One of the hardest parts of being a homeschool parent, can be the fact you have to set your own schedule. If you don’t make the goals, set the tasks and work towards them, they don’t happen. So, how do you do that?

First, I think it is important to break your life into 4 different parts, possibly more. But let’s start with four things we need to do every day. First, and of course most importantly, is feeding the kids. Thought I was going to say educating them right? No. No one can learn when they are hungry, and hungry kids are more prone to fight, melt down, and struggle with new ideas.

Meal Planning

So, you need to set goals about cooking and set meal and snack times. At my house, I also set goals of getting my kids to eat a variety of food groups every day. Yes, I said variety, not “every,” we need to be reasonable. I really liked using the little divided plates when my kids were small, because the dividers reminded me to be sure I was putting multiple things on their plates. Yes, they would eat just chicken nuggets, but adding a side of baked frozen french fries and sliced apple made a more well balanced lunch.

On my list of meal goals, is making sure I allow enough time for me to prep, eat, and clean up meals. Don’t forget to feed yourself. You deserve healthy food you enjoy too. Don’t make yourself eat the leftovers from the kids. Yes, there are days you might choose to throw a few chicken nuggets on a bag of salad and call it a day, but it is also okay to take the time to heat up those leftovers from last night or whatever you have that will help you get through your day. Your risk of losing your temper is going to go down if you are well fed and your blood sugar is stable.

Schedule the Homeschooling

Next in importance, is setting goals and scheduling your homeschool time. The younger your children are, the shorter their attention spans and the less time they need to spend on school work. However, if you are homeschooling multiple children that have different needs, this can be tricky. For a long time, I worked with my kids in order from youngest to oldest, as that was the order they woke up for the day. They got up, had breakfast, and then worked with me for half an hour on the things they needed to do one-on-one.

This left our time after lunch open for play dates, park days, and also doing group lessons on science or social studies. Making regularly scheduled plans with friends, to always get together on the same day of the week, let me do a better job planning which days we would be doing what. Random calls of “can we play today?” Were stressful for all of us. I learned over time, it wasn’t just me, but my kids also did better with a routine.

So, Wednesdays were for play dates, Fridays for co-op or field trips. That left Monday, Tuesday and Thursday as my days to plan activities for all 3 kids. Sometimes I planned one day for social studies, one for science and one for art. I loved making art all together, even if they were all at different levels. Pulling out paints and paper for an hour made for a pleasant hour. But it is okay if you need to focus on just doing history or science experiments or alternate in something else like going to music lessons. Your week just needs a rhythm that works for you, not for me.

Cleaning the House

Next, you need to look at how your days line up, and decide when you will schedule some clean up time. Once I had meals and homeschooling under control, I figured out there was an hour here or there when the kids were usually happy to go play together in the yard or the playroom. For us, that time was often right after lunch, before I pulled them back in for our afternoon group activity/lesson. That was a good time for me to get some house cleaning done. I also found I often had 15 minutes here or there in the morning when I could change out laundry or load the dishwasher between lessons. I did my best to use those 15 minutes here and there to quickly clean what I could where I could.

For the record, I don’t think I folded any of the children’s clothes for about a 6 year period. We had a dirty pile of clothes and a clean pile, and they just grabbed things from the clean pile to wear. This method of grabbing a few minutes here and there to clean up did not lead to a spotless house. If you want a clean house, don’t have kids, but you already made that decision, so let it go.  Seriously, I had to choose between being a good mom and cleaning. The choice of which was more important wasn’t hard.

If it makes you feel better, all my kids are now old enough they do their own laundry. Some of them fold their clothes and some don’t, but it was delightful to take that off my own plate of tasks. And, I have more time to fold laundry now that they are older and need less help from me with every little thing.

You Should Have Hobbies

Last, and this one is still important, you need to carve out time for yourself. If your kids are small, you may need to enlist your spouse to watch them, so you can have some time for yourself. I used to ditch my kids and husband so I could go to a knitting group (that I organized) every week, because I had to leave the house to get a real break. You may also be able to claim some time to read a book with your morning coffee, or give yourself a half hour to do your own hobby while the kids watch an educational show.

Claiming time for yourself is possibly the hardest part of planning your homeschool week. You may feel like you should be spending that time doing more cleaning, teaching, or other work, but you need and deserve down time. If you take it with purpose, you will ultimately be happier and have more patience for your children. Burn out is a real danger to homeschool parents. We give so much to our families that we forget to take care of ourselves. You cannot give from an empty cup, so find things that help you remember that you are a person too. Your needs are valid. You deserve leisure time.

I know this isn’t a detailed schedule. I’m sorry if you were hoping I could give that to you. The truth is, only you know what should be part of your week. But I want you to know, it is okay if you don’t do it all. Just make sure you feed them, and everything else will be okay.