This year we have embarked on the great adventure of homeschooling… And we love it! We have established an easy weekly homeschool routine that works for our family.
Our daily rhythm is pretty well ironed out here at the end of the first term. The kids are learning a lot. And the vast majority of the time, we are all having a lot of fun!
Our eldest daughter turned six in January. By New Zealand law, she’s required to be enrolled in a school or have an exemption for such an enrollment as of her 6th birthday.
Whether you are in New Zealand or elsewhere, I thought it may be helpful to get a glimpse into how our family structures our daily and weekly routine around homeschooling.
And did I mention… It’s a pretty simple and easy weekly homeschool routine! It works for us even with a preschooler and toddler in the house!
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Background on New Zealand Homeschooling:
The New Zealand school year runs from the end of January until mid December. It is typically divided into four (approximately) 10-week “terms.” Between each term is a two week “School Holidays.”
So the school year itself is about 40 weeks of instruction. The longest break of the year, over the Christmas and New Year holidays, is about 6 weeks long.
I haven’t lived in New Zealand for super long (I didn’t grow up here). But I have been encouraged at how positive homeschooling overall seems to be viewed here.
There are some additional hurdles to complete, compared to homeschooling laws in my native Washington State in the USA. But overall, it has been a good experience so far.
There are a lot of other homeschoolers in our part of New Zealand. And there seems to be a pretty active homeschooling community around here.
Although New Zealand certainly lacks the abundance of homeschool resources and curriculum that the USA has, there is a strong sense of camaraderie. The homeschool groups on facebook seem to be constantly offering materials for resale, linking resources to needs, and providing encouragement.
The biggest hurdle for me in approaching homeschooling in this country was applying for my daughter’s exemption. The exemption application essentially wants to see evidence that she will be educated as well as she would be in a regular school.
I did a fair amount of research to understand what normal school is like here. And then I delved into my own philosophy and plan for how I could provide a quality education in a homeschooling setting.
Needing to apply for an exemption allowed me to intentionally and purposefully plan for our daughter’s education. I actually found it a really helpful step!
What We Love About Homeschooling:
We did a “soft start” to homeschooling last year, to get a feel for how it might work for us. One of the things I love the most about homeschooling is how adaptable it is to each family – and each students’ – individual desires and needs.
Last year, we focused on a kindergarten math curriculum, and teaching my daughter, Mara, the basics of reading, specifically phonics.
As someone who thrives with a relaxed schedule, homeschooling is a great fit for us! My most stressful days and moments, by far, are when I’m trying to get the kids out of the house on a time schedule!
Although I love having rhythms and routines, I am NOT a “clock-oriented” person. I cannot imagine how hectic it would be to try to get my kids to school on a specific time frame.
Additionally, we love that homeschooling allows us to customize the topics we delve into.
It’s been a lot of fun to let Mara’s curiosity guide a good portion of our exploration of subjects. I also appreciate that we have a high degree of control over what Mara gets exposed to.
We have managed to be pretty low media and stick to our preferences about what ideas and social situations Mara encounters.
Philosophy and Circumstances
Obviously, each homeschooling family’s philosophy of education and circumstances in which they homeschool will be different. Our philosophy is an eclectic combination of several popular homeschool philosophies.
I’m probably most influenced by Charlotte Mason, with a high value for rich literature and an emphasis on developing the child’s character.
But I also appreciate and try to incorporate some aspects of Montessori philosophy, such as allowing the child to do a fair amount of leading, particularly with practical life skills.
And there’s a bit of Waldorf thrown in as well in how I try to prioritize outdoor time for exploratory play.
As far as our circumstances, I’m home during the day with the kids. So I’m the primary tutor in the realm of schooling, but sometimes if Gabe is home for lunch he’ll help out with part of a lesson.
We try to do all our school work during the morning hours, as much as possible, because I like to have our toddler’s nap time be down time for me as well. Nap time is independent play for Mara and her sister (age 4).
Since this term has been during my 3rd trimester of pregnancy with baby #4, my energy lags significantly after lunch time!
I have not tapped into the homeschool groups, and I haven’t yet outsourced much by way of school subjects. I’m not opposed to that in the future, but it just hasn’t felt like a priority for me in this season.
Weekly Homeschool Routine: 4 Days of School Per Week
Our weekly homeschool routine is four days per week of regular schooling. And since I’m a person who thrives on routine and rhythms, I try really hard to protect Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings for schooling.
As a general rule, I don’t schedule anything that will take us out of the house on those days before noon or later.
Fridays are either a catch up day, or they are our errand/fun day.
I often do my weekly grocery shopping that day. And if we need some more books from the library, we’ll do that on Friday. I also like to reward the kids with a trip to a playground if we’ve finished the school week by Friday.
