The way we do it around here.

 

Since Carolyn asked what 'freebies" are in relation to our homeschool, I thought I'd take a minute, in a main post and explain what we do around here.  This is our sixth year homeschooling and at first we tried a variety of things that didn't work well for us, different schedules and finally we ended up with a list based system. 

Our list has each child's and mom's name across the top.  Then below our names, we each have our list of things to do.  All of my things involve housework and exercise at the moment.  Sometimes I get more creative and add something else to mine, but mostly, that's what I have motivational issues with; housework and exercise, so that's what on my list. 

For the kids, they've each got about 5 school subjects, 5 chores, exercise and personal hygiene, like brushing their teeth, which is something that they will forget if its' not on the list.   They each have 3 'freebies" each week and they can use those for anything but math and hygiene, so that means that they don't have to do it that day.   Also, they can't use it for the same thing more than one time each week.  Usually, the freebies mean they have a light chore day on Friday, pretty much.  Of course the pets still have to be fed, so they don't use them for that either!  We have 'group time" at some point in the day and we do our science/biology, grammar, notebooking and anything else that fits in at that time.  The rest of the time, it seems we kind of unschool.  We watch a lot of educational DVDs, play some educational computer games and they learn things from mom and dad like how to cook and how to change the oil in the car.  Last year we did an art class and a woodworking class through 4H and this year we're doing a science class and a cooking class through 4H.  We also do about a 45 minute read-aloud each night and no one ever wants to use a freebie for that.

I would like to add that all of the kids need a bit of nagging reminding to do their schoolwork from time to time.  The older 2 are good at getting it done before screen time, but the youngest does not always.  Several times lately he's been lucky to get it done by bedtime, much less screentime.  It's by far not a perfect system, but it mostly kind of works.  It's the best thing we've found for us, anyway.