* Daily Schedule

School is out for the summer, friends have come and gone. Suddenly the kids and I wake to find ourselves with days without purpose. An endless stretch of days answering the question "What are we going to do today?" seemed like a forgone conclusion. Not wanting to get to the end of the summer and wonder what we did with our free time, and definitely not wanting to answer the question everyday, the kids and I sat down at the table last week and made a schedule. A concept I dredged up from childhood - see previous references to my parents being list makers. Might I also say that they love schedules. My mom was particularly good at making schedules of things for my sister and I to do during the summer - many of them sounding like "clean the bathroom counter at ten o'clock." She was also a big believer in calling at nine o'clock to make sure we were up. Not wanting us to waste our day. Teenage memories of sleeping to eleven do not exist for me. She will be happy to know that her son-in-law now calls us daily around nine o'clock, knowing that the kids are up I guess he wants to make sure I am participating in their day as well :)

Not to pick on my inherited list making traits. They are well entrenched now, and most decidedly apparent in my children. Making the schedule was an entertaining process. First we made a list of things that we wanted on the schedule. My son was sure that TV, computer time, and food were needed. My daughter was sure that crafts were essential (I can't tell you how many art supplies she can use up in a sitting). Mom felt that nap and chores were also needed. I previously mentioned wanting to be more intentional about devotionals so I put that on the list too. My health conscious son then decided that a daily walk would be good for us all. It then occurred to me that as a home school mom I should ensure some focused learning-ish activity. Since my daughter has not been to preschool, and likely won't be due to budget constraints I should think about her learning something sometime too. :) So with this massive amount of stuff we made the following schedule:

8:00 TV time

9:00 Breakfast
9:30 Bible Time
10:00 Crafts

11:00 Walk
11:30 Lunch

12:30Learning


2:00 Nap (youngest)/Independent Reading (eldest)

3:00 Chores (eldest)

4:00 TV/Computer time/Snack

5:00 Wait for dad to come home...........

The blanks are free time, because I can promise we do not do learning for 90 minutes:) This schedule is quite full, but has given the little ones a sense of peace. It is posted on the fridge and they can run to it at any time to see what is next. It has helped me avoid several questions of "what can we do now?" Do we follow it every day - goodness no. But we have followed it often enough. I learned today that I can make it fluid as well without causing a panic to my scheduled son. The Bible, craft and learning were all done in one big blob. He had to write out some verses which we labeled 'handwriting' for the learning part, the verses are obviously the Bible part. We then cut some of them up into "puzzles" for crafts. I got out of the walk due to the wet, but it is getting on towards lunch time so I must move to the kitchen, because it is on the schedule after all.