Schedules Count in Homeschool

I am ashamed to say that Harmonie and I have been schooling by the seat of our pants this year. There has not been a set schedule to follow and no lesson plans set. We have just been getting up and getting whatever we can get done, done. We have been productive, but not nearly as productive as we could be.

It has been a busy year. I’m graduating finally with my MBA in Business Administration concentration on Entrepreneurship and that has taken up a great deal of time. I have been writing for all of you and others and that has taken a great deal of time also. Harmonie has joined her homeschool groups specialty co-op classes and that has taken up tons of time. So, we have been winging it.

We started this year off behind. A chunk of that was my fault because of my own schooling and the other chunk is the kid’s for not staying on task. We both take the blame and have been working hard to get back on track. We have been working two grades at once. It is not really that hard to do at all since we were in the second half of one grade and checking things off the list as we added the new grade’s information on top. I’m happy to say we are almost done with the previous grade’s work we’ve been working to finish and am on our way to being halfway done with the current grade. Teamwork I tell you.

With such a busy life, it is important to have a set schedule in place. Now, we have had a schedule for over a year now and it worked beautifully last year, however, this year, we just haven’t stuck with it, partly because I have not had a decent sleep routine in months. That is a subject for my other blog Adventures in Life, Love, and Parenting. A therapist we are working with suggested a schedule to us the other day and I told her we had one we weren’t sticking to but I had been thinking about going back to and it made me reflect on how well we did with it.

So, this week I went back to the schedule. It is amazing how much you can get done when you use a schedule and do what it takes to stick to it. We have gotten so much work done this week. We have completed assignments that should have been completed months ago. We are trucking along so quickly and easily. We see the light at the end of the tunnel swooping around rapidly for the previous school year. We couldn’t be happier.

The scheduling has gone so well that Harmonie has taken it upon herself to independently get some of her assignments completed without me. Now that is progress. My little girl is growing up. So, I guess the lesson for today is this: if you are a family that needs structure like mine does, get a schedule. Understand that having a schedule does not mean everything will be done on the exact second you have it scheduled for, but having a set schedule will help you move along in a more orderly fashion.

Harmonie may be scheduled to start Spanish at 9 am and Math at 9:30 am, but she does not always finish on time and that’s okay. She does not always start on time either. This is also okay. For us, as long as we start close to the time we want and/or finish a subject around the time we want, we can always catch up later with subjects that take less time than they are scheduled for. In the end, we finish everything, get some good learning in and get done with school at a decent hour. For the both of us, that is really all that matters.

Do you have a set schedule or are you schooling by the seat of your pants? Does having or not having a schedule work for you? Let’s chat about it!