I don’t know many secular homeschoolers, but I have a good idea of what their days look like, most similar to ours. I think that a secular homeschool day looks more relaxed than that of a religious-based homeschool.
What A Secular Homeschool Day Looks Like
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We prefer to do our school in the mornings now, though it could change again, back to afternoons, for now, mornings are best. We like to do our school and then move on to the rest of the day where my kids can play, read, or whatever they like for the rest of the day. And I can do my own thing and plan for the next day.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday are our school days. We stick to a four-day week. This means we have a catch-up day or a day to relax and have fun, do a field trip, or run errands, whatever fits our schedule.
We are not scheduled minute by minute or hour to hour. A first grader does not need to spend hours doing school, and in reality, neither does a third or fifth grader. So,
7-8am: Breakfast, getting dressed, and all that happens first thing in the morning.
8-11am: School time! This includes them working individually or together as a group, as well as when we are hands-on.
Subjects that we are all doing together are a little light this year. We’ll be doing Canadian social studies together, learning all about Canada. My girls will still be doing science and history together using the same curriculum.
Morning Time – Working Together
The best way to start our school day is by starting the subjects that we are doing together first. This way one child isn’t finished before the others and off doing something else when their siblings finish their subjects. It is hard to pull a child back to school work once they have gone to do their own thing.
We always start our morning with a read-aloud, we are going to be going through the Harry Potter series again, which we all love. This is kind of like a morning basket idea, which I don’t actually do but am intrigued by the idea of.
We will then move on to:
Monday – social studies
Tuesday – history
Thursday – science
Friday – coding
Separate Subjects in Our Homeschool
All three will be doing their own levels of Grammar Galaxy. Austin (10) and Brookland (8) are able to read their manuals on their own while I read with Gauge (5). We’ll all be reading at the same time, working on language arts at the same time, after working on our together subjects. There is now an audio-book version of Nebula!
The girls then move on to their math, which they can do completely without me using Teaching Textbooks giving me time to work with Gauge on his math.
Having some subjects that are independent gives me, and you, a chance to work with our other children without having someone waiting for help or their turn with you.
Simple Planning for Our Secular Homeschool
I keep our schedule super simple. I find that when we plan too much beyond this, everything falls apart. Really apart to the point where we get nothing accomplished.
We aren’t doing paid extracurricular activities again this year because it’s just not in the budget but you know what? That’s fine. We do after-school programming each Friday at our favorite small local library and go twice a month to a larger library for programs offered there.