10 Days of Homeschooling Enrichment: Day 10

Welcome to Day 10, our last day of Homeschooling Enrichment! Now that we’ve gotten all the heavy stuff out of the way, I wanted to spend our last day of the series talking about how to create a working schedule, and give some structure to your day! My hope is to give you some tangible things you can do to help facilitate a smoother less frustrating schooling day!

Before we start in on the meat of our daily schedule planning, I want to take a short moment to talk about our time as moms. Our children are typically in our homes for approximately 18 years. After that they leave our nest and venture off into their own lives. For most of us that leaves a good 20+ years of no kids in our homes. When I think about it this way, suddenly my time with my children becomes much more precious to me.

Let’s think back to day 2 where we talked about homeschooling as a ministry. Now take a minute to pray for an open heart. Next, I want you to sit down and make a list of all of your commitments and hobbies that you have as a homeschooling mom. List things like homeschooling, serving at church, leading a bible study, volunteering at girl/boy scouts, scrapbooking, and the like. List any commitments you have made that take your time away from your family.

Next, note if the commitment is outside or inside the home, and then a brief explanation stating if this commitment benefits, or takes away from your family. Finally, give the commitment a priority (1 for less priority, 5 for highest priority). Hopefully all of you have homeschooling as a number 5!

Click here to download the Commitment Worksheet

When your list is complete, sit down with your spouse (if possible), and go over your commitments. See if there are any items on there that can be removed. Pray over the list together, and let God lead you. He’ will make it clear where you are to be spending your time. One thing I constantly struggle with is balance. I am a “yes” person, and I tend to volunteer for everything! But I’m going to share some wisdom imparted to me from a mentor of mine:

“There are a million worthy causes, but you can’t do them all!”

God has laid plans for you, we need to be in constant prayer, making sure that we’ve been really seeking His direction in our commitments. We have to be open to the fact that even though it may be something we WANT to do, God may not have that thing for us at this time. And by us saying “no” to something, He can open up the door for someone else to say “yes”.

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” Proverbs 19:21

Please don’t misunderstand, I still do things with friends and serve at our church. But after learning my lesson the hard way, and I did learn it the HARD way…God made it very clear to me that my first ministry was at home. I am now much more careful to what I say “yes” to. If it’s something that will take me away from our home then my husband and I discuss it, and decide if it is worth it to our family before I agree.

Now that our time demands are hopefully a bit more manageable, let’s talk about our daily schedule.

My kids thrive on schedule and structure, and if you can’t tell by now, I do as well. This type of personality is a blessing, but also has it’s pitfalls as well. The main thing I want to share with everyone, is to be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit in your day. We can trust God to lead us in everything and that includes our homeschooling day as well.

• Will I get my laundry done?
• Will my house get cleaned?
• Are we going to get through school today?
• Ack, it’s 4pm what are we having for dinner?

Have you asked yourself any of the above questions before? I’ve found that having a schedule, even if I don’t stick to it, provides me and my children with a much needed sense of structure. Having our days planned out for us helps to alleviate some of the anxiety surrounding a homeschooling home. I’ve asked myself all of the questions listed above and only through planning can they be answered. Is it critical to get the laundry done? Maybe, maybe not, but at least if you have a plan you know that the never ending loads will actually get done at some point.

A side note on laundry, if you missed day 4 on my Chore Chart, please go back, you will find solace there!

Another thing that always stresses me out is meal time. I actually like to cook, but I’m just not that creative in this area, so having some sort of plan that guides me is a huge blessing. I’ve been sharing my Monthly Meal Plans with you over the last few months. I don’t always follow them exactly, and that’s totally cool because I have a plan if I deviate its on purpose. (Although my kids like the meal plan too and often complain when I don’t follow it!)

Click here to see my Monthly Meal Plans

I also shop off my menu. On the weekend I go to the grocery store and get only what’s on our schedule for meals for the week. This has helped reduce my grocery bill as well as ensure I have needed items to make the meals. No more standing in front of the refrigerator at 5pm wishing I had a little genie to pop out and make us dinner!

That’s great you say, but what about everything else, vacuuming, laundry, toilets, mopping…you know, all the daily chores that need to get done? Most of those get done during chore time, the kids and I all do something from our Chore Chart after school is done each day.

Click here to see what a typical day is like at our house

Today’s Challenge:
Get a general schedule outlined for your homeschooling days, one that’s realistic for your family to follow! And if you have time left over, set up a Meal Plan!

Click here to download my schedule printable:

• Our Family Schedule Word Doc
• Our Family Schedule PDF

You can be as rigid or flexible as you need to be here, but at least you’ll have a general plan to shoot for. Part of that means no phone calls (except from your husband), and definitely NO email checking during school hours.

The other part includes learning to be flexible. If there’s an amazing display on Egypt at your local museum, take the day off and go! Chores and meals and everything else will get done later. One major advantage to homeschooling, is that we have the flexibility to venture away from our “plan” and actually enjoy life with our children. And hey, we can always make up school on Saturday ;o) The kids will love that!

If you’d like to download a printable PDF of the 10 Days of Homeschooling Enrichment click the button below!

Thank you for sticking around for 10 days of Homeschooling Enrichment! I hope that you’ve found it encouraging and helpful to your homeschool environment and the enrichment of your child’s heart!

If you missed any of this series, click here to read the entire 10 days online.