Creating A Home Schedule

I know everyone may be stressing out about what to do with the kiddos home all day long.  How do you balance your work, house work and create fun meaningful learning activities for your children.  

First of all my advice is to keep it simple.  Sit down with your children and come up with a schedule that will work for all of you.  Try it, depending how old your children are at the end of the day/dinner time talk about what worked and what didn't work.  You may have to tweak the schedule a bit to find out what works best for you and your children.  The past year I have retired from my teaching job and have taken on the responsibility of watching my two grandsons.   They are five months apart, right now they are three and two.  Generally, I have them on Tuesdays and Fridays, however time is flexible depending on work schedules and other appointments.  We have a great time visiting the library, zoo classes and children museums.  However, just like everyone else we have to make some adjustments.  Keeping a basic schedule is important to me and to the boys.  It helps to keep our schedule simple and light.  Right now our basic schedule looks something like this:

9:00 Pick Up Boys

9:20 Arrive back at my house free play outside for a bit (Check on bird feeders & walk around the house and talk about the garden.  Right now we are talking about the signs of Spring.)

9:45 In the house for some more free play (Sometimes we use this time as baking time.  We like to make cookies and banana bread.)

10:15 Snack

10:30 Learning Time (This involves reviewing the alphabet and counting and shape patterning.  This is simple using the same charts each time they come so they know what to expect.)  Next we have a story and a project.  Our projects are simple and generally have something to do with a letter of the alphabet or seasonal activity. I find many of my ideas on Pinterest.
   

11:00 More Free Play 

11:30 Quiet Table Activities (Puzzles/Coloring/Simple Activities that I have already taught them how to do.) -- I use this time to make lunch.

12:00 Lunch/Clean Up
   

12:30 Storytime

1:00 Nap time

3:00 Outdoor or Indoor Free Play/Weather Dependent

4:00 Clean Up and get ready to go home

I know I have the little guys and things may look very different if you have older children, however with older children they should be able to help more and do more independent reading, writing and activities on their own.  Set goals for the week and work towards them as a family.  

I know many bloggers/teachers are posting things to do and things to purchase.  My plan is to post simple activities that we are making at home with the resources we have on hand.  I like to refer to them as Make and Take.  I will also post one or two free resources I encounter on the web that I feel are worth sharing.  

Scholastic Learn At Home

 Brainpopjr.   

Thanks for Reading :)