Which Homeschool Schedule Actually Works for You?

Homeschool Better Together with Pam Barnhill

Pam Barnhill

Kids & Family, Christianity, Education, Religion & Spirituality

4.9 • 683 Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Are you ready to break out of “school-at-home” thinking and finally build a homeschool rhythm that fits YOUR real life—not just the one in the curriculum guide?

This week, I invited our two resident schedule-geeks—Laney Homan and Dawn Garrett—into the studio for a lively, practical (and very honest) roundtable on all things homeschool schedules.

We’re tackling the myth that there’s only one “right” way to schedule your homeschool, sharing why nobody here gets up for a 7am school bus…and giving you permission to let go of what doesn’t work for your unique family.

We walk through six of the most popular scheduling types (yep, there’s math, but not the scary kind), spill the biggest scheduling mistakes we’ve made, and show you what flexibility really looks like through every messy season.

No pressure. Just lots of ideas, permission to pivot, and some hilarious overscheduling confessions from yours truly.

If you secretly geek out over planners—or if you just wish someone would tell you WHY you can never stick to the schedule the public school uses—this is your episode.

Grab your coffee, open your planner (or don’t), and join us for a real talk that just might make your next homeschool season your smoothest yet.

What You’ll Learn:

The most common homeschool schedule types and why families choose them
How to start with intention (not just “fall into” inconsistent routines)
Why your schedule can (and should) change as your family grows and life shifts
How to adapt for outside classes, big family needs, and real-life curveballs
The difference between loop and block scheduling (and which one to use if you always skip science!)
How to use “magic number” scheduling for ultimate flexibility—and what to avoid
Permission to experiment, change things up, or even go back to traditional if that’s what works

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

For full show notes and a transcript of today’s episode, head to pambarnhill.com/hsbt39.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Are you ready for homeschooling to feel joyful again?
0:05.4	Do you long for support as you learn alongside your kids?
0:10.3	Welcome to Home School Better Together, a podcast about building a homeschool experience that works for your family.
0:18.2	I'm Pam Barnhill, and it's time to step out of the overwhelm and
0:22.0	into the wonder. Let's do this.
0:28.6	Hey there, hey there, and welcome back to this episode of the podcast. I hope this is going to be
0:33.8	a fun one for you. It's a little bit different. We are going to be breaking down
0:38.2	all kinds of homeschool schedules. And hopefully this is something you geek out over too. If not,
0:46.2	and maybe find another one in the podcast app. But no, it's going to be a really good conversation.
0:51.2	So I'm joined today by Lady Holman, who is our member success manager and Don Garrett, who is our customer service manager.
0:59.8	These ladies are just like my right and my left arm.
1:03.6	They're always helping people out.
1:06.0	Such a wealth of homeschool knowledge between the two of them.
1:09.5	So ladies, thank you for joining me today to talk
1:11.8	about schedules. Is everyone just as excited as I am? I'm always excited about schedules and plans.
1:19.9	The execution, that's the problem, Pam. This is true. Amen. This is true. Planning is so much fun. It is the execution. That's the problem. But we have a class for that, too, honestly. Okay. Well, let's get into it. When I presented the idea, let's do a whole episode on schedules. Neither one of you said, oh, you're crazy. What are we going to talk about for, you know, a whole podcast on schedules? Because you know, as well as I do, that there are lots of different kinds of schedules out there. And I thought this was important because people still get caught in the trap of thinking that they have to do school
2:02.9	at home or they have to follow the schedule that the school follows. Do you still find that
2:08.8	when you talk to people? Especially with new home schoolers and with kids, families who have kids
2:14.6	in different kinds of schools, I find that too. So they have some kid going to the
2:20.4	local public or private school and they're doing homeschooling with one particular kid. They want to
2:25.9	follow the schedule. But my husband, we always schooled on a weird schedule and my husband said,
2:32.5	we don't have to stick to the man.
	...

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