Homestead Schedules and Routines - Part 1

This is the first in a two part series of how we organize our days here in our home and on the farm.

Any of you who know me personally know that I like things to be organized.  I prefer my home clean, my laundry done, and my meals at a certain time. I believe that early to bed and early to rise is more than just a catchy phrase. I like having things organized and all of these characteristics help me manage our family of 10, homeschooling, homesteading, and all the rest of life.

There are two ways to organize your day – schedules and routines.  If you get up every morning at 5:00 AM, then that is a schedule. If when you get up, you always take a shower, brush your teeth and then make your bed, then that is a routine. I like to use both approaches to managing our days.

Our first scheduled activity of the morning is at 6:00 AM with Bible reading.  At 8:00 we eat breakfast. Lunch is at 12:15 and dinner is at 6:30 PM. We begin our school at 1:00 PM or 2:00 PM, depending on age. Chores begin at 4:30 PM. These are our scheduled pieces of our day. They set milestones for shifting to new activities and accomplishing significant tasks.

In between these times we depend on routines. After Bible reading, children disperse to chores or taking showers.  Two older girls work in the kitchen prepping food for the day, baking bread, and making cheese. One older daughter milks the cows and feeds the animals. Boys 9 and 10 have areas to tidy and sweep around the house. Younger children work on getting ready for the day and cleaning their rooms. I check on people and keep things moving along. During this time I also get the laundry started for the day. I will do about 4 loads of laundry throughout the day.

After breakfast we clean up and then have a morning devotion time. This is followed by our daily work time. I will share more about our daily work time in part 2. At noon we clean-up whatever task we were working on and transition to lunch with one child assigned to prepare lunch.

The kitchen is cleaned up again after lunch and then quiet time begins. Adults and elementary and younger children have quiet time in their rooms with books to read or they can nap. Junior and high school student begin their school.  This is a quiet school time for them uninterrupted by the younger children.

Two o’clock begins school time for everyone until 4:15.  At 4:15 we transition again cleaning up the school room, putting away laundry, and taking clothes from the clothes closet to bedrooms for the following day. Throughout the day I wash, dry, fold, and iron laundry. I usually focus on laundry around meal times when the children are occupied eating. The children then put away laundry. At 4:30 we begin chores with each buddy group assigned to clean one part of the house. They tidy and sweep and mop their area.

I use household chore time to review school book and what was completed for the day. I grade and make comments and return their books to their boxes. After household chores several children head out to do animals chores, younger children have play time, and I make dinner with my one of my daughters. Dinner is at 6:30 followed by clean-up and evening devotions.

These are routines. Our days follow a typical and dependable pattern. I schedule running to town and kid’s appointments around our scheduled times and routines. Saturdays are our “days off” when we just do the bare minimum chores, sleep-in, and eat when we are ready. We also skip laundry on Saturdays.

Next time I will be posting about our daily work time and how that really made such a difference in being able to accomplish all of our tasks around the house and farm.