 Hey everybody, welcome to the Waldoch Way. I'm Jessica. Today's video is going to be all about our homeschool routine. I don't know about you, but it always feels like it takes us at least six to eight weeks where we really figure out what's working and what's not working and what's best for us as far as the flow for our homeschool days, especially when we're just coming back after the summer. And I finally feel like we have found kind of what works for us in our homeschool. So it seemed like a good time to share what was working as far as our homeschool routine goes. Now, you guys know that we are non-morning people, we are night owls, we tend to stay up later because that's what works better for us, which means that our days do not start early. We also tend to be more of a lifestyle learning type of homeschool family, which means that while the bulk of our homeschool work is done between a certain hours, it also means that it doesn't necessarily end just because it's 2 p.m. We homeschool all the time 24 hours a day and we really do try to live that. So when I tell you what our routine is, keep that in mind, that's kind of who we are as a family. So that way, when I'm starting to tell you that we're still doing things after dinner, it's not because I think you have to do things that long or homeschool for that many hours. That's just kind of what works for us and what is really, really working well right now. I also want to mention, in case you are new here, that we are homeschooling an only child, so it is just the three of us. So our days typically start out around 9 a.m. for Kevin and I. We start our days with a workout and while we are working out, Emily will slowly wake herself up and when she has woke up, she does whatever I strewed for her the night before, which right now happens to be a lot of single-player logic games. She's really been loving those lately and I love that they kind of wake her brain up and get her like firing on all cylinders, if you will. If you don't know what shrewing is, I will leave a link down in the description box where you can get all of the details because I have multiple blog posts as well as a free ebook with all of the details of what shrewing is, how it's beneficial, how you can do it in your homeschool and tons of ideas for things that you can shrew in your homeschool. It has seriously revolutionized our mornings for as long as I can remember because Emily likes to have something to do as soon as she wakes up and normally I'm not ready to entertain her yet so that has been a blessing in our homeschool for years now. When we're done working out, we come in and we make breakfast together and at that point Emily starts whatever independent work she has for the day. That can look something like a page in her handwriting book, it might be her doing a math lesson on teaching textbooks, we're nearby while we're preparing breakfast or we're right here next to her if she has a question or she needs us to look at something. But for the most part now that she is 10 and in fifth grade we're really trying to kind of let her have a little bit of independent work, like these are things that you can do on your own and we'd really like to see you take charge of them. And like I said, they alternate each and every day but for the most part that's what she's doing while we are making breakfast. We all sit down and have breakfast together which is new because that's not what we used to do in the past, used to we would do our morning basket during breakfast but that is not what's happening right now. We sit down and we have breakfast together as a family and then we get kind of our day really up and started and at this point we're probably sitting at around the 11 o'clock timeframe, getting our showers, getting dressed for the day, brushing our teeth, making our beds, doing whatever chores need to be done. And then Emily kind of has a break for maybe an hour or two to play just to kind of do whatever it is that she wants to do. And then at that point when it is lunchtime around probably the two to two 30 time frame we come back together and that is when we have been doing morning basket and it's really been working for us. I've always known that it works well with a meal that's why we did it at breakfast for so long and for whatever reason it seems to be working better with lunch right now and so that's what we're going with. So we sit down together either just her and I or the three of us and we do our morning basket time that includes read aloud, it includes some sort of hands on activity for her to do, some trivia, some mad libs and normally ends with like a really, really quick game which is kind of how I get her to the table because after morning basket we go right in to table time which is when we do the majority of our lessons that can be our unit study. So like right now that would be some great mythology that might be a language arts lesson it might be a math lesson. It really just kind of depends on what I want to work with her on that specific day because I choose different things that I want to address with her or different concepts that I want her to master. I use our grade level checklist to kind of check that off and so that could look like us journaling together so that I can work on some writing or it could just look like us doing a few activities from our unit study. It just depends on the day but that's when we are doing whatever kind of lessons for the day. After lessons are done for the day we will kind of break and have like a few minutes break for her to play, go outside, take a walk, whatever that might be, get a little bit of fresh air and then she has afternoon activities. So two to three days a week that might be a class because she is taking an art class, a book club and a Lego class so it could be a class in the afternoon or if it's not a day that she has a class it's typically some sort of subscription box or hands-on activity that maybe didn't fit into the rest of our day. So that's the time when Kevin and her will do like a milk science box or a Kiwi crate. That might be the time that me and her do something like play a game together or again she's taking some sort of class like a book club or a Lego class in the afternoon. We kind of reserve that timeframe which typically runs between about four and 5.30 basically leading right up to dinner and then we have dinner together as a family and after dinner normally we kind of end our day with one other activity that might be watching a documentary together but more often than not it is playing games together. So we end our evening with a family game night and for us the family game night always includes a minimum of three games. We each bring a game to the table that means that everybody is excited because there is something on the table for everybody to play and it typically means that there is not a tie unless each of us wins one game which is normally highly unlikely to happen. It means that somebody walks away the champion for that night because they've won at least two of the three games. So that is really kind of what our homeschool day looks like. Now in the evenings when it is bedtime Emily will listen to an audio book. We did years of a bedtime basket which was phenomenal and I absolutely loved it but that is not working for us in this season of homeschool and life right now. I spend my evenings working as does Kevin and so after we put Emily to bed she will typically listen to an audio book of her choice. That's when she does her free reading. She'll read on her Kindle, listen to an audio book, whatever she wants to do until she falls asleep and then before I go to bed I make sure that I strew something for the next day and we start all over. Now that you've kind of seen an overview of what our homeschool days look like I would love it if you would tell me down in the comments what your homeschool days look like. Do you have a rhythm and a routine that you try to follow? Are you a strict hour by hour scheduler? Are you a morning person or a night owl? Do you homeschool for just one or two hours and then free time for the rest of the day? Are you more like us and kind of everything kind of weaves into learning throughout the entire day? I would absolutely love to know. So please leave it down in the comments so I can read it.