Homeschooling many ages of children involves a lot of things. One of the major ones is organization. Keeping our day organized is a MUST if we are to get anything done. We have been using the ideas and tricks from Managers of Their Homes for years. This book has really helped me get a handle on all that needs to be done to run a household of many people smoothly and effectively. I learned how to schedule time with each of my children, how to schedule our homeschooling day so that I spent time teaching each child and they weren’t all asking for help at the same time. There is time for personal scripture study, exercise, and blogging or other projects.
My kids have also learned to manage their time! They’ve learned if they get their chores done well and in a timely manner then when they have free time they can play or do projects they are interested in rather than having to still work on their chores. They have also learned if they have questions with some of their school work I will get to them and give them my undivided attention. It is a process that did take some time to learn for all of us. We had to focus on not getting distracted. Now that it’s a habit our school days go so much more smoothly! (Not to be confused with our summer days when farming changes everything). I’ll be posting next week about our daily homeschool schedule and how it has evolved.
With Managers of Their Homes you are given a paper schedule with a different colored paper for each person. You write down everything you want to accomplish in a day, everything your kids are supposed to do, and assign a time frame for each. For instance here’s a look at one of our old schedules.
The colors are very helpful in seeing each person’s schedule. At a glance each person knew where they were on the schedule and what they were supposed to be doing. It was time consuming though to cut out all the papers, rearrange them so nothing conflicted, and the schedules are actually HUGE. Here’s what our daily schedule looked liked.
The schedule took up one whole side of our fridge. And all those tiny little papers! Another draw back was the schedules themselves were paper. Someone was always stealing the magnets that hung them up, the schedule would fall and get crumpled. After taking so much wear and tear I would have to do a new one. I tried creating one in an Excel document but that took almost as much time as cutting out all the little papers. Not fun. We even went without it for a while but that was disastrous.
I needed something simpler but still as effective. And I found it! Or, rather, it found me.
Oooooo, looks very similar. There is a different color for each person. The entire schedule is magnetic. And you use a wet erase marker to write down your schedule. No more tiny papers to cut and rearrange! Do you know how happy this makes me?!
It’s called……… can you guess? …………Love My Schedule. Brilliant, right?
We are using the daily family schedule with an extension pack. Notice the whole schedule is about the size of one of the three schedules we were using before.
If you have a really picky kid who wants a certain color but it’s out of family order. No worries. Each column separates from the others so you can rearrange the colors to your liking!
When I first heard about these from Amy, who is also a mother of many, and developed Love My Schedule, I thought, “Why didn’t I think of this?!” Making the entire schedule magnetic while keeping the colored columns has really simplified the whole schedule creation from Managers of Their Homes.
And I really do love my schedule!
Would you like to be more organized in your day? Amy has generously offered a free family daily schedule to one of my readers. And I’m throwing in a free Managers of Their Homes book to go with it! Just use the Rafflecopter below to enter. Giveaway ends Monday, Sept. 5th at 5pm PST.
We try to tie the most important things to tasks that have to get done – like meal times :). We read together as a family after breakfast and do a family clean up after dinner.
This looks great! I need to have my daily schedule out and visible or I don’t keep to it!
Exercise!
Time for cooking healthier meals
This looks so perfect for our family! I’m looking to prioritize exercise, but I can’t seem to fit it in consistently.
Yard work. And horses ?
I hope to fit in more housework – cleaning!
I would love to have one on one time with each child, every day.
YES PLEASE!!! I Need to figure out my homeschool schedule and family schedule with 6 kids- and I am terrible at scheduling! HELP! My baby is 14 months old and my oldest is 15. Not to mention time to do my primary calling. Thank you!
Rebecca L. UTah
I love this idea!! I don’t have a huge family (3 kids) but we all need organization to survive.
We’re just starting at-home preschool so this would be great to start out on the right foot as our kids grow up!
Exercise and better home-cooked meals
I would to love to just be a little bit more organized with my day. I also think my kids would love to see the schedule, rather than have it packed away on my phone.
Just what I need!!! I am needing to get more organized with 8 kids and homeschooling I am finding the old ways aren’t working very well.
Exercise for me and art/craft time for all of us.
I would like to find more time to do preschool activities with my 4 year old
I love the idea of a magnetic schedule! I have Managers of Their Homes and this would really help simplify the schedule making!
This schedule looks amazing! I’m seriously exploring homeschool, but the scheduling and organization seems daunting. This would be so helpful in getting set up.
I would love to see “me” time. I forget to schedule it &/or I fill it up with other things.
I love this schedule! I would love to have dinner prep/dinner time to be a little less hectic.
I tried to leave a comment but it didn’t work. What I will say is that I would use that maverick schedule to free up more personal reading time of my own. ?
Cleaning
Cleaning and some focus
I’m pretty good at scheduling the things that have to get done – but I rarely schedule “down time” or time for hobbies or learning something new. I would like to schedule time for those because if it isn’t on the calendar, it simply doesn’t get done.
Life is getting so busy with number 7 and sometimes I wonder if I can rally homeschool and be a mom to 7 kids. Thanks for the scheduling help
One on one time with each of my kiddos!
Exercise!
I love so many things about this. Sometimes it’s overwhelming to think of all that has to get done, but when you write it out it makes it so much more manageable (at least for someone visual, like myself). Thanks for sharing this great idea!
I would like time for each of my children so I don’t feel like I just spend time with the “squeaky wheel”. A little time for me would be a bonus!
I am a scheduler myself. I love this. Very organized and easy to read.
I love using schedules to help my children become more independent at starting assignments.
This looks so smart!
This looks fantastic! I would hope to fit more one on one time in our days.
I would love something like this. Although there are one 5 people in my family it would be a blessing to have something to schedule things around my home
I would love to use a schedule like this to help my kids become more independent and to use their time more wisely. I think having it all mapped out would help them to see when they need to get things done for when a busy day is coming up.
I need to find time to read. (I always want to make time for it, yet it always seems to end up on the bottom of the priority list.)
Wow! Your schedule turned out really well. Montserrat, when you’re ready to add on another aspect of scheduling let me know and I’ll send you the matching chore charts to go with the schedules! http://www.lovemyschedule.com
I hope to fit in individual time with each child (I also have a large family, and the one-on-one time is something I want, but struggle to fit in). I love the organization I can see in this system!
Keep refining and trying new things. I like the look of this.
Finish sewing a quilt for my sister I started back in June for her birthday in July!! Also, we have lots of outside chores that need to be completed. There just never seems to be enough time in the day to do them.
I’ve been seriously looking at home schooling this year. A schedule like this might actually keep me and my kiddos organized!!