I have 3 girls, ages 2-4-6, and we have been struggling to get our homeschool day going. I know they are all quite young but with my oldest now in 1st grade, I feel more pressure to accomplish our plans for the day. It seems like it takes forever just to get done with breakfast and all 3 showered and ready for the day. My oldest doesn’t want to start her work most days unless I am right next to her giving hery full attention. Do you all have any tips that work for you?
I don’t have too much advice. For one, we do showers at night… brush and braid the hair - so that’s not a factor in our morning routine. Also, when we get up, before the kids can come down for breakfast they need to do 3 things: 1-get dressed, 2- make beds and 3 - put jammies in the laundry hamper. THEN they can have breakfast. They are a lot speedier with these tasks knowing that food is on the other side. After breakfast they brush their teeth then get some free/play time until school begins. Not sure if it would work for your group, but it has done absolute wonders for us. Previously we would just wake up and eat… then it took FOREVER to get them to get dressed, make beds, brush teeth, etc… they just wanted to play. By doing all (but teeth) before breakfast, they are super fast. Then, since they’ve had some free/play time while I clean up dishes and get myself ready for the day they are FAR more willing to start school when I say it’s time. Hope this helps 
6 Likes
Thanks for the tips and insight into your routine. I think having them getting those things done before breakfast would be very helpful. I am finding that often I am not consistent in reminding them. I just have to figure out the shower thing because I cannot seem to find a routine that works. But working on it!
1 Like
At one point I was working with 3 children under 5 and a baby. It was interesting and I had the same problem as you with trying to get our day started, it always seemed like we would start and it would be lunch time, and the day would run away from me. I started waking the children up a earlier in the morning (much earlier), they knew the routine of making their beds, changing their clothes (we also did showers the night before),have breakfast and brush their teeth. The child I baby-sat would come and at this point and we would gather around right away for devotion, I found that this time of devotion or circle time/morning time helped get everyone in the right frame of mind for the day. We would get out some wiggles with singing, finger plays etc… we would spend time with God and I would spell out our routine for the day so that they all knew what to expect and what we would be doing next. This helped so very much in getting everything done for the day. A side note here would be that 1st grade doesn’t have to take up your whole day (we used to do whole days and I’m not sure we are any better for it), enjoy your time and also use naps! Lol By waking the children up earlier they were more likely to have naps and I would know we had that time to have a quiet time or catch up on something else etc….
1 Like