Usually, I plan how our week will look on Sunday evening. I do this by hand in a physical notebook. For me, I like to write out the lessons we’ll do each day. Since I don’t keep my computer open on the counter all day, the physical notebook is easier to reference than an electronic document.
I have a table with four columns (one for each school day of the week) and ten rows. Each row is a different subject. My four year old generally does everything Mara does, other than she has her own preschool curriculum and writing practice, and Mara has her own math and language arts.
Daily Chores as part of our Homeschool Weekly Routine
The first part of our simple homeschool daily routine that we do each day doesn’t actually go on the weekly schedule though: daily morning chores.
I have a stamp-chart on the refrigerator where the girls can keep track of their progress through the morning chores. They each have five morning chores: get dressed, brush hair, brush teeth, make bed, and clear their dishes to the sink.
Our stamp chart has a picture for each chore, and each day is a column they can work their way down. I like that the girls can get started on these chores before breakfast.
Also, I like that I don’t have to repeat to them over and over specifically what they should be doing! I can just direct them to the chore chart as we make or clean up breakfast.
A few times a week, I try to incorporate the kids into something in the kitchen. These aren’t daily chores, but they are household-running chores. I want all the kids to be comfortable cooking and baking.
We also do evening chores every night. For Mara, her chores are: dishes to the sink, clear food off the table, wipe down the table, get into pajamas, prepare toothbrush and floss for Gabe or me to help her clean her teeth, put her water bottle on the kitchen counter for Gabe or me to open and fill, get her comfort items into her bed, and use the toilet.
For Jemma, her chores are: dishes to the sink, vacuum under the table, help put dishes in the dishwasher, get into pajamas, prepare toothbrush and floss, put her water bottle on the kitchen counter, get her comfort items into her bed, and use the toilet.
In general, we tidy the house, the deck, and the sleepout before dinner. After dinner our efforts can be focused on kitchen clean up and getting the kids ready for bed.
Daily Bible Reading Strategy
Usually the first thing we do each day over the breakfast table is read our daily Bible reading.
I purchased a One Year Bible that divides the day into a reading from the Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs. For this year, I decided to skip the Old Testament readings, and focus on the New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs.
I have been surprised at how much the girls enjoy listening to all three different sections each day.
Weekly Music and Bible Memorization Routine
Each week, we try to memorize a bible verse and I introduce the girls to a hymn. Sometimes we do the same hymn or bible verse two weeks in a row.
On Monday, I go over the verse, and we review the previous verses we’ve memorized. Depending on how much time we have each morning, we’ll go over the verse for that week, or we’ll review all of the verses.
I ordered Then Sings My Soul: 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories to start working our way through. We usually read the story on Monday and I sing the hymn (if I know it).
And then for the rest of the week, I’ll either sing it to the girls or I’ll pull it up on youtube and we’ll listen to various version of it throughout the week. Several years ago I bought Golden Books Hymns for Kids album on iTunes, so the girls have been familiar with a lot of the hymns. We also sing hymns at our church usually, so they have been exposed to hymns that way also.
Our normal music consumption (car drives or just playing music around the house) is a more contemporary mix. But it is important to me that my kids are familiar with the musical legacy of the church.
Homeschool Weekly Science Routine
Our weekly science routine is a loop that we progress through each week.
On Monday, we read the science chapter. Currently we are working our way through a book my Mom read to me as a child: All Nature Sings.
Then on Tuesday, Mara and Jem get to go on a “hunt” to find the creepy crawlie we learned about. Mara takes her science/writing notebook and a pencil. If she finds the creepy crawlie, she draws it in her notebook.
On Wednesday, Mara and I create a summary of 3-4 short sentences about the creepy crawlie or about the hunt and what they found on the hunt. I write the summary in her science/writing notebook, and she gets to copy the summary for her penmanship practice for the day.
We’re starting to get to where she is more capable of creating her own summaries without my help, but at this point, I still oversee it.
And for science on Thursday, Mara and Jem get to watch a youtube video or two about the creepy crawlie we learned about. Or we do a fun science activity of some kind.
This is their favorite day of the week! And it works well as a reward for finishing the other parts of the science loop.
Open and Go Curriculum for LA
Once the Bible reading, hymn, memory verse, morning chores, and science are finished, we move in to our “bookwork” for the day.
Usually first up is Language Arts, because it is Mara’s least favorite of the book work options. On a good day, we breeze through the Language Arts lesson in 20-30 minutes. On harder days, it may take us two 20-minute sections of time in the morning, or we might return to it later in the day if needed.
We use The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Curriculum, which is an open-and-go curriculum of 120 lessons. I used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons last year for phonics, and we made it through about 80% of the text.
Mara did OK with it, and I feel like it did a good job of establishing a solid foundation of phonics, but it was not as engaging as The Good and the Beautiful curriculum. I also like that The Good and the Beautiful incorporates art and geography into their Language Arts curriculum.
