Our Summer Routine as a Homeschool Family

Our school year has come to an end and summer has begun which means it’s time to create a summer routine for my family. With six kids still living at home, I have found a simple summer routine makes our days less chaotic and more enjoyable.

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Since we homeschool, school life and family life sort of meld together. That means that even when school is officially over, we are still learning new things.

Summer is a great time to let my kids invest in developing their interests and talents like cake decorating, Lego building, swimming and camping. It’s also a good time to review math facts and work on reading skills.

Summer Routine

Here’s a little glimpse into our summer routine with six kids ranging in age from 1 year old to 12 years old.

Wake Up

My kids are allowed to sleep in as long as they like in the summer. This is partly because we like to stay up later to play family games, enjoy the longer daylight hours and hang out with friends.

Get Ready and Do Chores

Once my kids are awake, they need to eat breakfast, get dressed and do their morning chores. With a house full of people, everyone needs to chip in to keep the house running smoothly.

In summers past, I let my kids play before doing their chores. As you can imagine, they got so wrapped up in their activities that they forgot all about completing their chores. Who can blame them, though?

So, this year we are all doing our morning chores first before venturing off to do other activities.

Free Time

Once a child has completed his or her morning chore then they are free to enjoy the rest of the morning. I encourage the kids to get outside in the morning as it heats up in the afternoon but they can choose to do any activity they want. This is the time that I take the little ones outside to play in the shade and cool of the day. And if mom is outside, the rest of the crew usually follows.

Lunch and Afternoon Chores

With kids waking up at all hours of the morning, lunch time can be a bit of a challenge. I have some kids who have been up for hours and hours and are very hungry while others have just finished breakfast.

If I let the kids eat whenever they got hungry, I’d be in the kitchen all day. So, we have a set lunch time around noon. Everyone needs to come in and eat something. Kids who aren’t very hungry just know that they aren’t getting any more food until snack time so they usually nibble on some fruit or veggies.

Then, once lunch is over we all work on our afternoon chores. Each child has a different chore that takes less than 15 minutes to complete. Afternoon chores include: sweeping the kitchen floor, running a mop over the kitchen floor, emptying the trash and recycling and wiping up the counters, sinks and toilet in the main bathroom.

Quiet Time

With a large family comes a lot of noise and I think we all benefit from an hour of quiet in the house. While the older kids are doing their chores, I put the little ones down for their nap. Then, the older kids and I settle in for an hour of quiet time.

We are using this time to work on math review, watch the rest of my son’s BJU Press science and heritage studies DVD’s (because we all love them) and read books, listen to audio, or just close our eyes.

Free Time, Snack and Dinner

The rest of the day is open to playing and enjoying the summer! I pass out snacks when the kids are looking a little hungry. And once the little ones are up from nap, we might make our way over to the grandparents house to go swimming.

Eventually, I’ll get around to making dinner and calling everyone inside to eat. My kids usually want to head back outside once the meal is over to ride their bikes in the cool of the evening. We love to play games, watch movies and just spend time together into the later hours of the night.

Summer makes for late nights, lazy mornings and lots of family memories.

How do you spend your summer days?