Simple Kindergarten Homeschool Schedule: Ideas + Curriculum for Getting

We’ve got a pretty great kindergarten homeschool schedule at home now.

Since we started our level K curriculum in March with the intent to complete it by the end of June, we’re currently doing things at an accelerated pace.

I spend 6 days a week working through our Level K curriculum with my oldest daughter for an average of 1 hour and 40 minutes a day between Language Arts and Math curriculums.

Three days a week, we also do Science for between 15 and 20 minutes a day though.

I’ll walk you through our current routine and share what we plan on doing differently for the fall when M starts Grade 1 and her little sister starts Pre-K.

Keep reading to learn:

homeschool calendar ideas and checklist
tips for setting realistic expectations
how to make a good homeschool schedule
which curriculum we’re using now
our homeschool daily schedule example
ideas to organize and plan your day
how to keep little kids busy while you homeschool older siblings

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Simple Kindergarten Homeschool Schedule: Ideas + Curriculum for Getting Started

Beginning your homeschool journey requires a little bit of unschooling for you as a parent!

I know when I started, I felt guilty for not having engaging lesson plans that lasted several hours a day.

But it’s important to remember that homeschooling isn’t like traditional school and that’s a GOOD thing.

You get so much more time with your children to enjoy playing and reading together as well as including them in daily activities like cooking, household chores, running errands, and even hobbies you enjoy as an adult!

They get to work on real-world skills and their downtime is an opportunity for discovery.

For instance, my husband picked up playing the guitar last fall which prompted me to relearn it 20 years later.

From there, my oldest daughter became interested in learning how to play musical instruments too so we started her on a ukulele and then got her a junior guitar on Facebook Marketplace.

On days when my husband is home (he works long hours in film but when he’s off, he’s home for a couple of weeks at a time), we all play a bit together.

Even our 2 year old gets involved and has fun making noise on what is now her ukulele, haha!

After my mom gifted us with my old childhood keyboard, M fell in love with the piano and has been practicing on it ever since.

In her unstructured time, she really enjoys using the SimplyPiano app to learn how to play her favorite songs and at 5 years old, she could read music and started to play songs with both hands!

One of the most wonderful parts about homeschooling is the opportunity to watch children explore and pursue the things that interest them most.

And whether it’s sports, music, art, writing, or something else, they’ll have more time to enjoy and master their new hobby of choice!

Homeschooling Schedule Ideas

Think about how many days a week you’d like to homeschool your child and what works with your family’s schedule.

For some families, that might be three days a week, and for others, it might be five or six days a week.

After that, it’s time to consider how you’ll break up those days.

I like to divide ours into three parts.

It could be morning, afternoon, and evening or something a little different if you work outside of your home.

Then, figure out when you think your kids will learn best and plan your educational time during that window.

For us, this happens to be first thing in the morning but I know other families that prefer playtime or household work in the morning and learning in the afternoon.

You know yourself and your children best!

If you’ve tried it out for a couple of days and think it could be going better, you can always adjust your schedule later on too.

homeschool kindergarten preschool schedule

More Productivity Tips for Homeschool Moms:

How to Organize Your Homeschool Day

After you’ve figured out what time works for you, allot which lessons and the number of lessons you’ll teach your child in each subject.

We’re using the Level K Language Arts, Math, and Science curriculums from The Good and the Beautiful right now.

It made planning our school days much easier since the course plan is done for you with bite-sized manageable lessons to keep little ones engaged.

You can check out our The Good and the Beautiful Curriculum review to see if these courses might be right for your family!

M really enjoys learning but finds Language Arts to be her most challenging subject.

Since she enjoys Bible study and Science most of all, I like to start our day with something fun before moving on to a more difficult topic.

By building her confidence with a fun bible story or activity before we get started, she’s in a great mood when the time comes to do Language Arts and Math.

Starting your day with something your child enjoys doing makes it easier to do the “work” later on.

From my own experience, if you save the “worst” for last, it only leads to prolonged school time and frustration at the end of your day.

Homeschool Calendar Ideas and Checklist

I like using a traditional calendar to plan our days – a large wall calendar like this one that we use is great for kindergarten and elementary years.

Since our curriculum is preplanned with The Good and the Beautiful (TGATB), I just need to fill in the lesson numbers for each subject I’ll be covering with M that day.

I also have room to mark down special events and prioritize the things I want to get accomplished in my day – right now, it’s work, reading my bible, and a few library books I’ve checked out.

But for you, it might look a little different.

I also have this Homeschool planner but am saving it for the Fall.

Since I’ll be planning both M’s Grade 1 curriculum as well as more pre-K activities for N now, this planner will go a long way.

