Our routines are pretty regular around our house, but not exclusively so scheduled down to the minute to where I feel like a failure should we not meet the appointed "10:55: walk the dog" mandate. That routine has never worked for me. I do respect and admire those who it does work for but every time I've tried it, I've felt my servant heart stifled by my own worry of getting it all done. I can't seem to separate the two I guess so its better for me to work this way.  

I am up before 6 every day with my husband. This is typically 5:30 but sometimes it is VERY much earlier (especially, if I feel like I need to do more in depth study on my own) but on occasion I might be a bit lazy and sleep an extra 15 minutes :-)

Our children must be up, showered, dressed, with breakfast eaten by 8:30 and at the table working on school. That also includes morning chores being accomplished as well. These might be chores such as walking the dogs, putting away dishes from the dishwasher, or putting their stack of laundry away if there is any for them that day. Their future employers are not going to schedule their morning routine and so, now that they are nearly all in their teen years, we feel they need to be responsible for these bits of scheduling on their own. There is an assortment of breakfast items for them to choose from but occasionally I will still cook a nice hot breakfast, or Victoria may make muffins. In any case, it is ready by about 7:45 so if they plan their time wisely, then there is no excuse for them to not be at their appointed work on time.

Everyone reads their Bible and does their devotion work for the day first thing. This is a must! After that, everyone is able to work at their own pace, and in their own order of subject that best suits them until after lunch. We do our "together" work after lunch and so any individual work not finished will have to be put off until later and that will eat into their "friend" time later in the evening.

Now, it is very possible, and quite probable on most days, that everyone is finished with their individual work WAY before lunch and so we go ahead and start our shared work. Most days our school is finished by noon. Today is an exception and we are still working at 1:30 and will probably be doing so for another hour. It just happens to be a bit of an extra workload because we chose to take an extra day off yesterday to spend with Dad. We need to accomplish at least four days of school, though, and so we divided the extra work between the days available.  

Afternoon chores (rooms cleaned, trash out, dogs walked, dishes, bathrooms, leaves raked, etc..) must be completed after school is complete, and before anyone can have any "free" time. My own work (like laundry, food prep for dinner, or other household chores) is usually done throughout the day in between helping answer questions and teaching a subject so I can spend time with my husband after he comes home. I try not to be busy with chores when he is here. That is one of the reasons Mondays are busy for me.... I've ignored the house on the weekends in order to show my husband love and respect :-)

We have church several times a week. We also have swimming several times a week.  They are very much part of our routines! We don't go lots of places and do lots of things. We all are very comfortable with being home-bodies because of the amount of time we already are away at church and swimming. We don't ever have the desire to feel like we have to be on the move constantly. I like field trips but I prefer family trips so if I can do it with my husband on a weekend and have us all together, then that is what I'll do every time! We definitely aren't the field trip a week homeschool family...lol.

Oh, I print out a lot of work for the children from the computer/internet from old books and lessons I create from old books (I've talked about that before). I usually print out a daily list of work but will also usually give them a stack of printed material at the beginning of the week that covers the whole week. Again, this puts more responsibility on them for organizing the workload. If I ask everyday "are you finished" and they answer "yes" but on Friday I collect the work and it isn't then they have given away their freedom (at the very least) for the weekend as well as chosen a failing grade for that work. I have not yet experienced this problem. I won't say it won't ever happen but we've always worked on instilling a good work ethic in our children and pray that it sticks with them.

I try to cook dinner every single day. Lunch is something small like sandwiches, ramen, or veggies/fruit/cheese plate. I keep it simple and easy but I love cooking so dinner is where I really try to make it good. We do "Sunday" dinners everyday pretty much! Wednesdays are an exception as that is our church family dinner and Victoria and I cook for that once a month. We are just starting this schedule back up for the first time today so are just kinda waiting to see how Wednesdays pan out.

We don't do much of anything on our free nights except be veggies! We might play games, or watch a movie, or read a book. Sometimes we'll go for a walk, or have a discussion with the whole family on politics or the Bible study we are doing at church. We just try and keep the schedule clear and enjoy each other!

I know my homeschool routine will be very different from lots of people but hopefully it feels like home to others :-) If you want to share your routine as part of the HSBA homeschool memoirs meme, click here.

In Christ,

Sallie