Although sometimes Mara gets discouraged by her current Language Arts curriculum, what saves us is how engaging The Good and the Beautiful Curriculum is – with lots of coloring, painting, etc.
Although I don’t use one of the apps that can be used with their curriculum, we do enjoy the audio narratives and their variety of youtube videos.
Each day we start with 5-10 minutes of phonics practice in the form of the Reading Booster Cards. Then we do the lesson from the textbook for that day.
And the final component of our Language Arts is reading books aloud, which I’ll go into more detail about below.
Open and Go Curriculum for Math
After we finish Language Arts, we usually move onto Math. Mara loves math, so it is a great reward for finishing the Language Arts lesson.
It rarely takes her more than 20 minutes to complete her math lesson.
We are also using The Good and the Beautiful Math Curriculum, which is equally as engaging as the Language Arts. We did The Good and the Beautiful’s Kindergarten Math Curriculum last year, so I was pretty sure it would be a winner, and it is!
One of the things I love about The Good and the Beautiful is that they make their math and Language Arts curriculum available for free as a PDF download. We used the free Kindergarten Math download last year, and I had it printed here in New Zealand in black and white.
Since Mara loved it so much, I decided to go ahead and order the printed, colored version from the company. My in-laws brought it over when they came to visit before Christmas. Although the black and white version was fine, I have to say we love the colored version!
Open and Go Curriculum for Preschool
For Jemma (our 4-year-old), I try to do 3-4 preschool lessons each week, usually as something to keep her busy while Mara is doing her Math (which Mara can do more independently than her Language Arts at this stage).
We are using The Good and the Beautiful’s Preschool Curriculum with Jemma. She is soaking it up like a sponge. The lessons are pretty short, and we’re usually done in 15-20 minutes.
Right now, Jemma is learning the names of letters, what they look like as uppercase and lowercase, and what sounds they make. She’s progressing through the alphabet, starting with A, moving to B, etc.
The Preschool curriculum also incorporates color identification and number counting and numeral identification (both of which she’s already pretty solid on, but she loves reviewing them).
The A-Z letter identification and names is a different strategy from Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons. I liked how quickly Teach Your Child to Read progressed into combining letter sounds to make words.
But since I plan to continue using The Good and the Beautiful for Jemma over the next few years, I like using their Preschool Curriculum because I can see how it builds into where Mara is in the Level 1 Curriculum.
Also, I think Jemma will do much better with the kinesthetic and imaginative engagement and variety of The Good the Beautiful’s approach than she would with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.
Incorporating a Toddler Into The Day or Keeping Him Busy
By far, one of the hardest parts of the first few weeks of the school year was figuring out how to keep Lazlo (our toddler) from having meltdowns and demanding attention.
Honestly, it was pretty rough! The girls were eager to do school, and Lazlo was not used to doing his own thing.
I started a sensory activity loop that helped get us over the hurdle.
- On Monday, I pulled out playdough and let him play with playdough at the counter while I worked with Mara at the table (Jemima did more of Lazlo’s activities that week than her preschool!).
- Tuesdays, I set him up with water play with boats and a tray full of water outside on the deck.
- On Wednesday, I put down butcher paper and gave him crayons to color.
- And on Thursday, I would either give him things to sort (rice, beans, lentils, etc), or set him up with a colored car track on butcher paper for playing hot wheels.
Then I had a friend that offered to come over on Tuesday mornings for an hour and a half or two with her 9 month old and hang out with Lazlo. It was an absolute life saver, and got us over the hump of transitioning into school.
Sometimes I have luck giving him a “chore” to do (like “cleaning” the window with a spray bottle full of water).
Lazlo has also discovered one of our Richard Scarry books. That has been a God-send because he will sit on the couch and flip through that book, and then pick up his numerous trucks and tractors and line them up. In this way, he’ll play happily for usually a 30-40 minute chunk of time.
Regular Wiggle Breaks + Outside Time as Part of our Homeschool Weekly Routine
Usually by the time we’ve finished Language Arts and Math and Jem’s Preschool Curriculum, the girls are ready to have a wiggle break. And it is usually approaching lunch time.
So I often send the kids outside at this point to take 20 minutes to burn off energy. I pull out lunch and check our progress for the day, making a plan for what else to prioritize.
I will also sometimes send the girls out between Mara’s Language Arts and Math if we are struggling to focus. It really helps the kids to get fresh air and a change of scenery if we’re up against a wall.
After I call the kids in for lunch (or we eat on the deck) and we finish the last of our formal school (if we have any left to do before nap time). I get Lazlo down for a nap and the girls get some options of what they can do while I rest:
- One of the activities that is always an option is outdoor play (coloring our driveway with chalk, playing in the mud under our hedge, etc).