Basic Homeschool Checklist

If I were to get just the basics to plan out our upcoming year, it would be the following:

Large Wall Calendar (great if you’ve got a lot of extracurriculars, learning objectives, and personal goals daily)
Homeschool Planner (especially for multiple children!)
Basic Notebook (for lesson planning outside of TGATB – go for coiled notebooks since it’s easier to keep the page you’re working on open)
Pencils and erasers (since I sometimes move lessons around when sick days/field trips/play dates/etc come up – these cute colorful ones are fun)
Hilighters (I like to emphasize important days and topics in pink)

Setting Realistic Expectations

In my experience, the best way to plan our homeschool days was by doing a few test trial runs.

After a couple of days of getting comfortable and finding a routine, we found what works for us.

If you haven’t already ordered your curriculum and are considering TGATB, be sure to do an assessment to see what level you should start first.

It’ll be far less frustrating for everyone to begin at a less difficult level than one that they’re not quite comfortable at.

Even if it seems a little easy to start, this can help build confidence in kids since it gives them the opportunity to show off what they know and have fun doing it!

How to Make a Good Homeschool Schedule

A great learning schedule incorporates work, playtime, and breaks!

I find that a 20-minute break between unit lessons is the sweet spot for M.

We do two lessons from Language Arts followed by a 20-minute break and then move on to two Math lessons.

On the days we do Science, I add another 20-minute break.

So, at about 20 minutes a lesson, that’s 40 minutes of work in each subject followed by a 20-minute break.

That said, my now 6-year-old is extremely chatty and finds relatable topics in nearly everything we do (so sometimes things get delayed while she’s chatting away)!

You might find that you need less or more time to complete each lesson.

This is exactly where those test trials I talked about earlier could help.

Our Homeschool Daily Schedule Example

My girls are early risers so our days usually look a little something like this:

6:30am Girls wakeup
6:45am Breakfast
7:15 am Bible
7:45am Break
8:05am Language Arts (2 lessons)
8:45am Break
9:05am Math (2 lessons)
9:45am Break
10:05am Science
10:25am End of School Time*
10:30am Art
11:30am Lunch
12:00pm Outside/Park/Garden Time
1:00pm Puzzles/Games/Music
2:00pm Chores
3:00pm Reading/Story Time
4:00pm Playtime
5:15pm Dinner
5:45pm Quiet Playtime
6:30pm Get ready for bed
7:00pm Bedtime

*When I say school time, I mean learning at the table time!

For us, Bible time could mean any of the following:

working through my oldest daughter’s kids’ bible
reading a bible stories picture book
listening to (or playing) songs by Listener Kids
watching an episode of Saddleback Kids Church at Home or Kids On The Move

Colorful images, music, and fun videos like these are a great way to engage younger siblings too!

Going forward, our school hours will probably be less than three hours a day four or five days a week.

We plan on doing more extracurriculars and field trips this fall.

So, for Grade 1, we want to schedule the following each school day:

20 minutes Bible
20 minutes Language Arts
20 minutes Math
20 minutes Science (one or two times a week)
20 minutes to 1 hour of Arts and Crafts (once or twice a week, alternating with Science)
20 minutes Croatian

We recently discovered Dino Lingo and were blown away that it offered 50 different languages including Croatian!

The videos can be a little cheesy but we’ve had a lot of success with the online activities so far – there are even printables you can supplement learning with.

How to Keep Little Ones Busy While You Homeschool Older Kids

Here are a few of the fun activities my 2.5-year-old does while we complete M’s homeschool coursework:

reusable stickers (these are our favorite way to spend time and even my 6-year-old still loves to play with them – bonus: clean up is fun with these too)
painting with water (again, both of the girls really enjoy these water-reveal activity books)
coloring with crayons, pencil crayons, or washable markers (depending on your little ones age, you might even be able to get away with recycling coloring books that your older ones have completed/are no longer interested in)
Lego Duplo or other building blocks

Having plastic storage bins with “special” toys that only come out on certain days of the week is another way to keep your youngest ones entertained while you complete bookwork with older kids.

For us, it’s recycling M’s old coloring books right now, haha.

Because as soon as N sees her doing schoolwork, she wants to do whatever her older sister is up to!

Here are some printable freebies for teaching your little ones about the alphabet (in English and Croatian) and Europe 🙂

Simple Kindergarten Homeschool Schedule Ideas: Final Thoughts

Making the decision to homeschool our kids can be one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of your life – I know we certainly feel this way!

I can’t imagine not spending the day with my girls and watching them absorb and utilize the new information we share with them.

That said, creating a balance between desk work and real-life education is so important from the start.

I initially struggled to get this done but when I did, our days became so much more enjoyable.

Now the girls know that after they have breakfast, it’s time to learn and they sincerely enjoy and look forward to the routine we’ve created for them.

Are your children early risers? Will you spend your time teaching in the mornings or afternoons?

I’d love to hear what you think.

Thanks for reading and happy homeschooling, friend!