Homeschool Moms Are Amazing!

My favorite part about Math Inspirations has been the amazing homeschooling parents that I have had the privilege of working with and learning from.  Because the school year has recently begun for most, we held a Jam Session where several families discussed their unique, personalized schedules for the upcoming year and they were all so great that I wanted to share them with you.  I’ll also share some tips and tricks to hopefully help you make your plan the best it can be.

Spell It Out

The first schedule that I want to share with you is for those who need structure in their day. One thing I love about this is that she has schedule time with mom as well as independent study time.  The expectations for each day are very clear. She also has a simplified checklist of expectations for each child each day.

One thing you want to make sure when creating a schedule with this much detail is that your kids have as much input into the schedule as possible. That way trying to keep to the schedule will be less of a fight and they feel ownership over their learning.  One other recommendation is to not take the schedule too seriously at times.  There may be times when a learning opportunity presents itself outside of the schedule and you need to be willing to take it.

Weekly Topic Plan

The next plan is definitely the most flexible option (and it just happens to be my own family homeschool plan).  We decided to split our homeschooling into 5 different categories. 1) Study is our morning devotional and scripture reading. 2) Inquire is where we get to learn about any interesting thing they want to learn about. Right now they are interested in animals at our local zoo and we have plans to learn about other animals and flowers maybe some weather and plants. 3) Read is where my 6 year old will read through her chapter books and my 4 year old works on letters, sight words and I read to her. 4) Think is our math and puzzles category. I don’t think we’ll ever call it math in our house. 5) Try is our new skills category. They will learn how to dance, draw, write, cook, clean, garden, and lots more.  We meet each week with each child and allow them to pick different things that they would like to do in each category (with some parent suggestions of course).

Each Monday we print the following chart and the girls choose 5 things that they would like to do for each category.  Then, each day they pick one thing from each category to do that day.  This allows them to be in control each day and they also feel excited about what they are going to do and learn.

Planned Events

This next schedule provides a nice balance between scheduled and flexible by listing out each activity to be done that day as well as how much time each activity will probably take.  I like this plan because it allows for flexibility in order of each activity, but the expectations are still clear for what is to be done each day and how much time will be spent.  This plan is also very pretty!

Time Blocks

Another way to balance being scheduled but also being flexible to to create time blocks. The following schedules do a good job showing how you can create good blocks of time in order to know when certain aspects of your day will take place.  This can include school, chores, family time, meals, etc.  What you do within each time block allows for flexibility and allows you to cater your plan to do what is best for your kiddos.  I also suggest having your kids give as much input into what they do during those times as you can.

Time Block Schedule 1:

Time Block Schedule 2:

 Do you have other ideas or plans? Let me know and I’ll add them to this post for other families to learn from. You can email them to me at: emily@mathinspirations.com