Routine

It's been fifteen years since I've graduated high school and I can still remember my daily school routine like it was yesterday. I even remember kindergarten, walking to school, a fifteen minute trek with neighborhood friends at 7:30 in the morning! Things certainly have changed. Many parents refuse to let their kids ride the bus anymore, much less walk to school! We all have memories of what a typical school day was like from our childhood. And if you attended public school like I did, then I'm sure your memories are quite similar to mine:

~ Rise early, get dressed and eat breakfast, usually cereal

~ Head off to public school while it's still dark

~ Sit at a desk for the greater part of 7 hours

~ Come home and play with neighborhood friends

~ Dinner

~ Finish homework

~ Bed 

So this is my memory. Probably similar to many of yours, maybe. Even if not, you have a memory. And if we remember things in our lives a certain way, we tend to think that it is the way things are supposed to be. When we decide to home school our family, it's easy to lean towards these memories and think we have to school our kids the way we remember how school was for us.

Well there are four main things from my school days that I have chosen to change in the way we school our kids. Not that I had a terrible, awful experience growing up, honestly, it wasn't that bad! It's just my husband and I, and many others have looked into homeschooling, and we and like what we see! 

1) Cereal: Basically, I have decided that cereal is not a breakfast food choice for our kids. Ever since I read the book Eat Fat Lose Fat and watched the documentary, FAT HEAD, we have been trying to feed our children hearty, meaty breakfasts with limited carbs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not entirely against carbs for breakfast. Just cereal. I am not convinced there is enough nutrition in a box of cereal for what I pay for it. We do enjoy some carbs though. If I make pancakes, I'll pair it with some bacon. When french toast is on the menu, so is sausage. As soon as we started feeding our kids plenty of protein rather than straight carbs for breakfast, we saw an obvious change in their behavior that day! 

2) Public Schools: It is not the government's job to teach our kids. When the founding fathers came to America and established the first schools and colleges, it was the Bible that was not only taught but required in schools such as Harvard and Yale. Now, the Bible is basically shunned from the schools anymore. Hitler said, "Control the textbooks and you control the people." Have you read the textbooks lately? These books are full of evolutionist teachings while omitting the Christian faith from American history. Rather than limiting biblical teaching to Sunday mornings and evening devotions, our family has chosen to integrate it throughout our entire school day.

3) Sit: While my kids were enjoying our local library, I found 

a book that seemed interesting. Is TV making us fat?

This immediately caught my eye and I began reading. The 

author pointed out that a majority of a typical child's day 

involves sitting. Then they come home and want to watch TV 

or play on the computer, which too, involves sitting. And we 

wonder why so many are labeled ADHD these days. We 

were not created to sit all day, but to be active. The author 

reminds us that years ago children helped their parents 

grow their own food and had work to do on the farm 

throughout the day. And when they played, it involved 

outdoor games such as hide and seek, tag or kick the can. I 

look forward this year to scheduling our home school day 

with plenty of activities that do not involves sitting, but 

practical life skills.

4) Homework: Need I say more? Who is a fan of homework 

anyway? If I am devoting a good chunk of my day teaching 

these children and giving them plenty of time to respond and 

react to what they have learned, why spend the few hours 

left of the day on homework when there are plenty of other 

hands-on activities they could be doing?


Whether you home school, send your kids to private or 

public school, I'd love to hear your opinion, or your routine, 

feel free to share!!