There has so much talk lately about planning and about the pros and cons of setting up a detailed plan for your family and your homeschool. "Why do it to yourself?", people wonder. Why set your heart on a to-do list for the day that will never get done? Why plot out a plan that will likely be interrupted by illness, a house that demands your attention, outside activity or some other pressing issue more often than not. Is it really better for your family for you to be aggravated and annoyed because your off-schedule than it is to just go with the flow?
For me, the answer is simple. I need a plan. In order to wake up each day and take up my duties joyfully, diligently, I need a plan. In order to pursue excellence in effort and in virtue, I need a plan. In one book of homemaking that I read, the author commented on the fact that given modern-day washing machines, fabrics, dying processes, it really isn't all that necessary to sort laundry. But, she went on, it is helpful to do so because it gives the task some order. It allows us to see its beginning, middle, and end and to find the motivation therein to get going. For me, it is the same with a daily routine. There are many, many mornings when I wake up, stumble through the house to the coffee pot, look around, and am completely dismayed by the thought of what I should do first. Luckily, prayer and coffee are the reliable starting points for each and every day. Unloading the dishwasher and starting the laundry follow. Getting dressed and making breakfast is next. By the time I've walked through these first steps, I'm in the groove, and I can keep chugging along quite well until just after lunch time, when I get tired and start to move slowly. And again, the routine serves its purpose. Just as I feel myself slumping, it is nap time for little guys, outside play time for big guys. I change and cuddle babies, sip a cup of tea, and get off my feet for a while. I take stock of where we are in the day and what we still need to get to. I gear my mind up for any outside errands the day requires of me. I think through dinner and the plans for the evening. By the time the little ones are asleep, I'm ready to jump back in. That is the purpose the plan serves. It is not a tyrannical or inflexible to-do list that sets me up for disappointment, it is a reliable friend, who serves me well in my time of need. After a week of the flu or a return from a family vacation, I can put my feet on the floor that next morning and wrap my brain around what to do.
Truth be told, summer has been a killer on daily rhythms in this house. I lost my oldest to a three week stay in Houston, which totally threw me off. My husband started taking classes two evenings a week, which for some reason rendered me completely inadequate at getting a menu planned and preparing an evening meal. This week, he began a new job that has him working out of the house for the first time in our marriage. Needless to stay, we are at a transition point. But all that planning and preparing I've been doing have not been for naught. For there, right before me, is the rhythm for our weeks and days as I would like to see them come August. So now, in this time or trying to figure out this new way of life for our family is the perfect time to begin creating that rhythm. I'll leave out the large school work blocks and trade them in for "splash time", "garden harvesting", canning and preserving, and other summer fun. But the ebb and flow of activity, the rising and the sleeping, the reading and the playing, we're ready for those rhythms yesterday now.
So here's the plan:
6:15 am--Mom's coffee and morning prayer/look over plans for the day
6:45 am--Breakfast and prayer with Greg
7:15 am--Unload dishwasher and start laundry/prepare kids' breakfast
7:30 am--Get dressed and wake boys
7:45 am--Breakfast
8:00 am--Boys' Morning Routine
8:30 am--Morning Prayer and Faith Block
9:15 am--Independent Work for older boys/Montessori Trays for younger boys/Daily chores for Mom
9:45 am--Math work for everyone with Mom present
10:15 am--Morning chores/snack
10:45 am--Family Learning Block
11:45 am--Outside Time/ phone calls and lunch prep for Mom
12:30 pm--Lunch time and Read-Aloud
1:00--Nap Time for Littles/Independent Reading for Readers/Signing Time for Non-Readers
1:30--Family Learning Block
2:30--Writing and Phonics Work
3:00--Tea-Time and Read-Aloud
4:00--Outside Play/Mom dinner prep
4:30--Outside Errands or Walk/Quiet Time
6:00--Dinner
7:00--Evening Prayer
7:30--Dad time with Big Boys/Baths for Littles
8:00--Bed Time for Littles/Baths for Bigs
8:30--Family Read-Aloud
9:00--Bed Time for Big Boys/Couple Time for Mom and Dad
10:00--Bed
