Establishing A Routine by Jenifer Reed

I will start by saying I am far from an organized person, and I am sure there are so many out there doing this much better than me. We have a 14-year-old, 7-year-old, a bird and an 18-month-old puppy in the house; chaos swirls around from early morning until evening.

Gavin, my 14-year-old, is a freshman at St. Augustine Prep, and his high school was one week ahead of our Friends School with remote learning due to spring break timing. They set the framework for how we would manage distance learning/homeschooling with a first grader whose attention can be all over the place. The first thing the high school taught me is that it didn’t need it to be a 6-hour-day, and if they can do that, so can I. I also recognized that the most important work was the foundational work (math, reading, writing), and the more I could mimic Keegan’s school day, the better. There are comfort and grounding in similarity and normalcy.

Here are some quirky things I have done:

We named our school for fun. It’s called Reed Prep. The teenager is not amused.
School hours are 9 am to noon, Monday to Thursday
Friday is Field Trip Friday: Keegan or Gavin can choose the trip. Last week we went fishing but given that we are mandated to stay at home, it will likely be a walk in the neighborhood, walk in the woods, or experiments in the house which will end with food coloring all over my hands. This week, we are filling up the bathtub and fishing out of the tub. I would never do this in normal times because of – ugh… the mess – but it helps Keegan focus on getting through the days for something fun at the end.
We dedicated a workspace for school and pack all the items in his school backpack. He brings his backpack to the space in the morning and packs it up at the end of “school day”. I have found the more structure and similarity to the classroom and rhythm of the school day, the better for him.
We start each morning with a dry erase board, and I have Keegan write the day and date on the board because he was losing track of the days and months already.
He or I read the Daily School Bulletin and then write any relevant items on the board. Yesterday, we penciled in a virtual trip to the Cape May Zoo, today we planned for music with T. Kate.

We then sing his good morning song from his 1st grade class with T. Annie. I am still learning the words, so it usually takes two or three times before the “teacher” gets is right enough to move on.
We cover math, reading and writing, and I switch the timing of them around each day so he isn’t bored. It seems about 25 mins on each is about right, and most important is that I have to slow myself down a lot and wait him out as he works.
And of course, snack and recess have to be built in.
I keep art on our schedule every day because who doesn’t like to color? And we will alternate music, gym, science. For music, we use T. Kate’s link. We do gym in the yard, or we will do yoga on rainy days.
We wrap up our school day with computer items: videos or links to activities. This way he gets his core work done at the table before he moves to the computer.
We will do an abbreviated meeting for worship on Thursday to reinforce being still and silent for a few minutes.
And at bedtime, I tell him to get his rest because we have school tomorrow. Just like I would on a normal school day.
We keep all TV’s off so its just our noisy parakeet singing or the dog growling at any leaf that blows by.

Again, there are probably lots of good tips and ideas out there. I hope sharing ours gives you some ideas too! Best of luck. We can do this!!