On Habit and Routine:

As you can see, our Council meeting runs on routine. While we plan to start at 8am this year, I don’t tie our mornings closely to a clock. We’ve tried that, it is frustrates me because we are constantly behind. Instead, we tie our activities to each other, and we continue through the tasks in a particular order.
Chores are done before breakfast. Council meeting is followed by Algebra for Micah and kitchen cleanup for the younger boys. 

Micah will continue through his own work while I help the younger boys. I’ll read aloud before math. After math, they are off to a reading assignment, and I station myself at the kitchen table where I have a view of the living room and the kitchen to work on my own tasks until someone has a question. Gideon and Josiah come back to the table for narration and copywork (from Foundations memory work), then go read something else. They return to the table for narration and Essentials work. After that, it is time for either IEW work or lunch preparation.

We have lunch sometime between 12:30 and 1pm. Micah eats with us, and they listen to a non-school audio book or watch a thirty minute show while I eat by myself in another room. (That is an Introvert’s survival technique.)  

If Gideon and Josiah have been diligent with their other work, then IEW can be done before lunch and the rest of the day is theirs. If we had orchestra practice in the morning, if I need to go to a class at lunchtime, or if people lolly-gagged around instead of working, they work on their IEW projects after lunch.

The routine means that everyone knows what to expect. If we practice the habits of attention, obedience, and best effort, we are rewarded with time for masterly inactivity.

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