Our Schedule

I mentioned that our family has begun a schedule. It is a life saver! I even get a full hour of rest time without any argument! Here is ours, and I'll explain it. Make sure that your schedule works for you. Make sure there is enough flexibility that you have time to go to the grocery store and the park!



Hopefully you can just click on that to see it bigger. The green column is me, pink is older dd, and purple is younger dd (by the way everything in our house that can be pink or purple is, and the girls know who is pink and who is purple).

I start with my quiet time and computer time. My girls have been trained to know that they are to interrupt me minimally during this time. I have milk in a containter in the fridge that Mary Helen can easily work herself. She is in charge of fixing hers and Anna's milk. None of us are morning people, so it works well for us to leave each other alone for the most part. It's 8:23, and Anna's still sleeping. When she wakes up she will have her milk and park in front of the tv while she wakes up. I'm sure I'm poisoning my kids with all the Dora and Curious George.

At 9, we all have breakfast together and I read a story out of our children's Bible.

After breakfast, Mary Helen does her chores. She needs very little direction or help from me, thanks to the chore chart (see a few posts down for those).

During school, I spend about 30 minutes on lessons with Mary Helen, then she does workboxes on her own. I am in and out of the kitchen where she works to answer questions and guide her through. It rarely takes her until 12 to complete her work. When she finishes, she is allowed to have free time. Anna has activities in her own workboxes that she can do, but she usually chooses not to. She's only 2, and I'm not ready to push those things. I usually only change her activites out once a week unless it is a coloring sheet that she has completed.

During lunch, we all sit together again and I read a few stories to them.

Quiet time is the best time of the day! I set our timer for one hour and they are in different rooms. The rule is that they must stay on the bed, can only play with what's in their bag, and they must be quiet. Last week, they each napped about twice. I napped about everyday :).

Our activity time varies each day. Lots of days it is a craft, sometimes we will bake together, and other days we may go for a walk, blow bubbles, or some other outside activity. The idea is that I will be spending this time with them. This is really the trick to getting quiet time to work...they have something to look forward to.

During their free time, they can be in the playroom or outside, doing pretty much whatever they want (within our rules of course).

Now, that's a lot of words! If you have any questions, I'd be glad to try to answer them.