To schedule or not to schedule.. . .

It's been a long time since I've posted on here - sorry. Real life tends to get in the way of  blogging sometimes.

I thought I'd respond to Sharon's post on creating a learning environment/relaxed home education, as distinct from setting a timetable and being very scheduled. I do think that most parents (at least in the UK where home ed is about 20 yrs behind the US in many ways) tend to begin their home ed journey being quite scheduled/timetabled/organised, and then move to being less so.  Esp when parents take their children out of school, and feel the need to replicate school at home.

(Not all our learning is formal or scheduled, there is always time at weekends for Dad's input)

I also do feel that unschooling or child led schooling is much harder (in most ways!) than having a timetable and knowing what has to be done and when. Or to be fair, it wouldn't work easily in a family like ours, where I am a full time wife and housewife, with my husband out of the house 12 - 14 hrs a day, and no outside help; and was blessed with 12 children in less than 13 yrs.

I simply could not have coped without my trusty timetable/schedule, making sure that at least the basics got done with each child, when I was pregnant and very sick.

I did used to have a very complex schedule (I think you might have seen it once, Sarah, it was up on the wall when you came round!) detailing what each child should be doing every hour of the day from getting up till going to bed.

That worked/was necessary for us at that point in time (and we didn't always keep to it anyway), but it was a useful tool at the time.

What is important is that we work with and for our children / families, in whatever situation we are in. No two home educating families will ever be the same, or do the same things, use the same materials, etc.

I love the ability to personalise my children's education. But I also sometimes rely (and in the past more heavily) on simple routines and materials.  A schedule is a great servant,  but it can be a bad master.

Years ago (c 1998; when I had seven children under 8) I remember Alexander asking me about Alfred the Great and I was about to reply "that can wait until it is time for History" - and then I thought to myself, "don't be ridiculous, he's genuinely interested, tell him about it for ten minutes"  (And then I had to get back on schedule and do reading or whatever with Constance, Rupert, check that Lucy was playing happily with JJ, and that JP and JE were still napping)

Life was  busy then. It is busy now, but in each situation God has blessed and helped us. May we all find the best way to bring up our families for God's glory and their good.

Recent group work  -  a huge advantage of having children close in age is that they can work on projects together.