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Nina Murphy
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Oh you must be a very mellow, patient woman.
I do not do well with children lounging about or on a laissez-faire schedule. I start feeling the guilties, that I should have them occupied well, throughout the day, with all of the variety children *ought* to have in a well-balanced, "healthy" day...you know like the time to study, the time for physical breaks and exercise, the time for fresh air and creative play, the time for winding time with the bath, or books, etc, etc. All nicely scheduled (or basically regular) and kept to, for their sakes.
I would be interested in how other mothers feel about this and how they deal with the pressure to provide the routine and constancy and fit it all in with meals and chores and other duties (basically regularly). DO most of you keep to a Mother's Rule of Life; do your children? How do you think this affects you, the children? Are there mothers who are just more relaxed and have a relaxed day with their kids and prefer that and the children seem OK with it?
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~~Nina
mother of 9 on earth,
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J.Anne
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We start our table work at 9:00AM. We usually only spend an hour or so on that (always handwriting, math, Latin, grammar). Reading, nature study, crafts and science through the day. History reading at night.
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Erin
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I used to be more relaxed but the more dc I have the more we have begun to need a regular routinue. The dc need it and so do I, if I don't practise self-discipline then I slide into doing nothing. 
We start prayers by 8.30am then seatwork etc but we finish by 12.30 for lunch then the dc have the afternoon free.
If I don't start by 9am at the latest then the day doesn't happen. I have in the past tried various ways, starting later etc working after lunch but for the last couple of dc I don't have the energy for after lunch activites.
Though like you say Mary I do want the dc to feel that education always happens, but I guess they do, yesterday afternoon the boys went off into the bush and built a cubby (bushcraft?  ) and three others went down to the creek (nature studies? ) and dd read three books, The Little Larrikin, Miss Bobbie and Funny by Ethel Turner (Australian Literature? )
So formal learning with mum in the mornings and learning by their own discoveries in the afternoon. 
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Nina Murphy
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I forgot to add that I don't do well without it and yet, seem to be able to keep to it less and less as the children have aged and increased! So, basically it can be organized chaos or lethargy around here because I don't have super motivated self-starters (including myself and hubby). Gotta light that fire!
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~~Nina
mother of 9 on earth,
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Willa
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We start about 9 am and finish by noon unless there's some exceptional interruption, which probably happens fairly frequently but not every day!
Sometimes I carry over goals until the evening. Also, I have a couple of lighter days built into the week so they can be catch-up days if necessary.
I am usually up by 7:30 -- or WAS, until DST hit
They are supposed to have their morning jobs done and breakfast eaten by 9 am. I don't make a big deal about it being a bit later than that as long as they are not lollygagging. This is a recent change I made. It was really irritating me that beds wouldn't get made till late afternoon so I made a list of things that have to be done upon rising.
In our house it's the opposite of you, Cay -- the littlies are the ones who usually wake the rest of us up.
And they are boys! 
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Willa
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Take Up and Read
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joann10
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Our day starts at about 4:30 when my husband gets up for work. That often wakes one of the babies who share our room. If that happens in our 900 square foot house everyone is up soon after.
We have a very relaxed school routine. We get what we can get done daily and if we don't we just work on it another day. We try to make room for games and stories, prayers, read alouds and everything that makes life memorable.
A few years ago I was very ill and not supposed to survive. That puts everything into perspective. We also had to put the children into public school at that time. They were so far ahead of the children their same age the school wanted them to skip ahead grades. We said 'no' because we really didn't want them to have any more stress than they already had.
When we got them home to school again I realized how precious the time is with them. I find we are always learning as long as the tv, videogames and such are turned off.
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teachingmom
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Well, my good friends know not to call before 10 am. No, I am not in bed that late!
But I am still taking care of my baby's needs, taking a shower, gathering laundry, overseeing morning chores, and eating a very late breakfast. I typically wake up around 8 am. Some of the girls need to be woken up by me at that point (usually 12yo and 4yo). Others are awake and either reading in bed (10yo) or playing quietly together (7yo and 8yo). Some of the girls are self motivated to get going and have a quick breakfast and start the schoolwork they can do independently. They are the ones who finish by 2 or 3 and can play during the afternoon. Others need to be prodded to get going with schoolwork by 10am. They are the ones who may end up working all afternoon.
I am available to everyone for one-on-one help from about 10am to about 3pm. (Actually, I'm available all day, but I try to be free of my school responsibilities by mid-afternoon.) We do read alouds together in the late morning before lunch or early afternoon right after lunch.
By the way, all of you 8am risers are making me feel much better about our routine here.
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~Irene (Mom to 6 girls, ages 7-19)
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dizzylaurel
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Schedule???
I have a teenage night owl, and a morning diva....plus often a couple of other kids who arrive early in the day. I gave up on trying to get them up unless we have somewhere to go; I find they are much more focussed if they follow their own body rhythms.
A ROUGH schedule?? Okay, we usually start the day around 9:30-10:00, and get done by lunchtime. With my oldest, I more or less give her free reign of her time. I hand her a weekly log assignment, and she decides when to complete it all. As long as the work gets done, I don't care if it's at 10 AM or 10PM. Next year that may change a bit in that we'll be doing a high school science lab.
