Creating your own homeschool schedule is one of the greatest freedoms of homeschooling. Schools need set schedules to keep large groups of students organized and on track. But homeschool schedules allow for much more flexibility. Your homeschool daily routine doesn’t include time spent forming a line, taking scheduled bathroom trips, and or giving multiple students individual attention. If you need tips for creating a flexible but productive day for any grade, the following homeschool schedule ideas, samples, and resources will help you find a routine that fits your homeschool flow.
Tips for Creating a Homeschool Schedule
The schedule that works best for your homeschool requires an awareness of your family’s needs, goals, and circumstances. Be prepared to think and evaluate what you, your spouse, and your children need or want from homeschooling.
Getting into a homeschool routine
1. Find a planner that works for you.
A homeschool planner is a key resource for getting your homeschool days organized and on track. The trick is finding a homeschool planner that works best for you. If you prefer a digital over a paper planner, a planning tool like the BJU Press Homeschool Hub is a great solution.
2. Be realistic.
There are 24 hours in a day. Depending on the age of your children and the activities they’re involved in, many of those hours are already taken. If you overfill your homeschool day, you’ll be stressed and pressured to get to the next thing. Be realistic about how much time lessons, extracurriculars, and any other activity you include in your schedule will take.
3. Be flexible.
Depending on the personalities of your children, hour-by-hour schedules may be restrictive and stifling. If you set up your homeschool schedule in order of things to do rather than by a specific timetable, making adjustments will be easier, and you won’t get distracted by being late or too far ahead. Include daily tasks in your schedule along with lessons and activities to help school become a normal part of your everyday. When lessons or projects take more or less time than you expect, you should be able to move on with the next thing as needed without being late. When homeschooling, it’s impossible for a class to start without your child.
Structuring your homeschool day
4. Start with settle time.
Start your schedule with a time to gather materials and settle down for lessons to check whether your student has everything he or she needs for the day.
5. Plan breaks.
A busy schedule can easily eat away at valuable rest time. If you pencil breaks into your routine, you may be more likely to take them. Safeguarding your time to relax can protect you and your kids from burnout and stress-related anxiety.
6. Keep track of obligations and extracurriculars.
Include regular activities like co-ops, sports, and other extracurriculars in your homeschool schedule so you know on which days may need a different routine. You may want to add a separate calendar to keep track of activities that aren’t a reoccurring part of your day.
7. Let older students set their own schedules.
If your older children learn independently, let them create their own schedules. Giving kids control over their own time helps them gain interest and ownership over their education. Creating a personal schedule or routine is an important life skill to learn. Choosing when to do things lets them experiment to determine when they function best.
Scheduling Subjects
8. Don’t do all subjects every day.
You don’t need to do every subject every day. There are several scheduling options to choose from. A block or a loop schedule may be a better fit for your family. You may also choose year-round homeschooling or plan to homeschool 4 or 6 days a week instead of the normal 5.
9. Schedule challenging subjects when your student is most capable.
If your students struggle with a particular subject, arrange your routine so they can do those subjects when they’re most mentally capable. If they’re more alert at the beginning of the day, start with the most difficult subjects and save the easier ones for later. You may want to wait to tackle the hard subjects later in the day if they work better in the afternoon.
10. Give proper time for English language arts and math.
In early grades, students need more time for English language arts and math than for other subjects. In these subjects, children learn foundational skills they’ll need for the rest of their lives, and takes time to master those skills.
11. Group related subjects.
Subjects with related content often overlap and reinforce each other. English language arts subjects should always be completed together, especially in early grades. In Grades 1–3, English should precede reading for phonics development and reinforcement. In later grades, math and science will often overlap. History and social studies may overlap with multiple subjects.
Homeschool Daily Schedule by Grade
Elementary grades, middle school grades, and high school grades have similar schedules with slight variations. Early elementary students spend more time on English language arts. Below are example schedules by grade to help you start planning.
Preschool and Kindergarten Homeschool Schedule
Preschool and kindergarten will have the shortest daily schedules. Check out “Homeschooling Kindergarten: How and When to Start Homeschooling Your Child” for tips on teaching K5.
- Settle time (gather supplies and books)
- Bible (15 minutes)
- English language arts, social studies, and science (30 minutes)
- Activity or free play time
- Finish English language arts, social studies, and science (30 minutes)
- Snack time or break
- Math (25 minutes)
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1st Grade Homeschool Schedule
In Grades 1–3, students focus on English language arts and math. Science and heritage studies are often single-semester courses at this level, so you won’t plan on both daily.
- Settle time (gather supplies and books)
- Bible (15 minutes)
- English language arts, starting with phonics, then reading, spelling, and handwriting (45 minutes)
- Break or activity
- Finish English language arts (1 hour)
- Break
- Science or social studies (20 minutes)
- Break
- Math (30 minutes)
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2nd Grade Homeschool Schedule
- Settle time (gather supplies and books)
- Bible (15 minutes)
- English language arts, starting with English, then reading, spelling, and handwriting (45 minutes)
- Break or activity
- Finish English language arts (1 hour)
- Break
- Science or social studies (20 minutes)
- Break
- Math (30 minutes)
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3rd Grade Homeschool Schedule
- Settle time (gather supplies and books)
- Bible (15 minutes)
- English language arts, starting with English, then reading, spelling, and handwriting (45 minutes)
- Break or activity
- Finish English language arts (1 hour)
- Break
- Science or social studies (20 minutes)
- Break
- Math (30 minutes)
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4th Grade Homeschool Schedule
By 4th and 5th grade, students should be more confident readers and begin spending more time in science and heritage studies. They may also go longer between breaks.
