How to Balance Homeschool Activities With Breaks

Looking for ways you can balance your homeschool activities with breaks? Well, you just got some luck in your pocket! In today’s blog post, I will share practical tips and strategies that you can use as a busy homeschooling parent to balance homeschool activities and breaks.

While I love the fact that everything we do as homeschoolers counts! As a homeschooling mom of two, I believe it’s essential to balance homeschool activities with breaks, as this helps cultivate a healthy learning environment for our kids.

Before diving into my tips and strategies for balancing educational activities with breaks, let’s examine why your kids (and you) need sufficient breaks.

Table of Contents

The Importance of Breaks in Homeschooling:

Enhanced Productivity:

Let us use the analogy of a machine. If you constantly run a machine without turning it off or only turn it off for a very short time, it will eventually crash, or the output won’t be the same – right? Similarly, if your children are constantly being fed academic or structured work, they will feel overwhelmed and be less focused, and overall, their productivity level will drop.

Short breaks will massively improve your child’s ability to learn and retain what is being taught.

As a first-time homeschooling mom, I mistakenly copied the public school system, failing to notice that my kids were burned out and feeling quite frustrated with homeschooling. Even I felt burned out, and that’s when I realized we needed to shift how we were homeschooling.

Foster a Love For Learning:

We all have unique reasons as to why we choose to homeschool. But, one thing I believe we may all have in common is the desire to foster a love for learning within our children.

If we, as homeschooling educators, are constantly ramming down structured work in our kids’ throats, they will not love learning. Instead, the opposite will take place. And guess what – your life as a homeschooling educator will become more challenging because now you have kids who do not desire to learn. Thus, regular breaks from learning will result in your kids’ loving to learn.

Mental Benefits

Balancing homeschool activities with breaks will provide endless mental benefits to your kids. Beaks will allow them to engage in activities they love and enjoy. As well as, find time to do things that allow them to tap into their creativity, boosting their self-esteem.

3 Tips For Balancing Homeschool Activities And Breaks

Here are three ways I believe you can balance homeschooling activities and beaks:

1. Create a Flexible Schedule:

Craft a daily schedule with designated time slots for educational activities and breaks. However, remember that no two days are the same for homeschooling. Hence, be open to adjustments based on your and your children’s daily needs and energy levels.

Here’s a little outline of a typical homeschooling day in our life.

Firstly, we homeschool Mondays – Thursdays, with Fridays being the day we run errands, and I get my weekly housecleaning, etc, done.
Our homeschooling day begins around 9 AM.
Kids will pause for a quick snack or stretch around 10:30 AM (usually for 10 mins)
11: 30/11.45 AM, we will go outside for about 15 mins.
Have lunch together at noon.
Our homeschooling day is complete!

My kids get to do whatever they want while I work from noon to 3 PM.

They usually watch TV. build legos, and play on their tablets or toys. During the warmer months, they will go outside and ride their bikes or play, etc.

Homeschooling does not need to be the same hours as the public school system.

2. Follow your Child’s cue

Somedays, my kids will wake up and not feel like doing anything, or maybe it’s the other way, and I don’t have the energy to homeschool. These days, I give my kids grace or grace to myself.

That’s the beauty of homeschooling – you are in charge of how you do things around your home. Giving your kids grace on days they need will make them feel heard and valued. On the flip side, when your kids observe that you are giving yourself grace when most needed, it will help them prioritize self-care and self-love. Habits that will bring about massive changes in their lives.

Now, if your child is waking up every morning with low energy and no interest in learning – you may want to look into more creative ideas on how you can inspire a love for learning in your kid. Does your child learn better through play? Maybe switch your curriculum or the order in which activities are done.

Having a conversation with your child about what they would like to learn and how they would like homeschooling to look for them may also help.

3. Ditch Expectation

What do I mean by this?

Chances are you are in twenty different homeschooling Facebook groups. (Make sure to come on over and join our new FB group here) Follow homeschooling moms on TikTok or Instagram and feel like you have to do so much more to keep up with what other homeschooling parents are doing.

And the truth is – it is so typical to feel like that. For sure, I’ve felt this way before and sometimes still do!

But here is the thing – we are all on our own journey when it comes to homeschooling. Our kids have different learning styles and capabilities. We have other family situations and so forth. Some homeschooling parents today were homeschooled, so they have a more comprehensive knowledge or support system.

So, if you are doing more and more to keep up with the Jonas of homeschooling, quit!

Quit guilt-tripping yourself that your child is in fifth grade, which is what all fifth graders need to know or should be doing. And go at your child’s own pace.

Something I love saying to my kids and remind myself of often is to put my head down and stay in my lane. Doing this will allow you to focus on what matters and do what you can rather than burning yourself out by overdoing.

Conclusion:

With time, patience, and consistency, you will master balancing homeschooling activities with breaks. Start by embracing one of the tips I listed above and then stack on to another.

Try crafting a schedule that works best for you and your kids, then give yourself and your kids grace when needed. And lastly, ditch the expectation or comparison. In so doing, you will create a homeschooling environment that is enriching academically and nurturing for your kids’ overall well-being.

The key is finding harmony, allowing your child to thrive intellectually and emotionally.

Happy homeschooling!

If you have not grabbed our free homeschooling planner printable, make sure to do so over!

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