Creating a Homeschool Rhythm
Creating a homeschool rhythm or routine, no matter your homeschool style or method, will make your home and your day run more smoothly. Every family’s rhythms at home will look differently. Some kids and families thrive off strict schedules and others prefer things to be looser. Whether you like a lot of structure or prefer to be more loosey goosey, you can find the rhythm that works best for your family.
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Now I’ll preface all this by saying that I’m not a super structured person and have never run my household or my homeschool according to a strict schedule. And since we tend to lean very interest led for our homeschool, an actual schedule doesn’t make a lot of sense for us.
Schedules aren’t all bad – if they work for you and your family, use them!
However, strictly following a schedule will confine you to learning only through the formal learning resources and curriculum you have slated during those times. It keeps you and your kids form chasing the bunny trails of learning, leaning into your kids’ interests, and letting your kids’ learning happen organically. And it can keep you locked in to curriculum or systems for the sake of the schedule, not necessarily because they’re the best fit for your family.
If you’re new to homeschooling, it can take some time to discover your new at home rhythms. Don’t go into day one and expect your kids to fall in line with every new routine or schedule, especially if you’re transitioning from school outside the home.
Tips for Creating a Homeschool Rhythm
Do not attempt to structure your day like a classroom
The classroom setting needs to be more structured and orderly, because you have 25+ kids in one room, and usually only one teacher in charge of all of them. Teachers have strict benchmarks for progress, things need to be documented, and kids need to be sitting quietly for much of the day.
This is not how things look in a home learning environment.
No matter which curriculum or style of homeschooling you choose, your child still has the freedom to eat snacks, go to the bathroom when they need to, do their math on the couch, or take a brain break on the trampoline. This is the beauty of learning at home!
This also means that you don’t need to homeschool from 9-3 everyday. In fact, if you’re doing formal lessons for that many hours, you’re expecting way too much of your kids. There’s so much more to learning than just formal lessons, and your kids are learning all the time, not just when they’re doing bookwork.
But your formal learning can happen anytime at all. It can happen in the evening, over lunch, or even in the car on the way to an appointment. Home education shouldn’t look like school!
Center your homeschool around established rhythms
You already have natural, established rhythms in your home. When you wake up, meal times, nap or rest times, chore times, etc. Don’t try to fight against those rhythms. Instead, work with them!
If you’re just beginning your homeschool journey, spend a little time thinking about the anchor points of your day, and how your day naturally flows already. Then see how you can build in new rhythms around those.
Build your homeschool around your life, not your curriculum
Remember that curriculum is just a tool – it’s not the entire toolbox.
The curriculum may work now, but what happens when it doesn’t work? What happens when you want to pause and follow the bunny trails of learning? What happens when your child is frustrated with a concept and needs to go at a slower pace?
Your curriculum is not the foundation of your homeschool – your life is. When you start there, you’ll be able to work the curriculum or other resources in to the rhythm of your life.
Pay attention to your kids’ rhythms
One of the best things about educating your own kids is that you know them. You know when they get cranky, when they’re hungry, and when they’re at the best.
So that means, you know best if doing math bright and early in the morning is going to be met with a fight or with excitement. You know if your kids need to get outside first thing and if your kids need an afternoon rest.
Schools create rhythms based on an arbitrary schedule. It doesn’t factor in your kids’ needs or natural rhythms. It doesn’t factor when they’re at their best. It doesn’t factor in how much sleep they need. Home education gives you the freedom to work with your kids’ natural rhythms.
Start with the big things
What are the big, most important things for your home learning day? These could be core subjects like math, Bible, language arts, etc. or activities like reading, family learning time, art, time outside, family devotions, creative play, etc.
Find a time to fit those into your day FIRST before you add in other things that are more “extra” things.
Make sure that your priorities and values are reflected within your homeschool rhythms. For example, if you want to prioritize interest-led learning, you’ll want to make sure you have chunks of time when your kids can actually pursue their interests. If you want to prioritize time outside, make sure that your daily rhythms leave room for that.
Individual or Family Learning
A big part of your rhythm will depend on if the majority of your learning will be done together as a family or individually.
In our home, we do a lot of family-style learning – especially in the elementary and middle school years, but even into high school! This makes creating rhythms easier, because many portions of our day (nearly all of it in the younger years) is done together. And our family learning time becomes the biggest anchor of our day, with the individual learning time (like individual math) happens before or after that.
Make the Rhythm Known
Your schedule doesn’t need to be set in stone (in fact, I don’t really encourage that ;) but it should be consistent enough that your kids become familiar with it.
With young kids, the predictability of a familiar rhythm can help behavior and help your kids to set expectations. A visual schedule can really help too!
With older kids, having a rhythm helps them to begin to take responsibility and be independent in their own learning. For example, my kids know that in the mornings, they’re supposed to work on their Morning Binders. Since this is an established rhythm, they know to do this, without being asked.
If you give your kids a list of their expected work during the day, they can set their own rhythms within their open times. You could, for example, give them two hours to complete the tasks on the list and then fill the rest of that time pursuing their own interests.
Make it your own
However you choose to structure your day, make sure that you’re creating a homeschool rhythm that fits your unique family needs. This means, your day might not look like anyone else’s. Don’t stress if your best friend or the mom at the co-op does things differently than you do. That’s good! Your homeschool and your family are unique.