- They also regularly enjoy coloring, playing with playdough, playing with duplo or legos, or playing with their doll house.
- Another favorite activity is listening to audio books. We love the Caribou Public Library YouTube Channel for some read aloud classics.
Often, after Lazlo’s nap and the afternoon “quiet time” as wrapped up, I will let the kids do a workout video or online ballet class – ideally on the deck for maximum fresh air!
History as We Go
I don’t have a specific history curriculum that in incorporate into our easy weekly homeschool routine. Instead, I’m focusing more on a diverse “historical awareness development” this year.
This comes in various forms. For example, we read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe earlier this year. For our history the week we started reading it, we learned a bit about World War 2 and how many children got evacuated to the countryside, because that’s the Pevensie’s situation.
We watched a couple short youtube documentaries and looked up where England and London are on a map. And I shared stories about touring London and visiting England. So, for the most part, history is woven into our readalouds.
Another exposure point is often our hymns, since reading the story about the hymn introduces us to various time periods and people in history.
And another history learning opportunity is podcasts. We listened through 40 Days of Lent with the Martyrs on the Catholic Sprout’s website as part of our Lent and Easter observation.
We also like the Bedtime History podcast for car rides or a we wind-down in the evening.
Homeschool Weekly Routine: Read Aloud Priority
Something we’ve always done as part of our family life, which has now become part of our easy weekly homeschool routine, is read-aloud books.
I grew up going to the library every few weeks and coming home with a pile of books. My mom always read chapter books aloud to us as part of our homeschool education and my siblings and I loved it.
As a result, I have read books to my kids from the time they were babies. And as soon as we could move into chapter books, we started on them!
So part of our weekly homeschool routine is reading books aloud. We like to have a chapter book that we read in the evenings and during in-between moments during the day. Usually we read after the “book work” is done for the day.
So far this term, we’ve read:
- A Llama in the Family – by Johanna Hurwitz
- Where the Mountain Meets the Moon – by Grace Lin
- The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe – by C.S. Lewis
- The Railway Children – by E. Nesbit
- Little Pilgrim’s Big Journey – by Tyler Van Halteren
- The Twenty-One Balloons – by William Pen du Bois
- Gooney Bird Greene – by Lois Lowry
- Henry and Ribsy – by Beverly Cleary
- Busybody Nora – by Johanna Hurwitz
- Charlotte’s Web – by E.B. White
Some other favorites we read last year include:
- Heidi
- Heidi Grows Up
- Heidi’s Children
- The Nickle Plated Beauty
- Sarah and Me and the Lady from the Sea
- The Amelia Bedelia books
- The Secret Garden
- The Wind in the Willows
- Little House on the Prairie Series (books 1-6)
Homeschool Routine: Self-Directed Play
Lastly, self directed play is an important components of our easy weekly homeschool routine.
It has always been a goal of mine to give my kids the gift of self-entertaining. I try to protect time for our kids – at all ages – to allow their interest and imagination to wander.
As babies, I lay them on the floor and let them have a few moments several times throughout the day to look around and observe the world. I intentionally avoid providing any external “entertainment” (toys, activity gyms, etc) for these moments.
For my toddlers, I like to get busy in the kitchen and leave them to entertain themselves at my feet.
And my preschooler and school age kids are the same. Every day, they have unstructured play time where they are free to choose from a variety of things.
Sometimes they go outside and play imaginatively. Or sometimes they are practicing a new skill. And sometimes they play with dolls or color or they design a craft or pursue some kind of creative expression.
Mara has recently been making baskets out of colored paper, and filling them with encouraging notes. Jemma loves to play “families” with her colored pencils.
It is amazing how creative the kids can be when I give them space!
Wrap Up:
I hope this glimpse into our easy weekly homeschool routine has been helpful for collecting some ideas or encouraging you with how we prioritize and structure our week.
Although we are always learning and practicing skills, I find this daily rhythm a good balance for our family to make clear forward progress on certain subjects, but also have plenty of flexibility and space to enjoy the learning process and learn and develop together as a family.
Ultimately, I think HOW we do our homeschooling is more important than what we actually attempt to learn. I want my kids to have rich relationships with each other and with me, and to feel empowered to learn and follow their pursuits, while also knowing how to integrate into social groups.
Overall, homeschool has been a real joy to dive into this year. I’d love to hear from you: are you homeschooling? Were you homeschooled? How is or was the experience for you? Let me know in the comments below!
Wow, super helpful and inspiring. I’m in New Zealand too, and we’re just about to really dive head first into our homeschooling journey. Your structured week with rolling projects really gave me some good ideas to build on. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Morgan,
I’m so glad to hear it! Yes, the rolling projects were really fun and worked well for us. We have loved homeschooling and we’re getting excited to launch the year here in a few weeks. I hope your homeschooling journey gets off to a great start! Where in NZ are you located?