Rhythm Not Routine
It’s 10:30am and while the washing machine tackles the first of many loads that’ll be cleaned today, Mr 11 & Mr 9 are getting on with their daily spelling words while the toddler hangs out on my back as I potter round the kitchen, tidying up and preparing lunch. A fairly typical morning though one defined by rhythm not routine. Yesterday the sun was shining and there was gardening needed doing, so rather than being around the table writing, the students were outside sowing grass seed and planting fruit trees. Mr 9, a budding ornithologist, handles all tasks armed with a telescope, stopping often to identify or observe a heron, kite, owl, tit or magpie — all of them equally wondrous and fascinating. He fills a bird-watching journal with sketches and knows the Latin names for more birds than I can identify in English.
It’s the end of the day and I find the science lesson plans we didn’t get covered today. I know logically that they did study science today, learning practically, but I’m not quite sure if it counts. Today was just a day.
Even in the most tightly scheduled of home-ed homes, today can feel like just another home-ed day. When home-ed is working, it’s unremarkable. Lessons happen, learning happens, life teaches. And we might wonder if that’s enough, just a day.
There is no training course for home-ed. That’s the freedom and the doubt-feeder of educating your own children: noone but them will tell you if you are, or were, capable of doing so. There’s no guarantee. But then, there’s no guarantee at school either. The same thing goes!
The day I wrote about earlier was a couple of years ago now. Our eldest are now teens and have a slightly more structured education, but what that day taught me was, and the reason I wrote it down on a scrap of paper to find all these years later, is that a rhythm, not routine, is what works for our home-learners. They need space in the day to explore, access to materials that can stimulate and support curiosities — and the reassurance of a pattern for learning that reminds them, passively, that learning is their job right now.
For us, that translated into adapting a four part day: a day broken into sections for independent learning, guided learning, one-to-one support and plenty of free time baked in. The parts are independent of each other, which means the clock is irrelevant. Every day must cover all parts, but when those parts happen is entirely up to the day. There’s no stress, it’s just another home-ed day.
In reality, that can look like a loosely sketched plan for me to follow: notes for a guided lesson (using a loop system: one textbook cover-to-cover over 3 weeks rather than multiple subjects at once); individual students’ 1-1 sessions mapped out (in note-form/held in my head/using feedback from an online curriculum); an idea to suggest if they are out of ideas for productive downtime (rabbit-holes they might want to follow, supplies strewn accessibly, a new music sheet by an instrument). The rhythm of the day lets them follow it intuitively, and gives me the flexibility to be Mum, not just teacher, and keep the rest of life outside learning ticking over. The day often doesn’t follow my plan. A maths concept might take longer to explain, their sudden interest in a new topic can shift the focus from the loop subject to a planned-for-the-future lesson and sometimes life simply happens and I’m needed in a capacity that isn’t a teacher at all. That’s ok. The rhythm is the glue that holds it all together: reading will happen, they’ll study something and will be using their brains actively.
Just a day isn’t an excuse; it is actually the point of it all.
If you want a structure for the day that’s rhythm not routine-based, a four part day is one that works.
