked at homeschool scheduling, you may be like other homeschooling families who are quite happy to go with the flow and follow wherever your child's interests lead.

Making a homeschooling schedule which suits you and your children means thinking hard about what will work for you.

Homeschool Scheduling

How are you going to schedule your time?

We looked at some of the options when we came to look at making a homeschool planner.

Some of the extra things you might bear in mind in your homeschooling scheduling are:

• You don't need to make a carbon copy homeschooling schedule based on school timetables. You can accomplish more in 2-3 hours than any teacher with a class - after all, they're trying to teach up to 30 pupils at a time.
• That's the advantage of one-to-one; but it can also be part of the problem. Homeschooling can get a bit intense if it's just you and your child, so the more you can add plenty of breaks and independent activities into your homeschool scheduling the better.
• If you've just started homeschooling and your children are young - make your homeschool scheduling include lots of short activities. How about nipping up to the bath and having a go at one of our floating/sinking science experiments in Homeschool Unit Studies: Ocean Creatures for Kids? Something that gets you moving round the house and is fun for all is likely to be a winner.
• Similarly, whatever the age of your child, it's no good pushing on with a homeschooling schedule if your child is hungry, tired, or ill. It just won't work.

I suppose the biggest question when it comes to homeschooling scheduling is:

How will I fit everything in?

One answer is to make sure your homeschool scheduling fits round your life, rather than taking it over. Can you teach the children maths and life skills while they help with the cooking? Can you get the TV repair man to show the children inside the TV as he mends it? A trip to the library is fun and educational.

Tips for Successful Homeschooling Scheduling

• Turn the TV off. Don't answer the phone just when you've got started on something.
• I value the extra help computers bring to homeschooling, but I limit the children to one hour a day.
• Some families find rewards help make a home school schedule more attractive! They use stickers, stamps - even the odd bribe!

Whatever home school schedule you decide on, you'll almost certainly find it changes! That can be because something isn't working, but it can also be just that the children are getting older and you can do different things.

If you're making a homeschooling schedule to take account of exams, that imposes it's own scheduling requirements.

If you want to see how our home school schedule works, you can have a look at our homeschool daily schedule.

One rule which you can probably apply to any successful homeschooling schedule is flexibility. John Holt puts it well:

"Children are not railroad trains. They don't learn at an even rate. They learn in spurts...Not only that, but they often don't learn in what seems to us a logical sequence." (John Holt, How Children Learn.)

Whatever home school schedule you decide on, I'm sure you'll get there in the end!

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