Category: Lain Learning

Before I start this post here’s what you need to know:

All of us are different! What works for us, might not be what’s best for your family, so please keep that in mind as you read. Also note that I am only technically “schooling” one of my children and the other two are too young, but I still incorporate learning activities in their day as well and will continue to schedule our homeschool days in the same manner when they are doing school work that I have to report into the state about.

Also, if you don’t already know here is a little background on us. I am a former Pre-K and Musical Theater teacher. I enjoyed teaching and once my kids are grown would love to possible go back (although my retirement plan is to volunteer at a hospital in a NICU and rock sweet babies until I die because who doesn’t love to snuggle sweet little tinies?). Anyway, I loved teaching and did several things in my classroom that I will not do with my own kids. I have had a Charlotte Mason and an unschooling revelation in the past year or so and I love the slow approach. I will still be using my curriculum though.

So, on to our schedule. Obviously I run this blog and Lain Learning so I have to build that into my day as well. I find that if my kids have had my attention for the majority of the day then, when I need to get some work done during their free time they actually leave me alone and play with their toys. I don’t keep them from their toys necessarily, but having them do other things throughout the day and keeping everyone doing something makes them look forward to free play time.

I want you to keep in mind that when I say keep them doing something I don’t mean we sit and do worksheets all day long. I mean we do activities and read and lots of those activities involve toys, but when it’s toys I pick the vs. toys they pick it makes a world of difference.

Our Daily Homeschool Schedule

7:30 am My oldest wakes up first and she has come in our room and snuggled with my until my husband gets out of the shower and then we all get up and get going. Now that we are doing school and I feel like she is old enough to have a quiet time, she will be having quiet time. Also, I say 7:30 on here but she wakes up around 6 every single day! My in-laws got her one of the color changing clocks for her birthday and it has been a game changer. She isn’t allowed to come out of her room until it turns yellow and I LOVE it! My younger two sleep until about 8, but sometimes I have to go get them up for breakfast.

8:30 am as soon as the kids are done eating, we do a Breakfast Book at the table. We started this when they were little (like babies I think my youngest was around 8 months old). We literally just call it “Breakfast Books.” So creative, I know! Ha! You can read more here about Breakfast Books and how it has morphed into something special since we first started it.

9 am we get dressed, brush teeth and hair and get ready for the day.

9:30 am is when we move over to our library (not an actual library I thrifted an entertainment centers and had an old hutch from my husband’s grandma that I turned into our “book shelves” and we call what was designed to be a “sitting room” into our library. A dream of mine since I was little! In our library time we do our Morning Basket Time. You can read about what all I put in our Morning Basket here.

10:30 am We play together! This is similar to Free Play because I don’t schedule anything. We go either into one of the kids’ rooms or our sunroom and play with something. Today it was a beach ball and a school bus. I join them in playing. I think it is so important that we play with them and not just allow them to play or have to play to get out of our hair. I don’t say that in a condemning way. I was totally guilty of this and occasionally I still would like them to play without being in my hair (#freeplaytime) BUT I have learned that we are all happier and our day runs smoother if I will sit and play with them. I enjoy getting to know them as they open up and use their imaginations and they get the attention they crave from me. By the time we make it to our free play time they are sick of me and ready to be left alone to play (left alone does not mean be unsupervised). If you don’t already do this I challenge you to. It has made a world of difference in our home.

11 am Outside or if it’s raining (we are currently in rainy season) then I let them watch a show on RightNow Media if you are interested in getting an account, speak with someone at your local church to see if they have an account. I also sometimes turn on an educational show on Netflix. But I don’t pick anything over 25 minutes. If we go outside we usually stay until lunch and then I put a short 10-15 minute show on while I quickly get lunch on the table. If they have already been watching a show then I have them come in the kitchen with me and play with the tupperware or cans. They love to stack cans. Or I bring the Legos in the kitchen. I have started teaching the girls how to help me set the table, so the TV doesn’t actually get watched some days.

12:15-30ish pm Eat Lunch and Clean Up Together. This is something I am working very hard at. My two year olds take their bowls/plates/utensils to the kitchen sink themselves, as well as my 4-year old. And then my four year old clears the rest of the table while I wash the dishes.

