Camp Sunshine

I posted about our weekend at Camp Sunshine on Silas' Caring Bridge page, you can read it here .

On this blog post however, I want to share something I realized at Camp Sunshine. I realized that we really really need a routine!! We have sort of had one for the last few weeks since we have started our new school year, but it has not been clearly defined. This weekend we had a scheduled that we followed, meals at certain times, activities at certain times, sleep at certain times. I realized we need this at home too, and it needs to be clearly defined.

Last night I asked Archie to move my large white board to the hall way where it can be used more efficiently. A long time ago I made magnets with the boys names on them and magnets with chores on them. So last night I arranged the boys names and put the chores they needed to do today under each name. After they have completed a chore, they can move the magnet out from under their name to under the "Completed chores" magnet.

I also made a morning routine for us and wrote it out on the board. We need to have the whole day scheduled but for this week, we will just focus on the mornings.

8:30 (or earlier if you wake up earlier) Get dressed, eat breakfast, start chores
9:30 Start school (today we are doing P.E., Handwriting, Math, Reading, and Bible memorization)
12:30 Lunch

Of course we will do more than this today, but I am just focusing on sticking to this part of the routine this week. Next week I plan to add in the afternoon and focus on that. Perhaps something like this..

1:30 School work
3:30 Chores
4-5 Free time (or chores if they aren't done yet)
5-6 Get ready for dinner
6:30 Dinner

And then of course the next week we will try and get the evening routine down...

7 PM clean up from dinner
7:30-8:30 Free time
8:30 Get ready for bed and family devotions
9 PM bed time for boys
10 PM bed time for adults

I am not one to oppose tweaking the schedule if it seems like its not working. I may change it an hundred times! But that's OK. Some Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday will have to be different since Tuesday and Thursday Jason has gymnastics classes, and Wednesday is church/AWANA. Free time can also turn into chore time or school time if the work wasn't completed during its time slot.

The boys are already not sure they like this routine but I think it will be really good for us as a family. We have done it before and I think we are always more productive when we stick to a schedule. I always say "Its better to have a plan and change it than to have no plan at all".