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I have always been a "fly by the seat of your pants" kind of person. Schedules are *hard* for me.

We tend to do things in a certain *order* during the day, but start and end times are not ever the same.

I have a very good friend that insists that a well planned and well followed schedule is the key to sanity.

I own a copy of and have read Managers Of Their Homes by Terri Maxwell. It is a book that literally has you plan out every 15 minute block of each family member's day. That sounds torturous!

I'd love your opinions on schedules!

Nope...I don't schedule. I am an organised person with self-discipline and only 2 kids....that is enough for me. I don't like a piece of paper telling me what I should be doing all day. It works for me so I am happy to keep going with this. I get too bored if I do things the same way every day. I start and stop at the same time, meal times are the same, but we have been mixing it up in regards to the order of boxes we do because I find the same boxes can take different amounts of time each day depending on the activity that goes with it.

I do understand why people like schedules....but my personality is too stubborn I think! Lol.

I think a schedule is only useful if I have a purpose for making it... I have MOTH as well, and I go ahead and develop a schedule for us about once a year, mainly becuase it really makes me think about how long things take, who's doing what when, and it helps uncover and resolve problem areas for me. Once it's developed and tweaked to "reasonability", it's more of a guideline I can follow as a routine, and then refer to when I wonder, for example, why laundry isn't ever getting folded and put away anymore. I look back and see that I've gotten away from giving the baby some alone time after lunch in her portable crib, and so everything else gets pushed back, and so on In reality, we follow the routine with certain "anchor times", such as baby's naps and meal times, etc. If we get to naptime without something getting done, sometimes it gets shelved until the next day, and I just pick up where we ought to be by then, and try again the next day

Our family starts with a schedule, but it ends up being our routine. It helps my ds to have some kind of written time to refer to as he flows through his day and for him, as he becomes more independent, to be more organized. He thrives being able to look at the schedule, know what to do next and not have to wait for me. Our goal is to move from activity/subject to activity smoothly. Our schedule enables us to do that. So, for us, we like to be scheduled. It helps us accomplish school consistently and in a more disciplined manner. We start with half hour blocks of time, but we really don't follow that after the first couple of weeks. It just helps us have an idea of how long activities should take.

IMHO, every family is so different that you have to find what works for you. I read and used Managers of Their Homes, but found it cumbersome for us. We do need a schedule to keep things consistent (especially important with my special needs ds), and we tend to begin and end ABOUT the same time daily, but it is not set in stone. At the end of every day we evaluate whether or not we accomplished God's purpose for our day and if not, what we should change to live pleasing to Him the next day.

Oh, one last thing, a schedule is a TOOL to help those of us who need it...I do But, it does not dictate our day to us. It sounds to me like you already have a schedule that works for you! Do YOU feel like you need a schedule or are you accomplishing all that you hope to every day without one? For me, I accomplish more when I can see what I need to do everyday in an orderly manner.

We aren't scheduled down to the minute. I made a schedule with times to start our year, and then we get a good routine going and don't watch the clock. We functioned ok with no real written or planned schedule up until last year...but I'm telling you that doing it the way we do now saves me a TON of mental energy!! My kids know exactly what's next and so I'm not answering the "Mom can we _____?", "Can I have a snack now?", "Ohhhh, do I have to do school n-o-w? I wanted to watch a movie..." questions all morning while we're trying to do school. We do need a consistent start time here because otherwise we don't finish before that GIANT speed bump called lunch.

You may function fine without a schedule, but having that routine going for me gives me endurance in homeschooling. I don't have the frazzledness that comes to me when I feel like I'm juggling too many questions and needs all at once. I know that I'm not going to burn out as quickly - or at all. But, that may just be my sanity-saver, not yours.

Kathleen

I do not like schedules. I resist them when at all possible! God has a way of making one work on these things though. When my twins were born, the only way I could survive taking care of two of them was to be on a schedule. It was my sanity. So I learned to live by a schedule. Then as they got older, I loosened up again and we broke away from the schedule and fell more into a routine. Before we started school this year, my dh and I decided that our dc needed more structure to their day, so kicking and screaming, I decided to make a schedule. So I made schedules for all of us and it has been wonderful. It has made school and home flow so much more smoothly. We have fallen more into a routine instead of a schedule at this point, but we always have the schedule to fall back on when our days don't seem to be flowing smoothly. It has been one of our best years of school so far and I think the schedule is part of that. It really helps my dc to know what they are supposed to be doing and when. It's helping them learn to be more responsible for their time and that is such an important thing as we are trying to get them to be more independent.

I could have written Kathleen's post. That is us exactly. The schedule very quickly becomes more of a routine for us, and it is what makes our days function well. I think the more dc we have, and the busier we get, some type of routine or schedule is probably helpful. BUT, does everyone have to have a schedule? Probably not. I'd say 2 things are important to consider when it comes to considering scheduling...
1) Is school getting done consistently each day?
2) Are you pretty pleased with the way it's going?

If the answer is "no" to either one, and you don't have a schedule/routine, why not give it a whirl? I know many find a schedule confining, but I find it freeing. Perhaps a middle of the road approach would be best if you don't like schedules, but are finding a change may be good? For example, you could schedule blocks of time for working with each child, but change the order of the boxes you work through within that block each day. In this way, you have a routine time to work with each child, but what you do in that time is not technically scheduled, and you could still have that fly by the seat of your pants feeling, just within a block of time. That's just an idea, but I deeply desire homeschooling to be a relatively happy thing for each of us, for us to feel like we made it through the days together pretty well, and that when it's all said and done, we look back and think it was a very good thing to do. I think those are realistic goals, for to desire to have perfect homeschooling days year after year is to desire something that IMO is impossible. So, if not using a schedule gives you that - hooray! If using a schedule gives you that - hooray! If sort of using a schedule and sort of not gives you that - hooray! But experimenting with it is worth it until you get that "hooray" in some way! Good question! Praying for you as you ponder it.

In Christ,
Julie

Routine not schedule is the best way we do it.

Jenn

I usually make up a schedule at the beginning of the school year just to get an idea of how things will go, but we end up settling into more of a routine.