- Settle time (gather supplies and books)
- Bible (20 minutes)
- English language arts: English and reading (1 hour)
- Break
- English language arts: spelling and handwriting (15–20 minutes)
- Science or social studies (20 minutes)
- Break
- Science or social studies (20 minutes)
- Math (30 minutes)
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5th Grade Homeschool Schedule
- Settle time (gather supplies and books)
- Bible (20 minutes)
- English language arts: English and reading (1 hour)
- Break
- English language arts: spelling and handwriting (15–20 minutes)
- Science or social studies (20 minutes)
- Break
- Science or social studies (20 minutes)
- Math (30 minutes)
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Middle School Homeschool Schedule
In middle school, except for 6th grade, students spend much less per day on English language arts. Literature and English may become single semester courses, and students no longer take spelling or handwriting courses. You may choose to add a vocabulary course, but vocabulary is often covered within other subjects.
- Settle time (gather supplies and books)
- Bible (20 minutes)
- Writing & grammar or literature (30 minutes)
- Writing & grammar or literature (30 minutes) (optional, depending on curriculum)
- Math (45 minutes)
- Break
- Science or social studies (30 minutes)
- Science or social studies (30 minutes)
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High School Homeschool Schedule
High school students may spend more time on projects and additional work and have more elective courses.
- Settle time (gather supplies and books)
- Bible (20 minutes)
- Writing & grammar or literature (45 minutes)
- Writing & grammar or literature (45 minutes) (optional, depending on curriculum)
- Math (45 minutes)
- Break
- Science (1 hour)
- History (45 minutes)
- Foreign language (45 minutes)
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How Many Hours a Day to Homeschool
- Preschool and Kindergarten: 2 hours per day
- Elementary: 3–4 hours per day or 900 hours per year
- Middle school: 4–5 hours per day or 990 hours per year
- High school: 5–6 hours per day or 990 hours per year
Regardless of your approach—parent-led or independent learning—homeschooling involves a time commitment for both you and your children. Parent-led requires 5 hours or more hours for planning, teaching, and grading. Independent learning requires 1–2 hours for planning and grading.
Homeschool Hour Requirements
Most states require either 180 days a year for homeschooling or 900–990 hours a year, averaging about 5 hours per day. Some states may have more specific time requirements for certain subjects or graduation. The HSLDA keeps track of state laws for homeschooling, but you may need to check your state’s board of education information regarding graduation requirements for high schoolers.
How to Shorten Your Homeschool Day
Homeschooling is a time commitment for your student as well, but it still shouldn’t be taking your child 8 hours every day to finish their work. An average time range for most students is between 4–6 hours with many finishing within 4 hours. If your days are consistently too long, here are some ways to start for shortening them.
- Find what’s slowing your child down. Pay attention to what’s taking the most time in the homeschool day. Is your child having difficulty grasping a particular subject? Are there notable distractions around?
- Break up subjects. If a certain subject is taking longer than necessary, break it up into smaller pieces over two days. This might extend your year, but it doesn’t need to be a permanent change. As students gain confidence, they may be able to take on all the work again in time.
- Use timers. Set timers at the beginning of each subject. Give them enough time to complete a full lesson, between 20 and 40 minutes depending on grade level, and once the timer is up, move on. Anything that’s left over can be saved for the next day or can become work for later in the day.
- Minimize distractions. If students are easily distracted, give them a clear workspace that doesn’t use bright colors or large decorations. If siblings distract each other, separate them into their own areas.
- Add tools for focus. Not all distractions are bad. Kids need movement and stimulation to help them focus on tasks that aren’t inherently stimulating. Balance balls and fidget toys give them an easy source of stimulation to help them focus without distracting. Music can also be a tool to help filter out other distracting stimuli.
How to Plan Your Homeschool Summer Schedule
If you’re not homeschooling year-round, the summer can be a wide-open span of time that’s either full of possibilities or endlessly tedious. No sample schedule or template will fit every family’s summer. But here are some things to keep in mind to enjoy a profitable summer.
- Create a summer wish list with your family. Everybody contributes suggestions for things they’d like to do. Afterwards, you and your spouse can plan the ones that are most doable.
- Keep a basic routine. Fill in regular lesson times with reading time, learning activities, or complete some courses over the summer.
- Keep the realism going. Summer should be relaxing. If it’s overloaded, you’ll be starting your new year already exhausted.
Thank you for sharing these helpful tips!
From a first time homeschooling mom jumping in for her last child’s junior and senior year, Thanks you!!!!!
My kids are now in 1st and 3rd, and I am proud that our district just this year started offering a full day Pre-K, free of charge. More areas should implement this. The cost is really crazy. I can see why some opt to do it at home. Plus then the schedule gives you the flexibility to work around trips to the zoo, museums, playdates, other kids naps.
wow! what a great list and article! really helpful for me!