Preschoolers and daily schedules

[iteachmine]

I am looking for insight on how your morning schedule looks with a preschooler and other school aged children.

Do you work with them first? When do you do your read alouds? Breaks? What time do you start? When do you do chores?

Any ideas and tips will be helpful.

Thanks.

[attachedto4]

My preschooler just turned 4, and he is an unusual 4 year old, (very advanced attention span, mature for a little boy that age), so my schedule might not work with a younger preschooler.

What we do, is breakfast, clean up kitchen, make beds, get dressed, brush teeth and comb hair and then meet in the playroom. My 4 year old has been trained to be able to do those tasks himself, although I do go over his teeth again.

When we meet in the morning, my oldest goes to his room and starts his independent work at his desk. Then I do math, handwriting, and copywork with my middle two. My youngest is content to sit at the table with us and do whatever workbook he picks from his bin. I put ones in there that he can do mostly by himself and this keeps him quite happy. (ETC primers, HWT, Kumon books). He can stay happy for a long time cutting things out of a Kumon book. As long as he feels he has his own work to do also, then he feels included and isn't disruptive. His work can be sorting different kinds of beans into containers, putting Lauri letters in order, etc. I try to have a list of ideas in mind to suggest to him, although he's often happy just imitating what his siblings are doing.

We do history next and he sits in for read alouds fine. I usually give them a snack then, which keeps them captive for read alouds. LOL. If my 4 yr old wants to get up, that's fine as long as he is quiet.

I do some one on one time with each kid before lunch and I make sure my youngest gets his time too, we do PreK read alouds and phonics.

Then we have lunch and quiet time. I work with my oldest during quiet time, my other kids have been taught to stay in their own rooms and play quietly, read, or listen to audio books.

We then finish up anything left after quiet time- things like art, which my preKer is more than happy to participate in. I like them to have plenty of afternoon time for free play after that, and they have a snack.

I do chores through the day as I have a minute, the little kids are required to have their rooms picked up for me to check after quiet time, and we all do chores in the evening before dinner and bedtime routine. My preKer can clean the windows, dust the furniture, pick up toys, and feed the pets without any help, and he loves to clean and be included in chore time.

[DollyM]

As I recall, my goal was to teach the preschooler how to integrate into a regular morning-heavy school routine (I was homeschooling his sister, four years older, and the preschooler had spent wayyy too much time watching The Lion King on video :tongue_smilie:)

I figured out the kinds of deskwork he would willingly do, and we all got to working in our schoolroom by 9am. We did devotions/bible together, then she did math and language arts while he did "ZipLock Activity Bags" until 10:30. The we took an outside break, and moved to the kitchen for snack and music appreciation. We went back to the school room for the rest of her language arts and history/social studies while he did a book on tape (with headphones) and by that time he would play independently reasonably well until we had break for lunch.

After lunch he would take a quiet rest time (not a real nap, alas) and we'd do our science activities. When he was ready to play, she was too and they pretty much had free play everyday after about 1:30-2pm until dad came home at 5.

When DD was under 3rd grade DS was too squirrely to sit for read-alouds, so we did ALL of DD's read-alouds as bedtime stories. It was a great motivator to get her into bed (even though sleep was an hour off...) and DH was home to wrangle with the boy.

Later, when DS was doing real school during the day, we did our joint readalouds in the early afternoon. Still by 3-4pm they were back to free play until dad got home.

Remember, the kids mature and grow all thru the school year, so you have to be flexible to some extent, and willing to adapt - while still instilling that sense of structure, that will serve them so well as they get older (instill the work ethic and all that - very beneficial and a much better strategy than free play all the time, or delight direction willynilly. MNSHO.)

And no you didn't read that incorrectly: I truly had my 3-5yo doing ZipLock Activity Bags for a MINIMUM of 1.5 hours every morning. Working side by side his older sister with me always in the room with both of them. It can be done. (And he's a pretty well adjusted 14 1/2 yo today. LOL)

[Narrow Gate Academy]

I am looking for insight on how your morning schedule looks with a preschooler and other school aged children.

Do you work with them first? When do you do your read alouds? Breaks? What time do you start? When do you do chores?

