Back to Homeschool 2025: Routine, Curriculum Picks, and More!
This post shares our plans for the upcoming homeschool year, including our routine for five kids ages 3-12, homeschool curriculum choices, and encouragement for homeschool moms beginning a new school year.
We’ve just finished our second week of school for the year, and yesterday was the first day that we finally completed our entire routine for the day. Woohoo!
We usually favor a slow start to the year (gradually adding in more subjects each day or each week), and it always takes some time to find our footing in the new routine. If your first day (or first week) feels messy, don’t worry! It will get better with time.
For the last several years we’ve also had a fun tradition of catching a virus or two right around the exact time we plan to start school, which further enforces the slow start. This year we started our first official day of school with all three older boys on antibiotics (extra fun!), but those are finished now and I finally feel that we’re beginning to settle into our rhythm.
Let’s dive in!
Daily Homeschool Routine for 5 Kids
This changes slightly each year as kids grow and needs change, but the overall structure has been similar for the past several years. Right now most of our days look like this:
- 7:00 – kids get up, we all have breakfast
- 8:00 – daily chores
- sometime between 8:30 and 9 – we gather at the piano to sing our hymn, then move to the living room for Morning Time
- around 10:00 – Morning Time is finished, kids grab snacks and we all work on math at the table together
- 10:30 – here we might take a break and go outside, or the 3 older boys will continue on with their independent work while I give the toddler some much-needed attention
- 12:00 – lunch (and I read aloud while the kids eat)
- 1:00 – naptime for the toddler, older boys continue on with their independent work if they haven’t finished yet
- then it’s often outside time, supper prep, cleanup around the house, or afternoon appointments/errands
Morning Time Plans (everyone)
This is the part of our day that we do all together (yes, even the three year old), and I love it! If you’re interested in reading more about what it is and how we do it, check out this post about how to get started with Morning Time. This year I have a great pile of books picked out and a nagging suspicion that we won’t get to all of them. Ha! Morning Time is when we do our history and science, so I always make sure we have solid choices for those topics, and then I usually try to find a good variety of other subjects to include for our family “feast.” Here’s what we’ve got on the lineup for this year!
(not shown in the picture: selected hymns which we will be learning and singing together!)
- Science
- Bible
- The Bible!
- History
- Literature
- Poetry
Homeschool Curriculum Choices: Individual/Independent Work
For the First Grader (age 6)
The Good and the Beautiful Math Book 1 – this is her first year of using a math curriculum (check out this post about standardized testing if you’re curious to see how she placed last year, without any formal instruction) and we’ll probably only do it 2-3 times a week. Slow and steady wins the race, friend! Not that it’s a race… or that we’re in it to win… but you get the idea.
Logic of English Level B – again, we hope to do it 2-3 times a week. However, we aren’t doing the handwriting portions included because I’ve liked TGATB handwriting books better.
HOT TAKE: most of the time, curriculum choices simply come down to individual preferences. Most curricula are good, and you’re not going to ruin your child by picking the “wrong” one. Far more important to your homeschool than which phonics curriculum you choose is your own mindset about WHAT education is and WHO your child is. For more on that, check out my ebook: Homeschooling Like a Gardener!
The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Book 1 – we will probably only get to it 1-2 times a week, and I fully expect it to take us more than a year to complete.
ANOTHER NOTE: I’ve listed the first grader’s curricula under “independent work,” but I want to clarify that she is *not* doing any of this on her own. The three older boys can do most of these things themselves, but at 6 years old, she still needs me with her – and that is normal and expected.
For the Fourth Grader (age 9)
The Good and the Beautiful Math Book 4 – this is the first level where the kids are supposed to read the lesson (or watch the video) on their own and then work independently. As a young 9 year old, my son still needs a fair amount of help – but hopefully as the year progresses he will slowly become more independent.
The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Book 2 – in our experience, each of these handwriting books has taken more than a year to complete (probably because we don’t do them every day, but instead alternate with copywork and written narrations). Also, Mr. Nine Year Old happens to be left-handed, which means handwriting is just a bit more difficult and we have had to move more slowly.
Blank Schoolnest fourth grade notebook – we use these for copywork and written (or drawn) narrations. Plus it’s just plain fun to pick out a new color each year!
