In 2001, I began my homeschooling journey. My oldest daughter was just starting kindergarten and my son was two. Since then God has blessed us with two more children and we’ve moved three times, but we’ve continued plugging along.

My heart goes out to those who suddenly find themselves with a whole family at home … all the time. This isn’t the regular reality of homeschooling. My regular homeschooling lifestyle has involved plenty of field trips and social time with others. Normally, you’d have time to plan out your school year and you’d be in charge (not your school district). This is harder. If you can do THIS, you can homeschool. (Hint. Hint.)

Here are a few tips to help you in your homeschooling journey, whether this is your first week, your first year or your tenth.

1-Make a loose schedule for the order of your day.
Plan out what to do first, second, third, etc … Intermingle your schedule with some breaks and switching up activities. If there’s plenty of screen time, then mix in some exercise. If there’s plenty of book work, add in some screen time. You don’t need to watch the clock, rather watch the order of things.

For example: First, we get up and get ready for the day. Then, we eat breakfast. Next, we sing a song together led by someone on YouTube, read a chapter of the Bible, work on memorizing scripture and pray for our day. Then, Mom does math with big sister, while little brother reads by himself. When Mom is done with math, then sister reads and book while little brother works on math with Mom. etc…

Write out this schedule on a piece of paper and each day have your child put a check next to it. If you have a laminator, laminate it so you can reuse it week after week. If you don’t, you could tape it on the back side of a glass door/window and cross it off with a dry erase marker. Or, you could write the whole list on a dry erase board glass surface and check it off as it goes.

2-Schedule the most important things first.
When you’re making your schedule, put what is most important first. We are committed to giving God His time first. Then, math and language arts. If that’s all you accomplish in a day, then … so be it. First things first.

3-Have some time together and some time apart.
We go back and forth between time together and time apart. We have Bible time together. We read aloud together. We eat lunch and play a board game together. We walk the dog together.But we also spend time apart. What that looks like has varied based on the ages of the kids – sometimes an older sibling takes some time with a younger one, sometimes the kids are alone in their rooms, sometimes there is one-on-one time with Mom, sometimes Mom needs some time to herself.

4-Use a timer.
I love timers. Timers help hard tasks to feel lighter, and easy tasks to done more diligently.  “We will work on math for 30 minutes right now,” is easier to stomach than we will finish this whole lesson no matter how long it takes. “You need to clean up your bedroom for ten minutes,” is easier to manage than, “Don’t come out of your room until it’s spotless.” “You will stay in your room quietly for fifteen minutes,” can gradually be worked up to thirty minutes to sixty minutes. (This is how I taught my three year old to keep napping until he was six.)

5-Make the most of this time.
The days go by slowly, but the years go by quickly. Somehow my “Sunshine Girl” and my “Little Man” grew up and met those spouses we’d prayed for since they were little and got married.

Don’t lose sight of the great blessing it is to be home and to be together today.

Read a book or two or three. Play a board game. Learn a song. Memorize scripture.

Take pictures. Make a video. Clean something. Start a blog.

Discover a new hobby or learn a new skill. Better still, learn a new hobby or skill with your kids!

Have you considered keeping a family journal for this time? Write down (or have one of your children write it down) what you did each day. Make note of your prayer requests and praises. Write down what you read in the Bible and how God spoke to you through it.

Did you know you could read the whole New Testament in the next sixty days by reading one chapter in the morning, one at lunch, one at dinner and one at bedtime? Check out this 60-day reading plan on YouVersion.

I’d love to answer any questions you have.

How can I pray for you?

How are you using this time at home?

TWIG