My general rule here is that mom is available for mornings to help with math and other subjects that need help....afternoons I try to at least get some laundry done and putter about. I used to start each year with high expectations of strict schedules and routines, and after four years I've become a more relaxed teacher who starts when the kids are ready. Today my diva woke up at 2:30 and has now just gone back to sleep, so I doubt we'll be starting much before lunch!
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Corrine
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I usally get up between 6:30 and 7 (I'm struggling right now, it takes a few weeks to rest my clock) I toss in laundry, make coffee, take a shower and putter on the computer. Ds usally wakes at some point and we snuggle and have breakfast. The girls are usally awake by 8:30 but have to be called down. They have breakfast and then color while I read for an hour or two. After we do math, and table work type stuff. By then it's lunch. My kids work in their jammies most mornings and go make beds and get dressed while I'm making lunch. I always have few things to tie up after lunch - maybe 15 or 30 minutes with someone and the kids have to practice their instruments. Sometimes this happens right after lunch, sometimes it doesn't happen until before bed, sometimes it just doesn't happen at all. So our afternoons are relatively free for housework, activites and errands. Fridays we do hands on activites or make up missed work.
I thrive on a routine. I get to feeling out of sync and frazzled if we lose that rhythm. I think the kids bicker less and complain less when we're keeping to our daily rhythm, too. But I don't want to be a slave to our plan either.
So I guess I'd call my goal, relaxed, but I don't think that means not getting school and house work done as planned. I think it means doing them without feeling stressed and adjusting with ease when something unexpected comes up. But, boy I really struggle with that unexpected stuff.
Corrine
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Alcat
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Oh boy, this is a struggle for me right now. DS8 give me such a hard time that I have moved school to begin durring breakfast. We begin with religion while they are eating and/or I read a saint, bible or faith story. They really like it and I find reading durring meals keeps the bathroom humor under control 
My oldest (ds8) doesn't transition well  so if I allow him to do anything else he pitches a royal, sullen fit about seat work- we are talking basics here: math, spelling/phonics, primary language lessons- NOT MUCH 
He gives me such a hard time that I find it difficult to work on the minor amount of things with anyone else- ya know, like reading lessons for dd7 and reading some stories or doing math games with my toddler and preschooler I'm sooooo sorry this has turned into a vent
Anyway, it has been good disipline for ALL of us to just go from breakfast to school and I can get to everyone by 11am and if I'm not to burned do some fun stuff in the afternoon....
oh ya I'm a morning person and so are my kids so we start somewhere around 8:30am.... did I mention we have taken this week off?
God Bless,
Alison
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Willa
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Nina Murphy wrote:
| I would be interested in how other mothers feel about this and how they deal with the pressure to provide the routine and constancy and fit it all in with meals and chores and other duties (basically regularly). DO most of you keep to a Mother's Rule of Life; do your children? How do you think this affects you, the children? Are there mothers who are just more relaxed and have a relaxed day with their kids and prefer that and the children seem OK with it? |
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I missed your question earlier.
I've struggled with this -- haven't we all! Like Mary G, my ideal is that there are no compartments between life and learning. So I tried not to assign things or structure the day much during last year.
However, setting no structure was frustrating for me.
I've been thinking in terms of "triggers" recently -- sort of a cowboy western version of Leonie's "pegs" I guess. I find that if we have checkpoints during the day it helps everything to keep running and a lowkey version of this actually helps the kids to have better playing and relaxation times.
I read the Mother's Rule and though the advice about putting Prayer first was worth the price of the book, the rest was a bit overwhelming to me. That's not really how I like to operate.
Later I was at Chari's house and she had a wonderful OOP book called Counsels of Perfection for the Christian Mother. The priest that wrote the book recommended a mother's rule too but he was ONLY talking about prayer and a basically orderly life that makes room for prayer. He didn't give specifics about clocking the day (of course, he wasn't talking specifically to homeschooling moms, either, since this book was written in the 30's or something). For some reason, this made me see the whole Rule thing in a different light. I try not to worry so much about getting the daily details exactly right now.
Somehow if I keep the prayer part in first place, the rest of it falls together better. If I take breathers during the day to pray, and believe me this is not easy to remember for me, then I naturally do informal "examens" where I evaluate how the day is going, where I am letting myself go too much or stressing myself out too much. That gives me a chance to tweak the day back on track before it goes drastically wrong.
I used to experiment with letting the academics wait till the afternoon but I can't seem to do that. Is there a combination of morning and night person? I fade out drastically in the afternoons so I have to plan quieter, slower activities for that time of the day. Mornings and nights are a lot more alert for me.
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Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
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Theresa
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We are up around 7:30 and have breakfast and chores. We usually start school around 9 am and finish either before lunch or shortly after lunch.
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chicken lady
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Theresa good to see you, I was just wondering where you were
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Nina Murphy
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Thank you, dear Willa, for such an awesome post. So often when you write, I feel like I could be writing it. HOw funny---yes, my afternoons are major crash times when I am most in a fog and my mornings and nights, ironically are when I am alert. Why is that? Food? Biorhythms?
