daily, weekly, yearly rhythms

As anyone familiar with this blog or Enki Education knows, establishing rhythms are a large part of providing a feeling of integration to our family. I've posted about our daily and weekly rhythms previously, but of course those change over time according to our family's needs and what works best for us at that time of year. Over the past several years, I've discovered some trends, and now feel confident talking about our yearly rhythms as well, which will serve me well this summer as I prepare for our 2009-10 school year.


In the spring we definitely want to be outdoors as much as possible after feeling cooped up all winter. As a result, we've dropped our Adventure Circle and replaced it with a daily morning walk instead. This gives us the opportunity to observe, on a daily basis, the amazing and rapid changes to the plants and animals in our immediate environment. Since we take dogs with us on our walk, coming home easily transitions into a daily dog training session. (J is taking obedience classes with Grace, and I'm working with Joy and Cheer. At this point, Zoo Boy is choosing to just watch us work the dogs rather than participating actively.)


Since the walk in and of itself does not address all of the kids' sensory needs, we follow up the dog training session with a short sensory-intensive activity. Relay races have been working well for us -- the kids run "heats" with activities designed to address all of the important sensory systems. In this photo, they are doing a potato sack race, providing lots of pounding propriocetive work. They also have rolling races, to address the vestibular system, followed up with crawling races (grounding proprioception and joint compression, as well as working on mid-lines and tactile/handwriting skills with their finger use). We finish up with something strongly proprioceptive, like bouncing on moon-bounces. Then they take a break for snack.

In the winter there is a much greater need for more sustained indoor exercise, so that's where I'll focus most of our formal circle/adventure circle activities for the year.


After snack is the time for our Story Work. (Other homeschoolers might refer to this as "seat work" or "curriculum work". In other words, formal lesson time.) Depending on the day of the week, this involves reading a new curriculum story; or recalling a story and doing a drawing or other art activity related to it; or writing out related verses; or working on math discovery or problems; or playing academic games related to the topic for the week. There is no story work on Sundays.

I've noticed that the kids and I are totally stoked for a whole lot of organized work in the fall. It's my favorite season weather-wise, and we're all refreshed and ready to roll coming off the loose summer rhythms. In fact, my kids were chomping at the bit to get going by the end of last summer, and I realized that we actually need less summer and should start our new school year earlier. So this year we'll take a 6 week summer break, then start up again in early to mid August.

I've also noticed that we need a much lighter work load in the Spring than in the Fall. We're doing about half as much Story Work (working with one new curriculum story a week, as opposed to two as we were doing in the Fall) and it's working to sustain us better at this time of year. I also have realized that we need to be very flexible during the Winter months to accommodate illnesses and other dysregulating events such as holidays and big storms. You sort of need to go with the flow of what the weather and your family's health status allows in the winter.

After Story Work, the kids have an hour or more before lunch, which they can use as they see fit in creative play. This might be indoors or outdoors, or a combination of the two, and this too has a lot to do with the weather conditions. During the winter we're usually indoors, during the fall we're usually out, and the spring seems to be more of a balance between the two.

Then we eat lunch, after which we have rest. This is a time for the boys to be in their room quietly, with no other activity going on in the house. I read in my room (and often catch a quick, refreshing nap as well), the boys lie on their beds reading or watching a video or listening to music or stories on tape -- no talking or other noise happens during rest, and the boys are not interacting with each other despite being in the same room. Depending on the day, rest could be anywhere from about 45 minutes to 2 hours. Usually it's about 1 1/2 hours. We've all come to really value this quiet time in the middle of our day.

Occasionally we need to be traveling somewhere for a distant afternoon activity during this time slot. In that case, we listen to music or stories on tape in the car on our way, but we still use the time as quiet time (no talking or interacting).

In theory there is time for skills practice (handwriting, worksheets, etc) at the end of rest or before supper, but often we're busy trying to get to our afternoon activity or late in getting home, so more often than not that's fallen by the wayside this year. It's something I am committed to more firmly establishing in the next school year.

And then the afternoon is dedicated to activities and adventures. Monday is co-op day, Tuesday is therapy day, Wednesday and Thursday are museum/nature center classes/visits and/or playdates and/or nature walks and/or crafts or baking at home, Friday is sports day, and Saturday is Family Adventure day.

Then comes supper, bed prep, and, of course, bed. A Friday night Nature Story by the fire has become a bit of a tradition -- with the warmer weather, it will be a campfire rather than a fire in the fireplace, with S'mores replacing popcorn as our special storytime snack.

During our 6-week Summer Break, we will still follow the basic rhythms outlined above, but with a more relaxed jaunt, and no Story Work at all. Our daily rhythm this coming summer will be breakfast, chores, walk, dog training, sensory activities, snack, bowling (there is a free bowling program all summer, click on that link for details!), lunch, rest, swimming at the lake, supper, bed prep, bed.

I'm feeling very comfortable with our rhythms at this point, and the kids are transitioning very smoothly along their days.