Practical Rhythms of a Super Simple Homeschool

Welcome to the Super Simple Homeschool Podcast where we help you find purpose in your homeschool, while keeping things super simple.

I’m your host, Jenny Hedrick, and today we are going to talk about rhythms. Rhythms and routines can help you simplify your homeschool, especially when you know their purpose and their limitations. This episode is going to be split into 2 parts: today is part 1, Practical Rhythms, and the next episode we will cover Spiritual Rhythms.

For the first few years of homeschooling, anytime I heard about a daily routine that a friend or someone on social media was doing, I immediately tried to implement it in my homeschool. People do cool stuff in their homeschool, ya know? I would instantly think, maybe that’s what we should do!

I found myself constantly changing our routine in search of the illusive best way to homeschool. In fact, I am still prone to this! Whenever I see something really neat that some other homeschool mom is doing, I think, “I should do that too!”

The problem is, not every routine is going to work for every homeschool. And changing routines all the time and you actually end up without a routine at all.

The words routine and rhythm are often used interchangeably. BUT to me, routine is a bit more rigid, and I have found that it helps me stay open and relaxed to think in terms of our family rhythm instead of routine.

So, how do you decide on a rhythm for your homeschool? Well, like with any decisions you make for your homeschool, knowing your greater purpose AND the purpose for the rhythm itself is a great place to start.

Morning Time

For example, the FIRST and most important PRIORITY of our homeschool is to know and love Jesus and understand how all of scripture points to the story of salvation. Since this is the MOST important, this is where we begin.

Many people talk about having a “morning basket” or “morning time.” People do morning time in all kinds of ways, but the basic concept is the same: start with what is most important. For us, it’s scripture. We do our Bible Study or Devotions, Catechism and sometimes we change it up by doing apologetics or worldview. We start our day with Truth.

The way I see it is some days, morning time is all we get to. If we are only going to get to one thing, this is what I want it to be.

Knowing the purpose of your homeschool helps you set your priorities so you can start with what you value the most.

Stations for One-on-One Support

Like most moms, I struggled for a long time figuring out how to give my kids the one-on- one support each needed, while keeping the other kids busy, without derailing our day. All 3 of my kids are dyslexic, so they have specific needs that need my undivided attention. Our solution is something we call stations.

We do stations for 45 min to an hour. Each kid gets 15-20 minutes of one-on-one time with me to work on reading or math. When they are not working with me, they have assigned stations for independent work. The older boys do piano and typing, while my daughter does an audiobook and an online reading support program. It took some training, but they all know that they are not allowed to interrupt the one-on-one learning of their siblings.

I recognize that this will be easier for some who have older kids and harder for those with younger children. But even if your kids are young, start early and train them to work or play independently. One way to do this with toddlers is to save certain play activities that only come out during this time. Also, keep stations short so little ones know what to expect. Use a visual timer if needed.

Rotating Subjects Make for Manageable Days

One question I see all the time from homeschool moms in Facebook groups is “do I have to do every subject, every day?”

Oi. This is one reason that I really don’t like using a box curriculum. They often include a recommended schedule for the program that lays our what do for 4 or 5 days in a week. When I started homeschooling, I felt like I needed to strictly adhere to these curriculum timelines so that I could be sure to cover everything and fit everything in. But the curriculum with it’s worksheets and activities soon became a list of things that I needed to get through in order to feel like we accomplished all of our schooling for that day. Remember that you are the boss of your homeschool, and the curriculum is just a tool for you to use however you see fit!

I learned pretty early on that we were never going to get through every single subject, every single day. Setting out to do so always ended in frustration and overwhelm. Instead, we usually loop through a set of subjects to be sure that we do cover everything, without having too much to do in one day. After morning time and stations, we typically only do one other subject. Sometimes, two if the content is short.

I’ve also seen families do seasonal subjects. For example, they may do history but no science in the fall, then science but no history in the spring. This kind of schedule allows for more deep dives into a specific topic. Remember, you are not trying to create a school environment at home. You are creating a life of learning and exploration for yourself and your children. This is why I consider our whole life when I think about homeschooling rhythms. Like our next rhythm, chore time.