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~~Nina
mother of 9 on earth,
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amyable
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In my "fantasy homeschool," I would arise at a decent hour (6:30-7) have a little time to shower, pray, just SIT, before the girls all got up at 7-7:30, they would eat quickly and transition right to chores/seatwork, so that we could be done by lunch, and do nature study, crafts, and "masterly inactivity" in the afternoon. We would run by routines, but since my "fantasy kids" would be very regular and easy going, the routines would pretty much look like a schedule.
Then I wake up.
My reality? Right now I can sum it up in two words. First Trimester. I feel like we are in survival mode right now. But honestly, it doesn't look that much different than most of the past four years - I think for many differernt reasons we've been in semi-survival mode all that time! But at least right now, I MUST NAP by lunch time. If I don't, I am so sick that I can't move by 3 PM or so and I'm *lucky* if dh is home by 6:30 to help out. So, I try to avoid that. I get up with the toddler any time between 4:30 and 6:30 AM (two very irregular, sleepless babies in a row has done a lot to keep us in survival mode!). Preschooler usually up soon after. Dh up at 6:15 and showers, gets ready, goes to work by 7:30. Older girls usually are up by 7, sometimes a little after. I don't normally wake them, although I'm rethinking that. I would LOVE to get more done before our early lunch.
They usually eat by 8, and after a lot of putzing around and trying to get away with no chores and no school, we are usually underway schoolwise by 8:30-9. The girls are STARVING by 10:30 and oldest especially unable to think (blood sugar problems) so we eat lunch then. Since oldest dd fights through a lot of seatwork, we don't usually get everything accomplished in that hour or two before lunch. There is almost always something that needs to still be done after lunch, but I am not there to supervise (I'm off getting toddler to sleep and trying to catch 1/2 hour nap myself). It usually just gets done the next day (maybe).
Afternoons are just a free for all now.  My oldest is not the "masterly inactivity" sort, she is an extreme extrovert and if she isn't actively engaged with someone, she starts melting down. The only thing that occupies her alone is books on tape, which she does love. Before getting pregnant, it was this child who kept us doing school from 8 AM until 4 PM or later - tiny attention span, need for breaks, long periods spent arguing.  I'm glad the pregnancy, and changing some schooling methods, has broken that cycle for now! (At least the schooling until 4 thing, she still argues and has no attention span )
Hmmm, did I answer the question? 
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The Highly Sensitive Homeschooler
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Nina Murphy
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"The girls are starving by 10:30" ---Amy
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I know: what is with that? I can't get anything done because everyone is always needing to EAT!
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God bless,
~~Nina
mother of 9 on earth,
and 2 yet-to-be-met
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amyable
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Nina Murphy wrote:
"The girls are starving by 10:30" ---Amy
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I know: what is with that? I can't get anything done because everyone is always needing to EAT! |
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I've always heard that a high protein breakfast has more sticking power, but with my crew allergic to eggs, dairy, and nuts, we kind of run out of regular palatable protein for breakfast, so we are very carb loaded in the AM. That must account for some of our 10 AM crashes.
I know, Nina, maybe our two families can make a whole curriculum out of cooking. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
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mom of 5, ages 6-16, and happy wife of
The Highly Sensitive Homeschooler
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Nina Murphy
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I've tried everything.......I just have to face facts that it's going to be cereal and fruit first thing upon wakening (even the baby can get this!) and then a mid-morning grazing time---and then maybe I can push back Lunch to Noon!) But then we haven't even gotten to the 3:00 hour.....Or the 8:00 PM one.....!!!!
AAAAAaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! 
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~~Nina
mother of 9 on earth,
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Erin
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At the risk of tomatoes and please, please don't think I mean anyone else here but ME, in regards to dc being morning and night people. I thought I'd tenatively share our journey regards body rythmns. All our dc are night owls as are dh and I. They would sleep in if we let them, one ds in particular struggles with getting up in the morning. Dh STILL struggles with rising in the morning and getting to work on time.
Then one day it occured to me that one day they will have to rise and get to work on time whether they are morning or night people. And they could be facing problems like dh still does of getting to work on time. Imagine their spouses having to pull the sheets off them to get them out the door on time No joke I used to do so to dh I have suggested to ds that he could find a night job, I do think it is a large part of why he talks about being a pastry chef In the meantime we are now waking the dc at 7-7.30am. Please not tomatoes
I also have a dream like Amy's regards the afternoons, I sort of manage the mornings but the reality is I am pettered out by the afternoon, so I don't get the nature study, crafts done in the afternoon. (They are now done on our 'Fun Fridays's, thanks to the 4Real blogger? who I meant to thank for that idea )
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Erin
Faith Filled Days
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extremeknitter
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Erin wrote:
Then one day it occured to me that one day they will have to rise and get to work on time whether they are morning or night people. |
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this is why i make mine get up. when my boys were still schooling here they used to whine about how this is a benefit of homeschooling (not having to get up) and i just slogged along with it. My teen dd is singing the same song, but we drive on.
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: What Time Do You Start ...