Any ideas and tips will be helpful.

Thanks.

Here's a link to our schedule for the second half of this past year. I found it worked better to schedule time with my preschooler as soon as the girls started their schoolwork. He joined us for read alouds. The girls had one 30 minute break each to play with their brother. We started as close to 8:00 as we could manage and did chores just after lunch most of the time. You can see our schedule at the link below.

Schedule 2008 (http://narrowgateacademy.blogspot.com/2007/12/revising-our-schedule.html)

HTH

[angpsmith]

I don't know how many kids you have and their ages, but this is what we do. (Mine are 9, 7, 6, 4, just turned 3, and almost 2)

The first thing we do in the morning is family devotion with dh and all children. This is a short-n-sweet type devotion. Then I get breakfast ready while dh does the "bible lesson"--a little more detailed and "school-classish" than the devotion, but usually related somewhat. 9,7, and 6 are required to stay for this part. 3 and 2 "help" me with breakfast, and 4 is allowed to choose.

Dh leaves for work..

Then breakfast...we do history reading during breakfast.(Just the kids are eating as dh and i have breakfast together before kids wake up)

After breakfast are morning chores, then compete activity or project that went with history.

9 and 7 are then free to play--as long as they are overseeing 4, 3, and 2. While I work with 6.
For "free" play, I do have certain activities that I "assign", but these are mostly things for the littles. The olders can join in or just do their "own thing" while keeping an eye out for the little ones.

Then 6 switches with 7, and I work with her.

Then 9 and 7 prepare lunch while I read and/or play with littles.
Then we have lunch. No reading or anything during lunch, just casual conversation---I'm usually tired of reading/teaching by then:-)

6 cleans up kitchen from lunch while 9 and 7 do independent work and I read another short story to 4, 3, and 2 and put them down for nap.

7 and 6 have quiet time in their rooms (reading/coloring--they don't actually take a nap) while I do "teaching time" with 9.

3 and 2 usually sleep about 3.5 hours. 4 only sleeps about 1.5, but then she can go in with 7 and they can continue quiet play or read, until the full "quiet time" is over.

Most days, i get done with teaching time for 9 and she and i spend the remaining time in quiet time also...She in her room and I either lay down, get on internet, or whatever.

Science is after nap..We do this outside if weather permits. So the littles are rarely a bother during this time as they are usually having their own science in the sandbox :-)

That's pretty much it...we have another "chore time" when dh is on his way home and then start dinner when he gets there--he arrives pretty early, and he likes to cook, so we are not a family that has dinner waiting on the table when dh gets home...our future son-in-laws may not like us because of this;-)
(we are ALL in the kitchen when dinner is being prepared-- This is the most hectic, crazy time of the day as there are 8 people in the kitchen, but it has become one of our family's most treasured parts of the day! )

After supper, I clean up. Dh either takes kiddos outside for playing in the yard, on a walk, or reads aloud.
Bedtime for 4, 3, and 2 is 8:00. Anything (schoolwork) that didn't get completed during the day is completed after littles are down, then 6, 7, and 9 are in bed by 8:30. They are aloud to have their lamps on and read till 9:00.

So, that's our day. Wow, when i type it all out like that, it seems like we are really on the ball!! It is not always as "easy sailing" as it sounds. Looks like it works perfectly, doesn't it???...I can assure you it does not. We have to be flexible (sometimes VERY flexible), but this is basically how it works around here.

I will say this...I think the biggest part of dealing with kiddos of different ages (and really any kids, I guess) is the child training... That is by far the most time-consuming, but also by far the biggest asset when it comes to functioning as a family---especially a homeschooling family.

I'll be interested to read about what others are doing as well.

[Veritaserum]

Thanks for linking that schedule! I have a 3.5yo who likes to do work while her older sisters are doing theres. She is an unbelievably loud child (always has been) and it's quite a trick to keep her quietly busy in her own thing. I have some preschool work books that work reasonably well but I think she would enjoy Kumon or sorting things, too.

And I guess we'll move reading aloud to the kitchen so I can keep her quiet with a snack. Some days I have to stop every few sentences to ask her to be quiet. :tongue_smilie: