I realize some homeschool moms are adamant about it: They need an 8:00 start time for their homeschool or else they feel like they’ve frittered the best part of their day away.
Our kids get more sleep.
Putting our kids to bed later means they need to sleep later if they’re to get adequate rest. Some kids are better at this than others obviously, but it’s nice giving them the option of sleeping in or at least laying around for a while or having some quiet playtime before school gets started.
This has truly been one of the greatest benefits of homeschooling for us. I’ve watched other parents stress over bedtimes, often to the point of arranging every activity in their lives around them, just to ensure their children are getting adequate sleep. And of course sleep is important if they’re to do well in school! But even the Centers for Disease Control has begun encouraging school districts to start school later, simply because the lifestyles of most people today don’t lend toward early bedtimes.
For us lack of sleep isn’t usually an issue. Our kids always have the option of sleeping in.
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It makes my mornings far more relaxed.
I love mornings. Truly. And I hate feeling rushed through them. I get up fairly early, typically between 6:30 and 7, but that gives me plenty of time to have my devotions, read a little news, check my email, do some writing, and sometimes even fit in a little exercise. Plus I can do some cleanup and start a load of laundry before beginning breakfast. I like having the time to do these things at a reasonable pace, instead of rolling out of bed and barreling toward homeschooling at breakneck speed.
I like feeding my kids a good breakfast.
There’s nothing wrong with feeding my kids cereal, yogurt, or fresh fruit for breakfast. Sometimes I need a quick and easy breakfast.
But my kids, my boys especially, really appreciate a hot, filling breakfast. And I like fixing it for them. One of my boys is even learning to be a big help with breakfast, which saves me some time and effort, teaches him a useful skill, and gives us some one-on-one time together in the mornings.
We usually start school over breakfast, which works great for us because it brings us all together for a good meal and some time in the Bible. And while I realize 10:00 is pretty late for breakfast in the eyes of many, it works great for us, especially since we just follow it up with a late lunch and late dinner!
It isn’t impossible to have a good breakfast when you start school early, but it’s definitely more of a challenge. Unless maybe you’re one of those people who likes to get up at 4:30 in the morning, which I am NOT.
Yes! Whatever works for you and your family is exactly how it should be! 🙂
It's a lesson I wish I'd learned sooner in my homeschooling experience! LOVE that flexibility!
Thanks for dropping by today, Carol.
Thank you. We are similar except that I tend to feel bad about our late starts especially when we fail to meet the target start time. Probably, I shouldn't worry! I'm planning to share a link to this on my blog.
Thanks, Sarah. Believe me, I've struggled a lot with "late-start guilt", but I'm learning to let it go. I LIKE starting on schedule, but if it doesn't happen, it really isn't the end of the world. Sometimes we're too hard on ourselves! I think it's one of those MOM tendencies!
Once again, a lovely post! I could have written a lot of it myself : ) (although not so much that "loving mornings" part ; )
Well, perhaps I should have been a bit more clear. I don't necessarily love EVERY morning. But in general… 😉
Thanks for read, Anna!
The flexibility of homeschooling is one of the beauties of it, in my opinion. Why should we all feel we need to follow the same schedule? You've found what fits your family, which I'm sure keeps your homeschool happy and productive. 🙂
It certainly helps! Homeschooling is never perfect, but it definitely makes a big difference when we are willing to adjust things to fit our family.
Thank you for stopping by!
My kids are early to bed, early to rise (seriously I'd love it if they would just sleep until 7!)… but we still don't start school most days before 10. W used to try to push for an 8 or even a 9 O'clock start time but it rarely worked. Once I started following the natural flow of our day and realized that nothing was wrong with starting school later we were all much happier.
Same here! My boys are sleeping a little later now, but they used to be just like yours. And STILL trying to start early was terrible! Taking our time about getting started has been a wonderful thing for the whole family.
I think most people would prefer not to send the kids to school at 8am, but that's just the way it is! It is nice that you are able to start later and work the schedule around you! Thanks for sharing at the Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop|Link Party
Thanks for the opportunity! And, yes, I'm so thankful for that flexibility.
YAY, another night owl homeschooling mom!! My kids have never seen a 7:30 bedtime either – not even as infants. Nor have they ever started schoolwork at 8 a.m. (that I can recall, anyway.) We don't do school by the clock and it works great for us. I do catch myself wishing, sometimes, that I were a super-scheduled, super-efficient mom…but I'm just not, and we've all managed to survive anyway. Now if we could just get over that February-I-don't-even-want-to-do-school-any-more hump, we'd be all set. 🙂
Oh, yikes, February is always rough, isn't it? I sometimes wish, too, that I could be a super-scheduled mom, but apparently it just wasn't meant to be. And 10 works fine for us!
Thanks for dropping by, Kristin!
Makes total sense! Even Preschools have "late morning" batches that start at 12 pm! Would love to see your posts in the Practical Mondays Link Up:)