time of day to start with kindergartener?

[mommyofgirls]

we are starting K this year (LHFHG) and i am noticing as the summer goes on that, with the way things are now, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to get started any time before 9:30. not because i'm not up, but because my 5 yo sleeps in some days and because we do all of our upstairs chores before we head to the main floor (make beds, get dressed, start laundry, etc.). i wondered what in the WORLD would we do if we had to be at school at 8:00 a.m.?

i wondered, do you all establish an earlier bedtime, wake up time, etc. during your "school year"? i want to be flexible, but i might lose my mind if it is 10:00 every morning and we've only done Bible!

[my3sons]

I was just thinking the same thing the other day - we get started with our day a lot later in the summer. We have a slower pace, and are much more, relaxed about how things go. Last summer, I remember thinking the same thing, as the summer ended and the beginning of school was approaching. So, last year, I decided to hang on to the slow start of the day, and let them do their chores and play first. We started school at 9:15 then. We had a big break in the middle of our school day for lunch and recess (like from noon to 1:30 PM or so). We finished school later then, of course - like around 2:30 or so. We did this schedule for a couple of months, and it was about at this time that we had a chat about trying to start school at 8:15 instead, not take a middle break, and be done instead by around 12:00 or 12:30 PM. My older ds wanted to try it, my middle ds did not (he didn't want to miss his morning playtime). I made the decision to try it for a month to see what we all thought of it. I had to move a few of their morning chores (i.e. unload the dishwasher, clean the bathroom counters/mirrors) to later in the day and we had to stop the morning playtime, but other than that we made no changes to the order of our day (the order we did the boxes of plans in).

We LOVED being done by lunch time! Even my middle ds came to love it because he realized he finished earlier than lunch time anyway (he was doing Beyond Little Hearts), and he loved playing after that with toddler brother, and then the whole rest of the day with older brother after lunch. So, I tell you all of this in the hopes that it may help you as you think through this. I've decided that once school begins, we'll start getting up at 7:15 again, start school by 8:15, and school straight through until lunch. I'll move half the morning chores they're doing now to mid-afternoon, and we'll skip the morning playtime up in their rooms. I did keep a 15 minute playtime for everyone outdoors first thing in the morning, to let out and feed the dogs, and for my dc to get some of their "wiggles" out - but I set the timer and kept it short on purpose. HTH as you think through what you'd like to do! For kindergarten, you only have 1 1/2 hours to plan for your day, so you can easily start that later - but I've found my dc are freshest in the morning (and I am too). As long as you are done by lunch time, I think you'll be just fine. Thanks for the reminder so I remember to do this myself!

In Christ,
Julie

[WigglesMom]

I don't think the time of day to start matters as much as getting into a routine and figuring out what order doing the boxes works for you. I do 3 programs with 4 kids and we aim to school 9-2. Each kid has video and computer time scheduled in as well as recess and lunch. This does draw my day out but it gives me time to work one on one with math and reading with each kid. My ds6 who is doing LHFHG starts at 10 and is done by 12.
I have done the rush, rush, rush get 4 kids up and ready and to ps by 7:55 so I want to wake up and relax and let the kids wake up, get dressed, eat, groom and come to the table ready to learn. Not rushed and frazzled and grumpy. So I schedule an hour for all these things before we start school. Everyone is different and some people are morning people and some are not.
I do think getting to bed at a decent hour helps with how they wake up. I aim to have ds2 asleep (not just in bed but asleep) by 8 pm and the bigger kids in bed by 9-10 pm. I wake mine up at 8 am and they know school starts at 9. I think it really depends on what you want to have done first. If you want to school early and finish early then you could move your picking/cleaning up to after school. Or if you want to start school after morning chores you would still finish before lunch.
Val

[gotpeace91]

We like to be done earlier in the day so we are going to start at 8. Besides my sister will still be on break with her kids so we want to be done by noon so we can get together and do stuff in the afternoon. We have been getting up around 9 or 10 but I am using this week of VBS to ease us into earlier days. We have to get up at 8 to be ready for VBS at 9. So that way when we start school next week it will be a little easier to get up at 7. You could try this, easing into it week by week, maybe getting up half an hour or an hour earlier each week until you've gotten used to it. IF you want to get up earlier. I think that each family has to figure out what works best for them. As for me and my kids we are ALL fresher in the morning. My kids get whiny and difficult if I let it go too late in the day. We do adjust bedtime accordingly though.

[mommyofgirls]

thanks! i think we may be more stringent on a much earlier bedtime in the fall. we are asleep by 9 most nights anyway, but my 5 yo needs about 12 hours of sleep consistently, so 8 would be better this fall. it feels weird to think about waking her up at 8 if she is still asleep..we've never consistently had somewhere we need to be, so i haven't done that much. does anyone use an alarm clock for this age?

[WigglesMom]

Since I am such a horrible person to wake up in the morning, I have used an alarm clock with my kids since they were 5. They had one in their room and all. The only thing is they figure out how to use the snooze button just like we do.
Val

[SoaringEagle]

Since my daughter is NOT a morning person we start school later, like 10am. Since this year we'll be doing LHFHG complete, then I might try and start at 9:45am instead.