Homeschool Daily Flow Chart

As a homeschool mom of 6 children, I am often asked how we do it. Here is a quick overview of our daily flow. As a mom of many, I need most of my children’s school work to be pretty independent. I print weekly checklist charts for them to complete each day.

My rule is they have to complete the checklist to be eligible for any screen time or listening to their audio books at bedtime. This is pretty strong motivation for my kids. Feel free to get creative with what might motivate your children more strongly. Rewards are powerful!

I don’t have a strong opinion on what order anything is completed, but I encourage Bible time first, typically we are memorizing passages. That is followed by math, because I hate checking math after lunch, so I prefer to knock it out early. Next, they do the bulk of their independent work, with music, outside time (or indoor active play for 30ish mins if it’s yucky out), and chores at the end of the flow. If they stay on task, they could compete their assignments before lunch. Do they always? No...Somedays they don't complete all of these items, so no screentime on those days.

Ultimately, I want my kiddos to leave my home knowing Christ and showing love to others. Music learning is my next priority, followed by math. If they miss a few grammar concepts, I’m ok with that. We participate in a homeschool community that gives weekly grammar assignments for 4th grade and up, and weekly memory work starting at age 4. I know that my kids get plenty of grammar and spelling rules on community days to round out their education, so that helps me not to worry if we aren’t fully tackling language concepts at home.

Our oldest, age 13, does all his work independently from a syllabus. He is in 7th grade. I check in every few days for quality control and accountability. Daily check-ins would be ideal but there aren’t enough hours in the day with a nursing infant.

My 11-year-old is in a writing program where he writes a short paper weekly. I typically expect him to complete his outline the day after he receives the assignment. The following day, he completes his rough draft. The third day, he types and edits his paper. That gives us a fourth day for final edits, plus co-op day, leaving two days off each week. I sometimes feel I should be doing more, but this is the best I can do right now. This is his second year in this program so he is able to complete most of this on his own.

For my 9 and 6-year-olds, we aim to spend 15 minutes a day on language arts. We focus on spelling and handwriting right. My 9-year-old is an avid reader, so I typically have her dictate a sentence. Then we discuss spelling rules, and talk about parts of speech. She also loves to write letters to her friends. Sometimes, she lets me correct spelling in her letters and I count that as her spelling for the day.

With my 6 year-old, we use a blend of My Father's World and Logic of English Foundations language arts curriculum. She is still sounding out words, not quite a fluent reader. We also subscribe to an app called Reading Eggs as reinforcement for her language arts on days I don’t have 15 minutes to work with her.

We listen to our memory work weekly song 4 times in a row every time we ride in the car. I also have the flash cards on a ring they can flip through at home on days we aren’t going to be in the car, which is very rare.

The three-year-old uses the cursive number and letter tracing cards and we read a phonics book that goes with the Logic of English curriculum. That's all there is to his official school day. It only takes a few minutes, buthe likes to feel included in school and also wanted a way to earn screentime so we came up with these items for him. We are also trying to be intentional in teaching him to away his toys when he is done with them.

As I said before, the rule is they have to complete their checklists to be eligible for any screen time. They don’t always complete every item on their list every day, so in those days we skip screen time. Sometimes, a child will decide at bedtime they are finally motivated to complete their list and get screen time, so we've had to tack the phrase "in a reasonable amount of time." If you complete your list so late in the day that there isn't enough time for screens after, you don't get the screen time.

Feel free to try incorporating some of these things into your homeschool routines. Just remember, every family is different so what works for us may not work the same way for your family. Adapt and keep what serves your family best.

Happy homeschooling!