My word for this year is “Renovate”. Drawing from several different definitions, my working definition is: “to restore to a former better state of active, healthy, well-balanced growth”. The main areas I’m trying to renovate are my health, my home and our homeschool. I didn’t have a specific area in mind for January, but about halfway through I realized that I was focusing on new routines.
Here are a few things that are working for us that may give you some ideas as well:
Daily Time Blocks
You’ve heard over and over to keep routines instead of schedules. I agree that any attempts to start promptly at a certain time or do math at a certain time have backfired on us. However, as a working homeschool mom, I have specific appointment times to follow in the afternoon. So, our schedule is divided into time blocks of 2 or 3 hours except for that afternoon work time. It rarely works perfectly, but this keeps us on track most of the time on the days we are home.
Morning Time – Everyone is responsible to get dressed, have personal devotions, do morning chores, prepare and eat their breakfast before school. Cereal, freezer waffles and bagels with assorted flavors of cream cheese make it easy for anyone to help themselves. If they want something hot, my older son makes eggs for himself and any brother who wants them. As for chores, they each have one or two simple chores in the morning involving emptying trash, taking laundry to the laundry room or unloading the dishwasher.
School Time – Since it always feels we’re behind on school work, I’m trying to work one hour straight on each group of subjects. For example, the first hour, we do our Bible and History since those are linked together in the curriculum we use. I also work on handwriting with the younger ones since we are often copying our Scripture. The second hour everyone works on math and each of them take turns with piano practice to give them a short break. The third hour, we do Language Arts which includes Grammar and Writing for everyone as well as Literature for the older two and Spelling for the younger ones. If there is extra time or it’s a longer school day, I do Science and Reading with the two younger ones.
Lunch Time – We eat lunch and clean up the kitchen and school room as well as do the daily housekeeping chores such as sweeping the downstairs. I also try to include some active free time before we get into the afternoon. This month the active time has usually been shoveling the front walk and playing in the snow.
Afternoon Time – Because I teach piano lessons three afternoons a week, this is our longest time block. The older kids finish up any school work from the morning as well as Science and Spanish for my highschooler. On the day I don’t teach, we do science experiments and extra school projects as well as my own kids’ piano lessons. Once school work is done, they have quiet free time. This can be anything from reading and building LEGO projects to video games and recording YouTube videos.
Dinner Time – This time block includes making, eating and cleaning up dinner. I also try to prepare everything for the next day after dinner. I gather materials for co-op or my piano lessons outside the house or library books, pack lunches, lay out my clothes and check that the boys have clothes ready. I check the menu and thaw out anything needed for the next day’s meals as well as scan the recipe so I remember what time I actually have to have it in the crockpot or oven.
Evening – We have a general weekly schedule for our evenings. When we’re home a few nights a week, we spend time together as a family or have a date night. Sometimes Jeff or I may take one of the kids out, or we’ll go out or I’ll meet a friend or family member for coffee.
Bed Time – After our evening plans are over, we do baths and staggered bedtimes. Every birthday, a child gets to stay up a little later and accepts a new responsibility. Since we don’t get a super early start in the morning, the kids’ times are 9:15, 9:30, 10:00 and 11:00. I usually hang around my room and check e-mail, read or write. Then, they come in one at a time and hug me good night, we pray together and catch up on anything that’s on their mind before they go to bed. Sometimes I’ll read to the younger boys. Since my last two are a teenager and an almost-teen, our chat times are sometimes extended. So, my bed time is quite flexible. 🙂 When the last one is in bed, I get my bath and read for awhile before going to sleep.
Weekly Routines
On each day, I have a general housekeeping chore if it’s a home day or an errand chore if it’s an “away” day. I do laundry three days a week when we’re home and do an errand in the area where we are on errand days. For example, I grocery shop after our co-op and I run to the library or pharmacy before my piano lessons I teach at another site during my daughter’s Spanish class. I also have an evening routine of paying bills one evening, grading and filing another evening and Bible study at church another evening. I do my main cleaning on Saturday unless we will be away all day. Any letter writing or extra reading or other restful kind of things, I do on Sunday afternoon or evening.
Monthly Meal Planning
When I saw that my favorite planner (above is affiliate link because I just really love it!) comes with a free menu planner download, I decided to try it. I copied down our projected meals for December and January and it’s working well so far. I write them down in my planner on a weekly basis in case I have to tweak anything, but I don’t have to try to figure out what to make at that point. I just have to put the meals into the appropriate places and make a shopping list.
I love a simple app called “Errands” for my to do list. I put things in it as I think of them, put a date on them and don’t have to think about them until I look at my to do list for that day. It has a great option to place notes on any checklist item, and I can make the notes a checklist as well. I keep one to do item open called Shopping List and add to it as I run out of things or when I make my weekly shopping list on Saturday. I order as much as I can from WalMart ahead of time so I can just pick it up after co-op without going into the store. I also shop at Aldi if WalMart doesn’t carry an item or if it’s a lot more expensive there.
Monthly Calendar
In order to be intentional about my personal renovating project, I try to get the important (but not usually urgent) things on the calendar ahead of time. If it’s not on the calendar, it probably won’t happen. I decide what books I want to read that month and reserve them at the library. I look at any birthdays coming up and plan parties and gifts and if I need to send a card. I schedule a date with my husband so I can arrange child care ahead of time. I try to get 1 or two kid dates on the calendar as well as coffee with a friend. The young moms at church have a Ladies’ Night once a month, so I try to check on that date and get it scheduled to make sure I don’t have a conflict. I also try to schedule one or two special family fun evenings or days. I also look at any appointments or events for church, work or extended family so I can plan ahead for them. I choose which area of my home I want to focus on decluttering and deep cleaning on my regular cleaning day. This month it was the basement, which (in)conveniently flooded the first week of January so I got a big chunk of that done all at once!
January Highlights
Family Nights – 3
Date Nights – 2
Coffee Time – Ladies’ Night and Coffee with Jerry
Special Events – Jeff’s siblings visited for the weekend
Things I Still Need To Work On:
While scheduling and routines seem to be going generally well, I need to improve on making kid dates happen and getting an earlier start on our school day. Both of these things are easy to procrastinate, and they are both very valuable. I’ll be adding these habits to my February renovating.