I’ve confessed before my love of planning and scheduling, and learning how to properly schedule our homeschooling week has been a big help for me this year.
I use a small, weekly planner to keep track of appointments, lessons, classes, and other commitments for the week. I know there are more technologically-advanced ways to keep track of this, but I still like my pen and paper!
Over the weekend, I check the week ahead and note what days we will be out of the house. I attempt to corral all of our errands and outings onto the same days so that we have one or two days each week when we will be at home all day.
For example, last week we were very busy Tuesday through Thursday. We had time to get our schooling basics done in the mornings, but our afternoons involved appointments, errands, and a visit from friends. Therefore, I was careful to keep Friday open. We didn’t have to leave the house all day, so were able to devote a good amount of time to school work, piano practice, and getting caught up on projects.
This is not only good for the girls, but for me as well! It allows me to stay on track with laundry and other household chores so that I can be more flexible on the weekends.
Do you specifically plan for time at home or do you prefer getting out of the house most days?
We are flexible. We have our schedule written on a white board to see what appointments we have. I generally try to get the girls out at least once a week, but often times we'll have a playdate one day and run errands another.
I think it's good to have days when we are home and days where we are able to get out!
I'm a homebody, so I like to stay home as much as possible…which drives my husband nuts sometimes! With four children five and under, it's hard to leave the house with all of them anyway, but I do try to be home three to four days of the week.
I like paper and pen, too. And I do the same things about planning the week before it starts. And I try to get errands done at the same time instead of taking multiple days to do them.
I TRY to be out of the house only two days each week. Those two days can be very full with errands, appointments, visits with friends, and so-on, but I prefer that to being out of the house too much in one week.
I want to teach Jane to love our home – for it to be a place to retreat and energize. I'm constantly praying for Jane in this way. She is quite the adventurer, like her mommy and daddy, and she finds going out to be fun.
On a personal note for me… I'm just too exhausted by the end of the week if we are out too much. ACK! 🙂
With soccer in full swing, there are very few days where we get to spend the evenings at home. But those few days are very much a treasure to me! I can totally relate!
We rarely go out… In fact, I have to try to push myself to actually go out sometimes! Some weeks we don't leave the house/property at all (apart from Sunday)!! Maybe that's bad, maybe it's not (I'm not sure!)… Other times I have a lot to do and we might end up going out a couple times in the week… It all depends on what is happening.
(My husband picks up our groceries on the way home from work, and apart from that, I do a big shopping day once or twice a month).