How to Manage Time Efficiently

 How to Manage Time Efficiently

Time management is something every homeschooler would like to have under control. It’s even more important during the holidays when break after break disrupts your flow. Some may wonder, how can you homeschool effectively if you’re continuously taking breaks?

Stick to “Dailies”

Most homeschoolers refer to the “dailies” as the subjects that must be done on a daily basis. This is usually because these subjects run on a 5-day-a-week schedule and skipping a day usually throws the schedule off. This often causes families to do “Saturday school” or double up, it’s obvious that most kids would prefer not to do this.. Every family’s dailies will be different (depending on the curriculum you’ve chosen), but for many these include language arts, science, and history/social studies and math.

Create a Schedule Just for December

While we’ve pointed out before that it might be a good idea to change your Daily Schedule on a seasonal basis, you could also change your Daily Schedule just to suit December. Start by writing down your family’s natural rhythm (the things that seem to take place and in what order they occur) and be sure to note how long these tasks usually take. Do this with no time pressure, make observations, and log your findings. Remember, if needed you can rotate certain subjects/topics every other day. Just don’t panic if you don’t get to it all.

Once you’ve logged everything that happens, it’s easy to turn that into a December Daily Schedule. You may find that your schedule includes things such as morning coffee/book basket time, math studies, group history studies, science (separate or together), and language arts with each child. Whatever it includes, it must work for your family and fit your lifestyle.

Relax and Create a Checklist

Because creating a schedule doesn’t work for everyone, start a homeschool log. Rather than having requirements for each day, take note of what DOES happen and log it for every subject. Record how much time your children spend on each subject. Using this as a daily plan, cross off large projects as you complete them. In many instances, you’ll be surprised at how much more children will accomplish when the amount covered is left up to them!

The holidays present their own unique challenges to homeschoolers. While the public schools do school every day, we have the ability to “do” school based on what works best for our families. For some, that means creating a December-specific schedule while for others that means having no schedule at all. What have you found works best for your family during the holidays?

OTHER TOPICS IN THIS ISSUE