Tips for a homeschool rhythm you’ll love!

A homeschool schedule for multiple kids that doesn’t make you crazy?! Does that even exist?! Well… Yes, friend. It does. I’m still getting in the swing of our daily rhythm, but I will share what I’ve learned so far and hopefully help you get your sanity back! Get ready for some tips for a homeschool rhythm you’ll love!

When we began our first homeschool year, I felt like I was all over the place. And I was only homeschooling ONE kid at the time!

| Related: Our shift into becoming a homeschool family

Now that I am homeschooling two, I’ve had to become a lot more organized with my homeschool schedule. Especially since we have the baby as well!

I’ve been reading and researching a lot about the idea of having a rhythm in your homeschool day, instead of a schedule. And I am in love!

I am not a Type A, always need a planner, gotta have order kinda mama. I love the flexibility of homeschooling too much to plan every single second of our day. However, because I’m an 8 on the Enneagram (heyyy!) I love systems and processes and efficiency.

That’s why I have fallen in love with establishing a rhythm instead of a homeschool schedule for our family!

A rhythm is essentially the heartbeat of your home. As you go about your day it isn’t wasted away by doing little things here and there. The rhythm keeps you on track, a clear focus for what’s next. Instead of the time running your day, you are in charge of working diligently on the next task at hand.

Often, this creates even more space in your day than you realized you ever had! By choosing to simply work on “the next thing”, your sense of time and how long you’ve spent doing something isn’t a factor in your day. Instead, you work diligently to do the next task and before you know it, everything is done!

For example, let’s say I have a homeschool schedule that looks like this:

• 9AM – English
• 10AM – Math
• 11AM – Science

I don’t know about your children, but if mine had a homeschool schedule like that we’d literally do school the entire day.

Even if they finished English in 20-40 minutes, they wouldn’t move on to the next thing. They’d see the leftover time as free play. Then it’s even harder to get going again.

But if we establish a rhythm to our day, they know that after English, they move to math, and so on. No questions asked. Just working diligently to finish the next task.

See how freeing that is?! But can you also see how much of an organized system it is too?

Here’s a quick overview of how to set up your own homeschool rhythm:

First, you need to determine how and what you want to learn. For us, we focus on math and language arts every single day. Whether that’s in a textbook, read alouds, a fun math app, math and language arts keep our family grounded.

Additionally, we complete a weekly loop schedule of science, history, and art. Essentially, looping just means that we do the next thing in our loop the following day (science on day 1, art on day 2, etc.). This helps us not to be overwhelmed with fitting in ALL of the subjects every single day, plus it gives the kids something to look forward to!

Next, you’ll want to figure out what goals or habits you’d like each of your children to master in a certain time frame. This could be independent reading for 20 minutes a day, writing poetry, whatever you’d like for your family.

Use these goals and habits to help you mold your day! Include activities and chores that will benefit the direction you want your children to head into.

Last, determine the non-negotiables for your week. These are items on the to-do list that can NOT be put off for another day. Things like appointments, co-op meetings, field trips, etc. These things create the framework for your rhythm.

When / if possible, try to schedule things during the “free” portion of your day. While you can’t necessarily “know” what time your schedule will open on any given day, you can determine if afternoons or mornings work better for you and the kids, depending on their focus and readiness to learn.

I schedule out all of our field trips and other non-negotiables FIRST before I plan anything else for the month. Then I go back in on “normal” days and insert our rhythm (our rhythm pretty much stays the same, unless subjects or chores move around).

On days I KNOW we will be out of commission, I typically keep our morning rhythm the same (breakfast + bible and maybe a story if we have time), then utilize audiobooks in the car as we go throughout our day. We look for things to talk about as we’re driving or walking or shopping that day too! Always learning 🙂

And then there are some days we simply schedule in a much-needed break.

However you decide to create your rhythm is entirely up to you. There is no “right or wrong” way to do something like this for your family. That’s the beauty of it!

I’d love to connect with you on Instagram, it’s my favorite place to hang out! Share a bit of your homeschool rhythm and tag me in it 🙂 @createyourhomeschool