Homeschooling schedule : working with our strengths.

When I was studying at University we were advised to become aware of the times of the day when we were most alert and our down times. It was argued that there was no point in studying when our brain was 'down'. I found that I am a "Lark". That is, I am alert early in the morning, have a downtime in the afternoon and then alert in the evening. This same principle can be applied to homeschooling. We need to work with our natural body rythms.

Secondly we need to work with out character strengths. In the recent ABC television production Making Australia Happy the science of Positive Psychology is discussed. A test that reveals your character strengths can be taken and then it is then suggested that you work with your strengths, this has been scientifically proven to have a very positive effect on ones happiness. I took the test and since I have been working with my strengths I find jobs that were once difficult are now quite refreshing.

So what has all of this to do with the homeschool schedule? Homeschooling/educating children is no walk in the park, while homeschooling/educating is immensely satisfying and rewarding it is a HUGE commitment. We, the parents, need to research what we are going to teach our children, we need to know our children so that we can make sure that what we are teaching them is appropriate for each child, we are still running a house, and things happen. We need to keep a positive outlook while undertaking an enormous workload. A school teacher can teach more or less the same curriculum each year, whereas every week of every year is different for the homeschooling parent. So how to schedule using out strengths?

First of all work out the times of the day when you are really alert and can cope with all of the really stressful things that life has to throw at you and then plan your days around your energy levels. For me my high energy time is from early in the morning up until lunchtime. For example I am planning my year at the moment. My mind is really buzzing with my plan, but I need to tie the pieces together, think about what resources I need, how am I going to achieve the things that I want to achieve, what do I want to achieve, what needs to be eliminated and what needs to be kept, how am I going to keep my goals  attainable, etc. etc. etc. So this planning would take place early in the morning until lunchtime. If you asked me in the afternoon to make big decisions I am hopeless, I can only do jobs where I am on autopilot. When I was homeschooling the afternoons were the time of day that I could read to the children, I used a Charlotte Mason philosophy for some subjects which required lots of reading to children. I knew what books we were reading each day and I could cope well with that in the afternoon. I couldn't cope with organising new projects for or with the children i.e. finding, planning, helping, listening, researching so afternoons were and still are the time of day when I do the things where I don't have to think, I am the same with physical things also, great in the morning not so good in the afternoon. (It could also pay to work out the children's natural body rythms also as this could lead to a better understanding of each child and how to work with them)

Secondly do the character strengths test above and work out your schedule using your top five. My strengths are:1.Spirituality, sense of purpose, and faith, 2.Creativity, ingenuity, and originality 3.Curiosity and interest in the world, 4. Love of learning and 5.Bravery and valor. (I was rather surprised at my no.1 character strength, as I didn't think that spirituality had currency in contemporary society). In the Multiple Intelligences it is said that there are 7 learning styles, however, it is argued that there are additional intelligences, one of which is Existentialist. When I learned about that, during a Museum Studies lecture, I thought that defined my learning style more than any other; possibly explaining spirituality as no. 1) Anyway I digress...

How I schedule using character strengths is I take the tasks at hand and then work out how I am going to VIEW them using my character strengths. For example my theme this year is food. If I view food as work or as deprivation or as finding out what is bad, I would not enjoy the theme at all, however, if I view the theme of food using my five character senses I will enjoy experimenting with new recipes or different methods of cooking, (creativity) learning about new foods or what is great about old foods.(love of learning, curiosity) My sense of bravery and valor will encourage me to be greener with food, to research food miles and seasonal food. (I would consider this to be part of my spirituality also) So using my five character strengths sits well with me, I feel positive about my schedule, it is exciting, interesting and natural TO ME. Therefore, it helps to know yours and your children's character strengths so that you can use them when making up your homeschooling learning schedule.

I would love to hear from anyone who uses this information and how it worked for you.

Homeschooling schedule

How does one homeschool and have a schedule? Not only does one have to homeschool the children but there are all of the normal household duties to be performed also. The house has to be cleaned, shopping to be done, bills, banking, business to be done, doctors appointments, gardening, house repairs, cars to be serviced and repaired etc. etc. etc. When children are small they can't be left at home and so the homeschooling mum has to take the children with her on all of these many chores.

I am going to discuss in this post how I managed to homeschool, successfully in my opinion, and have a schedule, but I am first going to give a brief history of the evolution of my homeschooling methods to a style that suited me, and the children.

When I first started homeschooling I began with school text books and we sat down every morning to do 'school'. It wasn't long before I found that homeschooling using school text books was exhausting, for me, and totally irrelevant for my son and so I switched to a more natural learning style of homeschooling by following my son's interests and facilitating those interests - i.e child led learning. That year I received two visits from moderators, the second being very negative (I later received a letter from a moderator, from another district, telling me that the Education Department had instructed moderators to get all homeschooled children back into school, thus explaining the negative visit).  Following the second (or negative) visit from the moderator, I tried homeschooling my way and the way that I felt that the Department wanted me to homeschool. I then went into a period of extreme guilt, frustration, fear, anxiety and exhaustion as I was doing neither method very well and I felt completely at a loss as to how to go about homeschooling and try and run a house and care for two pre-school children. It was then that I realised that I had to homeschool MY way and that I just couldn't please everyone, with the Department being the last on the list of those to please. These were MY kids and they were going to be raised learning about the things that our family valued and not what the state values. (I have a degree in cultural heritage, in which I studied the psychology of society and how our imaginations are worked on to make us believe that we belong to a state, nation, empire etc. which I will discuss in further blogs)

So how did I develop a schedule that worked for me?

I tended towards having a major theme that we studied for a year. The example that I will use here is one year's theme with my daughter. Together we started an ebay business. We would go to auctions and bid on and buy items that we then sold on ebay. We would go to the auction previews and tick off the items that we thought would be interesting to buy. Then we would go home and research the items to see how much the same, or similar, items sold for in the past. We researched how to tell fakes, how things such as Millifiori paperweights were made. We learnt about glass, china, Wembley ware, Carlton Ware, enamel ware etc. etc. etc. (She has a fabulous Crinoline Lady china, and hand painted Australian bone china collection now). We then would go to the auction and bid on the items that we thought that we could make a profit on. Then we would come home and list the items on ebay, providing descriptions, photos, price, postage, packaging etc. etc. etc. We also bought items form op shops that we resold and sometimes we bought things that were on sale in the stores and sold for a profit on ebay.

We had many themes over the years including Galileo, which turned into time (if you think time is simple, think again) which turned into light and heat. We had a year on law, the difference between law and rules, we looked at laws that pirates had, and then the kids made up rules of their bedrooms. What we found was that none of these subjects are as simple as they look and they became fascinating journeys of discovery. So these themes could be worked on quite naturally throughout the year.


We also had a weekly schedule. The children also attended Art classes once a week, recorder classes once a week, sign language classes once a week, table tennis classes once a week, jungle gym once a week, and then a monthly schedule in which I conducted a history walk, once a month we weeded Ellis Brook, and once a month we went to the Zoo.

This schedule, I found, left lots of room to attend to all of those 'other' things that us mums and dads have to do.