Stack of independent reading books – these are books that I have chosen, unlike free reading time where he can choose what he wants to read. I take into account his current reading level and try to choose a variety of styles and genres, and if we finish them all before the end of the year then I will add more from our home library!
Typing – this is our second full year of using the Touch Type Read and Spell online typing program and I am still very pleased with it. I love that it is reinforcing spelling and reading along with typing skills (the words are introduced in phonetic groups, which subtly reinforces the spelling) and that there are options for both hearing the words and seeing them (multi-sensory learning!).
Psst: if you happen to be in the market for a typing program and want to give this a try, you can get 10% off your first payment with my code EROKSER. Click the link above and check it out!
Piano practice – he is now old enough to do most of this on his own also, which is fantastic! I try to keep an ear open while he’s practicing in case there’s anything blatantly wrong that needs to be corrected right away, but otherwise I just leave him to it.
For the Fifth Grader (age 10)
The Good and the Beautiful Math Book 5 – he is mostly independent with this book! I’ll get occasional questions about how to do something, but much of it he can sit down and do on his own now, which is wonderful.
The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Book 4 – this level is almost entirely cursive. We started it last year and will probably finish it this year.
Blank Schoolnest fifth grade notebook – same as above, we use it for copywork and narrations.
Stack of independent reading books – again, these are books that I have chosen for him to read this year. I take into account his current reading level and try to choose a variety of styles and genres, and if we finish them all before the end of the year then I will add more from our home library!
Typing and piano practice – same as above.
For the Seventh Grader (age 12)
The Good and the Beautiful Math Book 6 – yes, we got a year “behind” (the year that Baby #5 was born), and no, I am not concerned. He’s learning and understanding and I’m convinced that – even if we never “catch up” and he ends high school with Pre-Calculus instead of Calculus – he’ll be just fine.
The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Book 5 – this level is cursive also, and *technically* it is supposed to be for fifth grade – but there’s nothing wrong with taking it slower! Remember that we are alternating this book with copywork and narration, so he has other chances to practice writing also. Especially with something like handwriting, once your child has learned how the form the letters, all the rest of the books are simply about practicing and refining. As long as we keep practicing consistently, it really doesn’t matter AT ALL which level we are in.
Blank Schoolnest seventh grade notebook – same as above, we use it for copywork and narrations.
Stack of independent reading books – again, these are books that I have chosen for him to read this year. More may be added if needed!
Typing and piano practice – same as above.
Extracurriculars/Other
- The first, fourth, and fifth graders will be participating in our local Classical Conversations group (our family’s fourth year with the group!)
- The three older boys will have weekly piano lessons, as well as occasional recitals
- The three older boys will be participating in a homeschool chess club for the fall semester
- We generally attend our church twice a week, and the kids participate in Sunday School, Christmas programs, youth group, and various other activities
- Two of the kids will have weekly speech therapy, and our oldest is participating in a weekly Social Skills group during the fall
- Other Non-Academic but Equally Important Parts to Our Routine:
- dinner as a family (happens at least 5x a week)
- free time, sibling play time, and alone time
- time spent learning new chores and cooking skills
- Dad reading aloud to the family in the evening
- regular trips to the library
- regular time with grandparents – both the ones nearby, and the ones out of state!
Conclusion
This looks like a lot when I type it all out, but it really doesn’t feel overwhelming most days – mostly because we are just doing little bits each day, and because I work hard to keep plenty of margin in our day.
Margin is essential because then when math takes longer than I expect, or the toddler knocks the entire bin of flour on the floor, we don’t have to despair and feel that our entire day’s plan is ruined!
Your homeschool routine will probably look different than mine; your curriculum choices are probably different – but no matter how you structure your homeschool this year, I hope that you will find ways to shower your kids with love, bathe your days in prayer, and choose joy each day.
Today will never come again; tomorrow the children will be just a little bigger, a little more independent. Let’s slow down and make the most of these days we have! Brew the coffee, sweep up that flour, and carry on with this daily offering of love.
“No task is too trivial, no assignment too small. Educating our children is an offering of love we make to the God who was so gracious to bestow them upon us in the first place. Every moment of the daily grind in raising and teaching and loving on them is hallowed, because we do it for Him and because there would be no point in doing it without Him.” ~ Sarah Mackenzie, Teaching From Rest
