Habits and routines

I have learned that when you're trying to add new things to the schedule, it is easier to add on to what is *already* working for you. For instance, if the kids already go down for naps/quiet times at 1:00 and we're wanting to add in an afternoon clean up time, I've found that the likelihood of achieving that new habit will be far greater if we tag it on to our existing routine (say, at 12:40), rather than deciding to do a clean up at some random time of 4:00 or something.

Last week when we began homeschooling, one of the first things I was thankful for were those pre-established habits of ours. Specifically, our morning routine of memory work, the reading of a Psalm, and our chores. Tagging homeschooling on to our existing routine just became one new habit in a chain of things that were already working for us. It has just made the transition that much easier.

Our old chore chart has been updated with new chores and a new look, but the kids were already in the habit of doing chores, so this has been a smooth transition, too.

Some habits are in need of changing, though... and we're still trying to iron out those things.

I have been diligent in getting up early and showering before the kids are up, and that has been a HUGE help. *And* I'm back to exercising-- as of last week (do ya'll know that it takes SIX weeks for a broken toe to heal?!?!?! Sheesh! Up until last week, the only shoes I could wear were flip-flops and crocs. So if you're going to break a toe, make sure to do it in the summertime when you're wearing those kind of shoes anyway. Somehow I can't quite imagine wearing flip-flops to church in the dead of winter.) Anyway, what I was saying was that me showering earlier has changed our routine a bit. When I used to shower a bit later in the morning, the kids spent that time watching a video. And since the video was a half-hour long and it only takes me about 10 minutes to shower and dress, I then had a whole 20 minutes to check email and/or read blogs. The first two mornings of school I tried to squeeze in the video anyway, but we were getting a late start on school so I've dropped it. So far no complaints, so that is good. And yet.. I still would like to have a bit of computer time so I'll have to figure that out.

Our habit of doing all of our laundry on Mondays and Tuesdays is going to have to change, also, and I haven't quite decided what that will look like. All I know is that it's Wednesday, and the laundry is about halfway done, with very little folded and put away. And that happened last week, too. What I did like was combining our read-aloud time with folding laundry, (the kids folding, mommy reading), which is what we did on Monday. (Thank you, Dana, for that tip!) Maybe we should fold a little bit everyday and build *that* into our read-aloud routine.

And there's one other thing we're still trying to figure out. Mark's day off is a rotating one, so if he has Monday off one week, he has Tuesday off the following week (and so on). We haven't decided yet if we should do school with daddy on his day off, or if we should skip school on his day off and school on a Saturday instead. We might just vary it from week to week. Last week we took it off entirely but this week (tomorrow), we plan to do school with daddy here and see how that goes. If anyone else has a similar schedule (with daddy home mid-week), I'd love to hear what you do! (Or even if you don't have that issue but want to put your two cents in, that's okay, too!)