1:15 Nap Time and Quiet Time: This looks different some days. My oldest only has to stay in her room for Quiet Time for an hour and 15 mins (we use her clock for this too!). I say only because the younger two sleep longer than that most days. I schedule 2 hours for this and if they sleep longer I LET THEM! If not, I cry. Just kidding… kind of. I use this time to write a blog post, clean/fold laundry, and get out the afternoon school stuff.

3:30 I get snack stuff out and give everyone a snack. I used to do a morning snack too, but my kids weren’t eating their lunch and I was getting frustrated. So, we only do an afternoon snack at this point.

3:35 Afternoon School. Once everyone has a snack in their laps we start afternoon school, also known as hands-on activities. I don’t know about you but that time between afternoon naps and dinner time can be daunting. We have had days where all three of mine just whine and cry until dinner after snacks. It’s as if they wake up in a funk and can’t get out of it. Which now means that I try to occupy them with fun activities (and physical activity like running outside playing tag so that they will sleep good because #mommalovessleep).

4:45 We start to wind down. I start getting everything out for dinner (on quick dinner nights we play and do afternoon school a little bit longer because it doesn’t take hardly any time to get dinner on the table). Other nights it takes at least 30 mins or more so bring a basket of random toys into the kitchen and have them “help” me get dinner ready or “let them wash dishes” aka play in the sink with the water and dish soap.

5:30 DINNER!

6:00 (ish) This is about the time we get done, give or take a little bit. Baths!

6:30 Play time in the living room while we wind down and listen to music

7:00 Bed

7:15 Bed for my oldest. Between 7-7:15 We read “her” Bible (Jesus Storybook Bible which is my personal favorite! Instead of the Beginner Bible for Toddlers that she so lovingly refers to as the “Baby Bible.”

This is about it. We don’t have this same schedule on the weekends. We just play and have fun. Nap time, meal times and bed times stay the same though. Just no official “school time” for us.

I hope this was useful for you or maybe you are like me and just enjoy reading how other people spend their days. Either way I hope you enjoyed the peek inside our daily homeschool schedule.

Blessings to your and your family,

Lacy

P.S. I attempt to use this blog to make a little extra income for our family. If you enjoyed this post or it was helpful in any way to you at all, please consider pinning one of the images in this post. I work very hard to make this a useful (&beautiful) resource for other women and I truly appreciate all of your help and support in making that happen. Thank you so much for being here!!!

I have said this so many times before, but I will say it again. Toddlers are the busiest bees around. I don’t care who you are, if you spent 2 hours in my house you would agree and you’d probably also need a nap. So, I have put together ## Toddler Task Box Ideas for you to use with your little one. I hope this is helpful!

We are homeschooling our 4-year old for Pre-Kindergarten this year and if you don’t already know I am a former Pre-K teacher so I am kind of pumped about this coming year. The difference in the classroom (besides having 26-28 kids at once) is that I also have two, 2-year olds and they need to be constantly entertained. I would say the TV would be a great option BUT I don’t actually believe that. I think a little bit of TV is good, but a little is all (and no judgement on moms that disagree)!

I say all of that to tell you that this year we will be making full use of our Toddler Task Boxes. They will be a great addition to our school time for the toddlers while my oldest does handwriting and other written activities. They will also be good for her, but they’ll keep the younger ones busy (and learning) while she is working. I am prepping my list things to do and I figured I would share them with you and hopefully it will make it a little bit easier for you to put them together with this running list.

15 Toddler Task Box Activities

1. Hole Punched Thin Cardboard and Shoelaces
2. Uncooked spaghetti and a strainer (here is one of my favorite kinds of strainers)
3. Pipe Cleaners and a strainer
4. Move cotton balls from one jar to another
5. Color sort the Toys (here is a free printable for this activity)
6. Play dough and Small Toys (these will be themed with the lessons my oldest is working on)
7. Straws and spaghetti
8. Straws and pipe cleaners
9. Marshmallow and toothpicks
10. Kenetic Sand and cookie cutters
11. Cups, Spoons and Water (food coloring is also fun with this one)
12. Legos (this is a great starter set. My mom got it for my kids and they love it! Also, Dollar Tree has the colored base plates. I don’t know if they work or not for regular Legos… I’ll find that out soon. BUT they have Lego packs similar to this one I linked. They are Dollar Tree quality, but for toddlers, it’s not too bad. My oldest (4-years) know the difference and prefers actual Legos).
13. Board books (this isn’t an activity that requires many fine motor skills, but my kids love books, so this will be on my list, always)
14. Beans, Cheerios, Spoon. (add a few cheerios to a bowl of dried beans and have them scoop all the cheerios out and, of course, eat them)
15. Ziploc Bag and a Piece of Card Stock. I put all sorts of things like buttons, beans, pennies, etc. draw dots or x’s for them to move the items around on. It is so fun watching them try to get all the dots or x’s covered.

