Do you have a routine ?

[Heswall]

I am thinking along the lines of starting each day with a long walk or a little run or a swim to ensure their physically awake and ready to learn.
Then an hour or so of combined literacy, comprehension, spellings etc.

A session on maths and then project work combined with art and science in the afternoons.
Does that sound ok ?

If it works for your family, it is OK. We never had that sort of daily routine (except we mostly had meals around the same sorts of time each day). We never did regular sessions on literacy and numeracy - we did it as we needed it. Everything was project work and projects involve all sorts of skills.

I am just starting out too, so would be interested to hear people's replies. At the moment, I try to start work with DS (12) at 10 am, after I have come back from taking DS2 to school. We usually start the day with reading. Then he does some Maths and then some Science. After lunch, we go for a short walk. One morning a week, I want to take him swimming. One afternoon a week, we are going to do a project (probably on Spain, where we're going on holiday - am hoping to cover a smattering of the language, plus history and culture). After school finishes, his best friend usually drops round and they play Minecraft together and chat.

I make it all sound very organised. In truth, this is simply an aim, not necessarily a reality. For instance, there are days when I'm not at home and DH is the adult in charge. On those days, DS does some BBC Bitesize stuff, reads and does his utmost to get back onto Minecraft at every opportunity. On days when I am trying to do Maths with him, he complains, whines and gets away at the earliest opportunity!

I have no idea if this routine will continue. From what I've read, a lot of people start out with a structure, but gradually relax into home ed and become more flexible. In my situation, DS1 is still registered at school, so he is getting schoolwork sent home, which means we are tied into the National Curriculum still.

How long have you been home educating?

We have a routine.

The first few hours (anything from 1 to 4) are taken up with breakfast, getting dressed, playing of all kinds (including reading books, painting, colouring, writing etc etc if anyone feels like it).

We almost always go out after that, just as soon as I get us all ready at the same time. Expeditions can be anything from completely child-centred random trips where the children lead the way, to going to the supermarket with my shopping list [we often go to the supermarket with someone else's list], to going to a park, to going to an obvious family-days-out-in-our-city-type destination. Sometimes we stay at home and friends come to play. The day's menu depends on everyone's preferences and how much time I have.

I usually go to work soon after we get home, and the rest of their day looks pretty much the same, except that the meal in question is supper, and there isn't always another trip out.

Routine is good. :)

DD 12 and new to home ed. We do have a more structured approach. We start some days at about 9am or 10am after I have taken my youngest to his Montessori pre school. We do Mon - Thursday and leave Friday for activities (judo and ice skating) but we do maths revision first before heading out at 10am

10 -1 or 9-12 Mon-Thur (Maths, English and Science)
In the afternoons we do these subjects once a week for about an hour - History, Geo, Art and DT so that's around 16-18 hours a week but its not strictly an hour a subject. Sometimes she finishes early and sometimes she overlaps. She also does 2 hours Spanish weekly over Skype in the evening with someone in Guatamala but main focus so far is conversational Spanish.

There are loads of things she wants to do so instead of breaking up at 12pm for lunch she now wants to takes a short break and finish in time for swimming and horse riding at 2pm with our local home ed group.

We also have lots of outings so sometimes we just do 2 or 3 days of school when we have these field trips. We still try and fit her Maths though even when we are out and about.

We don't strictly follow national curriculum per se apart from maths. Most of our resources that we using are more American. For history, art, geo and DT its mainly project type stuff and lapbooks that we use and just aid here and there with textbook stuff. My DD is a more of a hands on learner, just giving her a textbooks doesn't always bring the best but if we start with some more creative stuff and then review with textbook or worksheets she gets better so we do that as much as we can. Science is also experiments nearly everyday with a bit of explanation and exercise. She just works better that way, that's the beauty of home ed.

Reading my post above it sounds very organised but its not esp in the afternoon. Mornings tends to be organised with Maths, English and Science but afternoon its mainly what's ticking. At present we are doing history of art (she got interested in Picasso's work) and we borrowed the book from the library that we are using so we are doing that a bit more and less of other things as the book is due back soon. The book is by the National Gallery so when we finish we may go and visit and see the painting we have been learning about.

I think you just go with what you are comfortable with Heswall and tweak, we are still tweaking things and we drop things that don't work. It also depends on why you home educate and what you want out of it in the end. For my DD school just didn't work as she has her own way of learning and some other issues she had. I still want her to do IGCSE or GCSEs so we follow a more structured approach but you don't have to. I enjoy the flexibility of following a curriculum that suits her better that being bound to the NC. How old is your child?

The children are 8 and 10.
Ours is a funny situation they are currently very happy at private school but we can't afford it any longer and having looked around the local primaries and found them lacking I'm going to give it a term and see how we get on. The fact that the summer term at their current school is only 9 weeks long and mainly sport which they don't love is helpful.
Come September I am hoping my financial situation will have improved or else I don't know what we'll have to stick with it, but again I know from previous experience year is a bit of a farce so not too concerned.
I'm sure it'll be fine but I do feel that there needs to be some planning or else they will watch TV all day.

year 6 is a farce for the 10 year old I meant, time for bed !

Go with what feels right to you. If you and your kids thrive on routines, then probably you already know that is the way to go. (Can you think back to when they were very small: did they eat/sleep/play at regular times? Do you have breakfast at a certain time on weekends or just whenever you feel like it?)

We have never been keen on routine and still aren't. We do actually have a routine, but it is almost entirely dictated by outside activities such as choir and home ed groups which meet at fixed times. That has a knock-on effect in dictating when mealtimes and bedtimes and supermarket shopping have to happen. It's rather like you are with school now, I imagine: breakfast at such-and-such time in order to get out the door at such-and-such time. But whenever we aren't doing scheduled activities we are free and easy.

There are lots of ways to do it. It is all down to your personal preference.