Our family's social distancing schedule
I wanted to share our family’s current weekday schedule, mostly to help other people feel okay about theirs. This isn’t what every day looks like, but it’s a good sense of ours.
7 - 8 am Get up somewhere in there.
8 - 8:30 am Laze about, take meds, go to the bathroom, do puzzles, read, snuggle
8:30 am - 9 am Family breakfast
9 am - 10 am W gets to work; K & M do activity - most recently from either Fun at Home with Kids or Hands on as We Grow
10 am - 11 am Free play in the playroom, snack
11 am - 12 pm Screen time (lately, the new iteration of Muppet Babies)
12 pm - 1 pm Lunch as a whole family
1 pm - 3 pm W goes back to work, audiobook and quiet bedroom play (I rest in M’s room during this time)
3 pm - 4 pm Snack, playroom free play
4 pm - 6 pm Screen time (more Muppet Babies, maybe Muppets Most Wanted)
6 pm - 7 pm Family dinner (both making and eating)
7 pm - 8 pm Stories
8 pm Lights out
You’ll notice there is absolutely no space for me to get any work done in here. That’s not sustainable long-term, though I was willing to accept it for this week and treat it effectively like spring break. In the future, I’m hoping we’ll get a 4 or 5 hour block of grandma time in there many a day so I can really get to work. If that doesn’t work out, one of the screen time blocks will probably be W & M together while I go off to get a couple of hours of work in.
Me getting rest is prioritized pretty highly here, too. I’ve been in the middle of an autoimmune flare for I don’t know how long, and have had many a coronavirus anxiety spiral. My sleep is… Not great.
Also, there’s not specific time blocked in here for getting outside. We do make an effort to get outside every day, sometimes for a family walk, sometimes sidewalk chalk in the culdesac, sometimes just catching some fresh air on the porch. I want to move toward more deliberate outside time and/or indoor physical activity next week. I also want to provide M. with resources to follow his interests. He wants to learn about robots and turtles next week, he says. He’s indicated that he wants to prioritize turtles over robots, but is interested in both.
Anyway, there’s no real deliberate learning and there’s absolutely zero teaching; the activities are fun things mostly to keep me from completely losing it. I do them first thing because genuinely by 10 or 11 I feel like I’ve already used up my spoons for the day.
So yeah. It looks structured, but it’s not. This is more of a DESCRIPTIVE schedule than a PRESCRIPTIVE schedule. It’s just kind of what’s been happening. I hope it’s helpful.