Chores build self-esteem and ease the load

Another rhythm that helps simplify things for me, is chores. Time for chores is built into our day. I know some families like to call them contributions or blessing the home, etc… which I can appreciate, but let’s be real… it’s both a blessing AND a chore to maintain a household, isn’t it? It’s okay for something to be both. I mean, I am so blessed by good food in our bellies and a warm, safe home to live in. AND the endless pile of dishes, laundry, and list of chores can be overwhelming and heavy at times.

To help ease the load, EVERYONE contributes to chore time. Here’s the thing though… for a long time, I just did all the work because I like it done a certain way. My kids don’t have the attention to detail that I do, or the speed that I do, and they definitely don’t care about these things as much as I do.

I remember growing up and getting so frustrated with my mom for making me clean my room. I vividly remember saying to myself (and probably writing in my journal), “why does she even care if my room is clean? She can just close the door and not have to look at it!” I also remember her pointing out areas of the bathroom I had missed when cleaning. The same areas (ahem, behind the toilet) that I am pointing out to my own kids now.

Here’s the thing. I hated it as a kid, but I am so appreciative of it now. Because now, I know how to take care of a home. It matters to me like it mattered to my mom. And now I get to pass that on to my kids.

But also, kids need training. Years ago I was told, “train them HOW to do the chore. Take the time and really teach them how to do each chore. The time you put into training now, pays off in dividends later.” That has always stuck with me, and I’ve been training my kids to do all the household chores since they were very young.

There’s a school of thought out there that kids shouldn’t have to do chores. That we should let kids be kids and be free from adult responsibilities. There are 2 problems I have with this line of thinking.

I am training my kids to be adults. If they spend their entire childhood avoiding things that aren’t fun, they will do the same in adulthood.
Children are so capable, and they need to know it. When kids have chores that they are responsible for, they feel like a part of the team. This goes a long way to improve their self-esteem and build their confidence.

Chore time is built into our daily rhythm. It usually happens twice throughout the day, once after breakfast and again before dinner. I have a chart of rotating chores so that the household cleaning is spread out throughout the week and everyone contributes to it. For more on how we do chores in our home, check out this blog post.

Fridays are for Fun

Another practical rhythm in our homeschool is Fridays are for FUN. This looks different throughout the year, sometimes it means we learn how to do something new, sometimes it means we spend time with friends or go hiking, sometimes we stay home and play games. The point is, Fridays are typically open for us to spend time doing something other than our typical school day.

Year-Round School

Another rhythm that helps me to simplify is letting go of a “school year” mindset. This one is hard, as it is so ingrained in our culture. But the beauty of homeschooling is that education happens every day, all year long. If you stop thinking about homeschooling as “school time” and instead consider “education” and “learning” as the goals, you will quickly see how just about everything you do in your life contributes to this.

Yes, we do use curriculum and we do intentional school activities, but as I look at the purpose of my homeschool, I can measure our homeschool by much more than book. This allows to me focus on different priorities for different seasons.

For example, August through October and January through March tend to be very productive months for focused work and traditional school subjects. April through July are often spent enjoying lots of time in nature, hanging out at the parks with friends, camping, hiking, working outside at home, tending to our animals and garden, and learning valuable life skills. November and December are slower months, marked by making lots of yummy food, dinner by candlelight, reading books and playing games.

As I am recording this, it’s the first week of May, and we haven’t sat down to “do school” in 3-4 weeks. BUT, in those weeks we got a new pet axolotl, started a worm farm in our basement, got bees for the first time, prepared our garden bed for a new pollinator garden, and the kids have been building a massive fort in the backyard with their friends. I am not worried about getting school in, because LIFE IS SCHOOL and learning is happening all the time.

It’s for this reason that I also don’t try to “fit it all in”. Every year I do less and less in my homeschool. I often fight the urge to add one more activity or program, and if I do give in, I usually regret it. As a family, we are working hard at identifying what is most important in life and prioritizing those things over everything else. This means saying no to a lot of good things so that we can say yes to the best things. We don’t do this perfectly, but it’s something we try to keep at the forefront.

And that is where we are going to end for today. In our next episode we will cover part 2: Spiritual Rhythms. Until then, I hope that you are able to spend some time considering your family rhythms and how they help you achieve purpose in your homeschool, while (of course) keeping it super simple.

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