Why We Use A Daily Rhythm

My top homeschool tip as a homeschooling/unschooling family is to have a daily rhythm and visual schedule!

If you aren’t one for strict daily schedules with buckets of curriculum and checklists, then keep reading!

Why We Don’t Do Schedules

Before you go into uber planning mode before the new school year starts, think about when you feel best.

Yes, stop for a minute and think about when you mentally feel the best. Is it when you go on vacation? Is it when your husband takes a couple of weeks off from work and you just enjoy life and forget about the schedule?

Oooop. There is it.

No matter how “organized” you are or how much you “plan” or how well you stick to your “schedule”, I bet you feel the BEST when you’re not married to whatever schedule you try to hold. Amiright?

Please don’t ruin your homeschool by trying to make your homeschooling look like public school with a strict hourly schedule!

So often I am asked how I do it all, how I stay organized, and how I plan everything out for all 5 kids. The truth is, I don’t. #sorrynotsorry

I tried the hustle and grind, I tried that fast-paced, try-to-get-everything-done-in-a-day kind of life. And I didn’t like it. I spent most of my 20s complaining about how much I had to do, how much I wasn’t getting done, or how discouraged I was that I didn’t accomplish everything on my list and had to add it to tomorrow’s list, compounding the stress and discouragement further.

I’m here to tell you that you don’t NEED a schedule. If you have one and you are super organized and everyone in your house adheres to your beautiful schedule, well then you are a magical fairy, I’m really impressed, and you can ignore my advice.

However, if you are sick and tired of the hamster wheel and are dreading trying to plan out your homeschool year… This is your permission slip to NOT plan everything out.

You don’t need to plan out every subject, every book, every activity, every hour, every day. You don’t need to write out ambitious lesson plans for the next 9 months only to kick yourself in December and then again in June when everything didn’t go as planned.

All of life is learning. Even if you don’t plan it. It’s ok to have goals, but if trying to meet those goals is just stressing you out, making you yell at your kids, pull your hair out, and chug coffee like your life depends on it, then it might be time to take a step back and try something different.

NEW IDEA: Try NOT trying to plan out your whole school year. Keep a journal and write down what you DID instead of what you want to do. Just try it for a month and see if everything doesn’t go a whole lot smoother and more peaceful. Report back with your findings. (I have a feeling you will be thanking me SO much for telling you this!)

How We Set Up A Daily Rhythm

there are so many things that have helped our home education experience, the one that has made the biggest impact on me as a homeschooling mom is our “daily rhythm” visual schedule!

We use the Visual Daily Rhythm Cards from Treehouse Schoolhouse and I’m really pleased with how well it’s working for our family! (Use code RAISINGSAINTS for 10% off)

I printed out the Visual Daily Rhythm Cards on heavy watercolor paper and they are SO PRETTY! The watercolor paper makes the graphics look more rustic and the font is still easy to read for my early reader.

My two non-readers love this visual schedule too because they are starting to remember what the pictures represent and know what to expect. This has been especially helpful for my autistic son!

Because the textured watercolor paper is so pretty, I didn’t want to laminate them and use velcro strips like Lindsey suggests, so I opted to get one of those Daily Schedule Pocket Charts ($12 on Amazon).

You can grab our Daily Rhythm Cards
from Treehouse Schoolhouse here.

Even if you send your kids to public school, a visual schedule like this can still be helpful, especially on the weekends. I highly recommend it!

Also, I LOVE this clock for teaching kids to tell time. My youngest learned how to tell time at 3-years-old because of this awesome wall clock.

The one you see pictured often in my reels is the one on the left but we recently got the one on the right for our dining room and I like ever better because it has the numbers for the minutes around the outside. It’s a little more expensive, but if you can afford it, I would get the Oyster one!

Did you see something else in our school room you wanted? You can probably find it here in our Amazon Storefront!

Why It Works

As New Englanders, we tend to have a farmer’s mentality and we live according to the weather. In the morning, the first thing I look at on my phone is the weather! If I see the weather is nice in the monring, but rain is forecasted for the afternoon, we don’t waste it. I’ll pile everyone outside first thing for breakfast at the picnic table followed by tending to the garden, doing yard work, playing, and exploring because I know we will have time for indoor stuff later when it rains.

This is why we have a daily rhythm instead of a strict schedule! If I was adhering to a strict schedule and let a piece of paper run my life, I’d be sitting my kids at the table for school work during the best part of the day only to have them finish when it’s raining, eliminating their ability to get sun and fresh air that day.

When you embrace this level of flexibility in your life and lean into this slow way of living, you’ll find yourself (and your kids) a lot more calm and way less stressed!

If you’re on the fence about throwing away your hourly/daily schedule, please just try it for a WEEK. Just one week and see if you don’t feel better about how your day actually FEELS. Lean into the slow living. The fast-paced, hustle and grind is super overrated. Will you “get it all done”? Probably not, but that’s not the oint. Maybe we don’t need to get it all done. Maybe it’s ok to slow down and savor their childhood instead of rushing from one thing to the next.

Did you know that you get an extra 16,000+ hours with your kids because you decided to homeschool them?

Don’t waste it rushing around, trying to cram as much into each day as you can, and anxiously cleaning your house till midnight!

The dishes will still be right where you left them. The laundry will still be sitting in the dryer waiting for someone to (never) get around to folding it. 🙃 Just slow down, go outside, and try to enjoy LIFE with your kids, mama!