Thankfully, I work at home 3 days a week. I go to the office the other 2 days and a sitter watches Monkey. When I'm home, I usually have some flexibility in my work and my hours, so I can work with Monkey throughout the day. Usually the work I do with him might be 1-2 hours, while the rest is independent. However, it never seems to be 1-2 hours in a row! It's a lot of interruptions, and alot of trying to split my attention between my job and my child, and it's really, really frustrating sometimes. Monkey is not a routine, check-list kind of person, so each day is different. Some days he does math first, some days he does science first. I didn't mind too much if it's independent work, but when it involves me, I need it to work with my job demands. Sometimes when he had something he had a question on, but I had an urgent task for work, I'd just have to put him off until I finish, which might be hours sometimes.
So now that we decided to bring Bunny home to be homeschooled (in 2 weeks!), I'm frantically trying to figure out how to get into an actual routine. I could tolerate the lack of routine when it was one child, but I figure I'm going to go nuts with two if I don't have a better plan (Twice as many interruptions! Twice as many "Have you worked on this yet?")
I did some google searches, and I came across this article that had some good tips for scheduling when you're a working mom.
So after some thought this is my plan:
Morning:
- Bible
- Math/Language arts, with me working with math with one child at a time, if needed
- Either Social Studies or Science (not both) with me reading to them or doing an experiment
- Free Time until Lunch
Afternoon (This is when I'm planning to do most of my work for my job):
- Computer Skills (currently using CodeCademy, and Scratch ) for Monkey, Nature Journal for Bunny
- Free Exploration - No electronic screens during this time, but otherwise, they can do whatever they want: read, play outside, build couch cushion forts, play board games, art, WHATEVER!
- Guitar practice (Monkey) 3 times a week
- Help with dinner (kids alternate days, with the other child allowed to have screen-time during this period))
Evening:
- Evening extracurriculars (seems like they have something every night of the week!)
- Reading after getting ready for bed (read aloud or independently)
On days I go to the office, They will do the Social Studies/Science/Math/Language arts independently at the sitter's house, and we will do Chinese during lunch, snack or dinner (most of it involves practicing words, watching a video, or practicing writing of a new word, which is the only one that we can't really do while eating).
On Fridays, no formal Social Studies/Science/Math/Language arts, but they will have a Friday Free-write, and work on home projects around the house (Laundry, Cleaning, Garden, etc. to help them learn these skills and to help me keep the housekeeping up.) Friday is the day that there is often a church event that we need to help with (we help with childcare for the moms who attend), so half the day will be taken up with that.
Well, probably a month from now I'll look back on this post and laugh about how different it is from reality, once I really start homeschooling Bunny!
