An Average Day in Home School

I was asked recently to describe an average day in Home Schooling; this is quite a difficult thing to do because at times you have to think on your feet and adapt what you have planned to suit what you child wants to do. As most of you know I share custody with the boys mum for half the week so we split the week and the style of education in two. This is actually far easier than you would think and seems to work well for William.



Home Schooling, like Parenting, offers a range of styles to approach how you do it; depending on what you prefer and what your child responds to is the most important thing.  

(I will be covering the different styles and approaches in another post soon)

In theory, with all going to plan, our Home School day looks like this:

9:20 – 9:30           Reading

We use this time to read schooled level books; I personally enjoyed as a teacher the Chip, Kipper and Floppy books within the Oxford reading School scheme as they offer guided words as well as age appropriate levels.

9:30 – 10:00        Literacy

Using my previous knowledge of curriculum resources as a teacher we use the Collins Literacy Scheme; this provides a breakdown of lesson plans, important learning objectives as well as writing resources. As the photo shows we have also produced a word wall as well as a handwriting display.

10:00 – 10:30      Numeracy

Again, as with Literacy, my previous teaching knowledge became useful; we follow the Abacus Numeracy scheme. The scheme follows topics that progress through terms and through ability and are often full with colourful, easy to follow activities. We've also produced a multiplication table on the wall as well as number charts and progress sheets.

10:30 – 11:00      Break and Snack

I know that we have only been going for an hour here but I think a break is completely necessary. When I worked in classes you usually did an introduction to the topic/lesson and from that present the activity and work your way around the class. On a one to one level you need less time to do this but something that I realised early on was how intense one to one activities were.

11:00 – 11:30      Music

On a Monday we spend realistically 20 minutes learning the recorder. It is a fairly basic instrument but at the same time allows easy access to learning how to read music. On a Tuesday we spend time learning the Piano. As a piano teacher this is far the easiest subject for me to teach but there are also some great sites that provide free resources.

By this point we usually go pick James up from Nursery although we only have a couple of months left there until he joins us in our home school day.

12:30 – 13:00      Lunch

13:00 – 14:30      Topics

If you have followed some of my previous Home School post you will remember there being a post about planning and organising topics. (If not please click here*) We usually spend at least one of our afternoons following the topic;  the topics vary from animals, castles, recycling and eating healthy,as well as 

We usually spend a little while to print photos off, stick them into books and write captions etc in the late afternoon. 

We also find free reading before bed is a way to engage in reading something that isn't a schooled book.

I hope this has shed some light for some of you on what our average day Home Schooling is like.

I know that this shows very little time for social interaction which I know is something a lot of people have worries or questions over. As mentioned above I have a post coming out about the different styles of Home Schooling, I will also post soon about social interaction so pop back soon.