This is a starting point for us and I am sure it will be for you too. I would love to hear other ideas you have in the comments below. I love a good toddler task box activity.

Be blessed!

Lacy

P.S. I attempt to use this blog to make a little extra income for our family. If you enjoyed this post or it was helpful in any way to you at all, please consider pinning one of the images in this post. I work very hard to make this a useful (&beautiful) resource for other women and I truly appreciate all of your help and support in making that happen. Thank you so much for being here!!!

What is a Morning Basket & How to Use One to Create a Great Start to Your Homeschool Day: Morning Baskets have been used for quite some time now. I would argue that without actually calling it a “Morning Basket” people from pioneer times had the same essential routine. These days we like to give things cute names. Traditionally these are used to help aid in creating simple morning routine and love of education. They are extremely beneficial and if used the proper way can make a great start to your homeschool day.

So, what exactly is a morning basket? For some people it is a fluid basket of ever changing literature, games, educational resources, bible study, etc. For other people it is a very firm to-do list of morning devotional and study time. In our house I am not sure there is anything that goes into the “firm” category. It is definitely a fluid basket for us.

How to use it? Well, this depends on the mom you are talking to, but I think the majority of us would tell you it is used similarly to a morning circle time. You just use what’s in the basket for your morning circle time with your kids. It’s so much simpler than lots of mom blogs make it out to be. Some have very strict guidelines of having to get everything accomplished inside the basket each day, but in my house (with two 2-year olds) we do what we can and occasionally come back to it in the afternoon. I have read where some families use it as an afternoon basket and that would work too!

I like to start it in the morning. It gives my kids structure right off the bat. If you are a new reader and don’t know how I feel about structure, routines, and schedules for kids, let me just say this: they are crucial for kids! Okay, I won’t get on my soapbox about that. But morning baskets help to create a smooth morning transition for us from breakfast and getting ready to the rest of our day. I like it because after my kids get dressed they don’t start running all over the house looking for and deciding what they are going to get into that day (hello toddler life).

Because I have been asked this before and pretty much anytime I talk to friends and family about morning baskets, here is how I keep my basket organized and what I put in it:

I first don’t just put random things in it. I actually put a lot of thought and effort into ours because my oldest is in Pre-K (yes, Homeschool Pre-K). I keep this list in my basket so that as I pack it I am not trying to remember every single time what to put in it. #mombrain (It’s a real thing, y’all!)

1. Bible
2. Memory Verse Card
3. Weekly Poem (Pictures if available)
4. Flashcards
5. Books
6. Toddler Toys
7. Lesson Pictures and Visual Resources
8. Letter of the Week (Shapes, Colors, Numbers)
9. Puppet for Reading (my kids love puppet reading)
10. Musical Instruments or CD (I rotate these and some days we don’t get them out)
11. Today Is: Folder (Days of the Week, Weather, Month, etc.) We also discuss any big plans for the day or week at this time. I find that when my 4-year is informed of what we are doing we incur much fewer meltdowns in times of change during the week.

I am working on a post of all the resources (including my own curriculum and free printables that I wrote and have tweaked since teaching) and will link that when I get it finished. I want it to be a very thorough and useful post for you so it is taking a little time getting it up. Thank you for being patient as I attempt to fit everything we do and I know about homeschooling into as few and as helpful of blog posts as I can. It’s proven to be more of a challenge than I thought.

P.S. I attempt to use this blog to make a little extra income for our family. If you enjoyed this post or it was helpful in any way to you at all, please consider pinning one of the images in this post. I work very hard to make this a useful (&beautiful) resource for other women and I truly appreciate all of your help and support in making that happen. Thank you so much for being here!!!

We started Preschool last year with my, then 3-year old. It was interrupted by life and by her two younger siblings, but it was fun and I enjoyed it so much. But if you have been here for a while you know our school year got cut short. My husband was diagnosed with a relapse of leukemia and we spent 2+ months in the hospital and 2+ more months living within 15 minutes of the hospital after he had his last two rounds of chemo and a stem cell transplant.

