We’re a year round homeschool family, so what “normal” homeschooling looks like for us is drastically different depending what season you find us in. Most homeschool families actually look different from season to season and that’s perfectly fine!
If you’ve watched our videos before, welcome back! We appreciate you! If you’re new here welcome! I’m Tonya Johnson and I am The Holiday Homeschooler. I believe that learning should be fun, so what I do is work with homeschool parents to put the fun back into homeschooling while focusing on keeping a biblical worldview.
Today we’re going to be talking all things “Winter” Homeschooling. What does our normal day to day look like (or at least what we plan for them to look like), and how we cover everything “required” plus all of the fun extras while only schooling an average of 3 days per week. Yes it is possible, let me show you.
Here’s my 10 yr old daughter’s normal school routine through the winter.
We average 3 days per week over the course of 52 weeks. During the year, we’ll have weeks that have 4 days per week and also weeks that have 2 days per week, so it averages out to 3 school days per week.
First thing she does when she wakes up is tidy up her bedroom, bathroom, and the classroom.
We try really hard to keep the house clean the “lazy genius way”, by cleaning as you go, so usually this takes her less than 30 min to tidy up all 3 rooms and make her bed. If you haven’t read the Lazy Genius Way yet, I highly recommend! I first read it 3 years ago, and it’s been a total game changer in multiple areas of my life.
Next she does her devotions and her Jesus Journaling.
If you’re not familiar with Jesus Journaling, click here. During this time the focus is on her building that relationship with Jesus. There’s a lot of flexibly with this. What I have her do daily is:
-1 chapter of the Bible - we just started in Matthew and she’ll read a chapter per day until she finishes the Bible in however many years it takes. The goal is building that daily habit, not reading through the bible in a certain amount of time.
- Jesus Journaling, sleep and mood tracking
- devotional book - We alternate between her Awana book and her master club book. I really like these because they’re a good mix of a devotional with plenty of scripture, but they still have a real life application as well as an emphasis on scripture memory.
It's also worth nothing that she does the above portion of her routine 6-7 days per week, not just on “normal” school days.
Next up is the walk we take together around our neighborhood. PE class if you will. This varies between 30 and 60 min depending on the day.
When we come back from our walk we eat breakfast and read together. I meal prep twice per week, so the food is already prepared. It just needs warmed up.
I like to start school around 10, and from 10-12 we do our core four: bible, language arts, spelling, and math. These are the four we do every day. Unlike her devotional time, this portion of our Bible time revolves around Bible knowledge.
At 12 we take a 45 lunch break while we watch world watch and funny videos.
At 1245 we have another 2 hours where we do our loop subjects.
We usually do these every day also, they’re typically 15 min or less each, but if our science lesson for example takes a little longer one day then we simply double up on another subject the next. When I’m scheduling our days, I try not to put more than one hands on project per day because hands on always takes longer than 15 min. So if I have a hands on history project one day, I’m not scheduling a SEL craft for the same day. The 5 subjects we loop are: financial literacy, history, geography, science, and social emotional learning.
After school we do a fun craft or play a game.
We usually take turns choosing a game to play. If we have a project from school that day that we didn’t get done for whatever reason, then we’ll do that project during that hour of time instead.
Glori then gets an hour of screen time followed by an hour of independent learning where she does her homework and/or her daily independent subjects.
Her homework is anything we started that day that she's been assigned to finish on her own. Her independent subjects are typing and then a program we use for multiplication practice called Tables Fables. While Glori's doing her screen time and her homework, I'm making dinner and doing a quick clean of the house.
From 5-9 I’m working which includes:
-tutoring
-returning emails/social messages
-creating digital products, writing blogs
-preparing for in person class or ministry (history or discipleship)
My husband is waking up around that time also since he works third shift, so from 5-9 Glori is eating dinner, taking her bath, and relaxing with dad or playing while she winds down for the night. Her bedtime is 8pm. Do we always stick to it? Nope! But we do try.
Special Days
How are we able to do only 3 days per week when our state requires 180 days? We do a bunch of special school days throughout the year in addition to our normal school days.
2x per month we do co-op where Glori takes writing, science, and history.
1x per month:
All day baking day
All day card making day
All day game day with friends
Here’s the breakdown:
3 days a week for 52 weeks = 156 days
12 co-op days
12 baking days
12 card making/writing
12 party days
That brings us up to 204 school days per year.
1-2x per week we plan on heading to the trampoline park with friends
These aren't additional school days, but they are something we plan to do regularly over the next couple month. On days we’re going to go to the trampoline park with friends, we’ll usually skip the hour of game time, I plan a much easier dinner, possibly a crockpot meal, and I shorten my cleaning routine for that day.
That’s what our winter school schedule looks like.
We’re pretty excited to get started back up, well I am at least. Taking December off was a much needed break for both of us, but I think I actually needed it even more than Glori did. I’ve told the story before, but last year, Christmas 2023, I remember sitting at my desk on dec 17 just thinking how much I had already missed the christmas season. We hadn’t really done much as a family, I was spending my days working and trying to get school work done, and it just felt like there was no magic. When I made my goals for 2024, my big one was figuring out how to take December off of work and school. We did just that. From thanksgiving to christmas we took off, and let me tell you it was seriously the best christmas we’ve ever had! Having said that, a month of fun makes you ready to get back to normal.
What does your winter schedule look like? I’d love to hear down in the comment section or over on my social media page. See y’all next week!
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