Finishing Lessons by Lunch

We have always finished school by lunch (now with high schoolers, they occasionally finish in the early afternoon). I appreciate that blog post because I got the impression that we were crazy and not doing enough because we were done so quickly. I am glad to know that I might have company. 🙂

I think that it’s not so much our schedule that allows for productive afternoons, but many other factors, including: my kids are very motivated. They know the sooner they are done their work, the sooner they can go do other things. I don’t do every subject every single year; we do the 4 basics (math, English, history, science) plus one extra (geography, logic, etc.). Each of my children has a checklist so they know exactly what to do every day and can get started without me. I believe in short lessons so I choose curriculum accordingly. I only use one program per subject (some people like to supplement and add a lot of extras so they end up doing 3 different math curricula, for example).

But as for a schedule, my rule of thumb is math and English every day, and history and science 3x a week. The extra subject is usually 2x a week, and then we have a few once-a-week things, like art. My high schoolers have science 4x a week and electives 3x, so not much different.

I currently don’t have any obligations preventing us from doing lessons in the morning, thankfully. I purposely schedule appointments and such for the afternoons and limit our outside commitments.

I think that having a good routine adds structure and peace to a home. I can’t imagine the chaos if all five of my kids didn’t know what to do when and were clamoring after me all the time!

I love the idea of productive afternoons. We did more of this when my older kids were smaller, but now they all have their own work and interests that they pursue. I still read aloud to the younger ones in the afternoon, but my teens go out and work with dad, I have one who has many bird feeders on the go and is always filling and monitoring them, they all play outside, and we have a skating rink in our backyard.

Interesting discussion!

Done by lunch has always been our plan.  Like Erin, I used to worry we weren’t doing enough, but I don’t worry much about that anymore.  I also try to choose materials that allow for short lessons, and my older children are also committed to getting done early.

One thing that works well for us, which is kind of the opposite of the example schedules, is that my older children start early, the youngers start later, and we finish with family lesson in the early afternoon.  It gives me time to finish a few things in the morning before I’m needed for school.  And we like being done around the same time so that no one is still working while others are off playing.  Of course, it doesn’t work like clockwork, but that’s the general routine.

It has taken me 11 years to tweak our routine, but it is finally working well for us.  We only school 4 days per week. Dad is off on Friday, and we got used to HOD’s schedule back when we did it. 🙂

But, my 8th and 10th grader get started right after breakfast on independent work.  My 5th, 3rd and 1st graders play outside after getting chores done.  I finish cleaning up the kitchen, getting ready, etc.  Then I do English (ULW 3) with my two oldest and check to see if they need any help with Algebra and Geometry.

I call the littles in, and we work through their subjects.  I check back with my oldest two and help with anything they need, and then we have lunch.

After lunch, we meet in the living room and have family time.  After family time, we have “naptime”, but I’m the only one who actually naps. 🙂  The rest of them are to read, draw or listen to audio books or Adventures in Odyssey.  They are also able to watch a show together when naptime is over so that I have a little bit longer time in my room. 🙂

Then the rest of the afternoon is playing outside, board games, baking, crafts, etc.  We do have ballet, band and piano lessons on two afternoons.  But piano lessons are at my mom’s house, and they enjoy playing outside, games or crafts there.

My older two also have French and Spanish class on one morning, but there is a study hall where they can finish their work while the other is in class.  We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to use an actual classroom setting for foreign language at that level.  Otherwise, we have tried to keep all outside classes in the afternoon.

Even though we are off on Fridays, we still read, read, read. 🙂  By keeping read-alouds every day, we keep learning an atmosphere.  We also often try to use Fridays as something nature related.

It’s probably more information than you needed, but it’s been working well lately.

Tristan, I can’t remember if you’ve mentioned somewhere what you are using for family history and science this year.

LOL, glad you found it Keri! I’m using The Good and the Beautiful History 1 (loving it, only 6 lessons left for the year). For science for the 5th grade and under crowd we have done a mix of studies on our own and will be trying out some of TGTB science units in Feb/Mar/Apr/May that I’ve collected for free over the last year or two.

We are never ever done by lunch. Not because we do s much, but we simply are not morning people. Sometimes we dont even start till lunch! That being said we do have a routine and out school day is never more than 5 hours with breaks, projects and rabbit trails. We typically start about 10am. A typical day would look like this:

10 – 11ish family time (history, bible, enrichment, foreign lang, geography)

11-12 independent work, I bounce from kid to kid as needed

12-1 lunch, read aloud

1-3 finish independent work, science experiment or handicraft

I think the main take away is that school should not be a wild beast that consumes your world. As long as lessons are short and enjoyable (as much as possible anyway) the time is not the most important thing.

My daughter is 16 (will be 17 in a couple of weeks) and we could finish by 1ish if we chose to but we prefer to be a bit more relaxed in our routine. We often finish formal school by 2:00. We don’t even begin lessons until 10 because we have a longish P.E. time every morning. That gives us 2 hours of work before lunch and 2 hours after. It works well for us. We live in South Florida where it is too hot to do much out of doors in the afternoons for much of the year so we’ve learned to get our exercise and fresh air in the mornings before school starts. We also get out in the evenings when it cools off.

We really enjoy our literature so we often spend extra time on that subject in the afternoons. My daughter also draws, paints every afternoon and knits or crochets on many evenings.

Just to keep it real, she also plays video games every afternoon and we enjoy nightly family tv time as well! We are faithful jeopardy watchers and HGTV fans 😀 I throw this tidbit in even though it has nothing to do with the topic just to add some reality to my post. Sometimes these types of discussions can make it sound like we are perfect families with perfect children who only pursue extremely worthwhile and noble goals. That’s certainly not the case in my family!