Our year got turned upside down and thankfully we were only at the preschool stage in our homeschool journey (and I do not believe it is necessary to have a rigorous preschool for our kids). With that said, I do like to have structure and a routine for my kids so when the time came for my 3 year old to want to start doing school like some of her older friends the pre-k teacher in me was thrilled.

I believe that we can informally teach our kids a preschool curriculum and not have a rigid workload for them to have to do. Since I also had a 2-year old and a 1-year old at the time having a schedule was crucial. And even if you don’t have three kids 3 and under I still believe that kids thrive in a structured environment that promotes life long learning.

How To Create a Homeschool Preschool Schedule + Daily Routines Ideas

How to create a Homeschool Preschool Schedule

This is not just for preschool, you should be doing this at every age, but here is how I schedule ours. Please keep in mind that this is how I do it and there are many other methods of preparing a schedule for homeschooling your kids. This is the way I have come to do it after over-complicating it in the past (even in my classroom I was guilty of this from time to time). So now I try to keep it as simple as possible.

1. Write down and brain dump ALL THE THINGS: List out the things you want to cover in your curriculum. List the things you want to do that are extracurricular. List out the holidays you want to take off and any trips or family things that you want to leave open for easy or no-school days. Write it all out. Anything you can think of.
2. Do your research. Find a curriculum that works for you. I have written a curriculum and I still like to supplement every once in a while because it keeps things fresh for my child and a different perspective is a good thing.
3. Make A Decision on Number of Days. Once you have completed the first two steps it is now time to make your schedule. I like to do school 4 days a week. I know there are a lot of families that do just 3 days a week and some do everyday unschooling. BUT I like to do it on days my husband works so that I have a routine with the kids when it’s just me and when he is home we can spend time as a family. You need to decide how many days you will “do school”.
4. Decided how you will do curriculum. For example, Math and Science on Tuesday and Thursday and Language Arts and Reading on Monday and Wednesday. OR will you do all subjects every single day. There is no right or wrong answer as to how to do this. That is part of the beauty of homeschool. You get to decide! You might even get into the school year just a little bit and find that you want to change this up. Whatever you do just make sure you give your kids enough time to adjust and get familiar with it before you change it 5 times and stress them out because they are craving structure and order and change (while sometimes necessary can also be very hard on them if not done properly… let’s be real, it’s hard on adults too).
5. Make the Schedule. I like to take a blank calendar and my Lain Learning Planning Sheet and write everything out. I start with my calendar and make sure all the things from my brain dump are on it. Doctors appointments to vacations. EVERYTHING! Then start at week one and fill in where everything should go.
6. Create Your Routine. This is where the Daily Routine comes in. This is important for so many reasons. Have I already said that kids crave structure? Well, if you haven’t heard me yet, THEY DO! So, let’s give it to them and create an environment that they can learn and thrive in. Here is an example of our daily schedule form last year. This year probably won’t look much different. I try to break up school throughout the day. I want to create a life of learning for my kids and not a scheduled time where they think that learning takes place within the confines of a block of time. BUT I want it to be all throughout our day. I am careful to call our time “school time” and not “learning time” for this reason. I know I sound crazy, but it is a big deal to me.

I hope this was helpful to you. I know I love reading about other people’s homeschool philosophies and how they set up their homeschool (I guess that is the life long learner in me) but I am always wanting to better our homeschool too. I would love to connect with other homeschool moms. This homeschool thing gets me so excited and I could sit and drink coffee and talk about it with friends all day long. I know #nerdalert. Here’s my instagram and my pinterest. Come say hi!

P.S. I attempt to use this blog to make a little extra income for our family. If you enjoyed this post or it was helpful in any way to you at all, please consider pinning one of the images in this post. I work very hard to make this a useful (&beautiful) resource for other women and I truly appreciate all of your help and support in making that happen. Thank you so much for being here!!!

P.S. I attempt to use this blog to make a little extra income for our family. If you enjoyed this post or it was helpful in any way to you at all, please consider pinning one of the images in this post. I work very hard to make this a useful (&beautiful) resource for other women and I truly appreciate all of your help and support in making that happen. Thank you so much for being here!!!

Also, just a personal plug here, no shame (:

I wrote a Preschool and Pre-Kindergarten curriculum when I was teaching and have made many of my resources parent friendly and free. You can click below for my Lain Learning Newsletter: