14. What’s a Typical Day Look Like?

Quick summary:  A big perk to modular learning is you can design the best schedule for your unique family, whether that means sleeping in, learning at 7 pm at night, or 10 am in the morning. We’ve observed that Modular learners typically set aside 1-2 hours a day for 1-1 mastery learning and spend the rest of the time in self-directed learning, socializing, or taking extracurriculars. Families can homeschool with full-time jobs, as single parents, graduate students, with a newborn, working remotely, or traveling the world. There are options for everyone. 

1. Typical patterns in modular learning

2. Younger children need more time with parents

3. Is having a schedule better?

4. Sample schedules

   • Kindergarten

   • Elementary

   • Middle School

   • High School

5. Slices of life: a film and a podcast episode

6. 15 real-life examples 

Setting up a Homeschool Schedule (or milestones) + 4 Sample schedules and 15 real-life examples

What’s a typical day look like? Modular learning looks different for every family. Unlike school, the options of a homeschooling schedule are limitless. Families can curate a schedule aligned with their work schedule, sleep schedule, and childcare needs. 

Patterns in modular learning

There’s no one best schedule for every family, but it’s still helpful to get a feel of what this can look like in practice.  If you work full-time or part-time, these schedules will also help you see how to fit your work into your homeschooling schedule. 

Here are some typical patterns we’ve observed in modular learners looking for a challenging, well-rounded homeschool program that allows for self-directed learning and rich social experiences.  

Year-round schooling

One significant difference between modular learning and traditional school is year-round schooling. In a modular approach, learning happens all the time.  Kids are learning at their own pace and continuously building upon previous learning. Kids have a balanced schedule that allows them to take breaks and switch things up when needed. 

Parents don’t stop working in the summer, and it doesn’t make sense for kids to stop learning.  Students don’t stop learning two months of the year and then play catch-up each Fall.

There’s no big celebration when school gets out in Spring. In modular learning, kids love learning and have an insatiable appetite for more knowledge. Learning is something they enjoy.  When modular learning is going well, kids don’t have any need or desire to take the summer off. 

Younger children need more time with parents

The younger children are, the more high-quality, engaged time they need with their primary caregiver for healthy cognitive and social development, especially in the first five years of life. As kids grow older (especially homeschoolers), they will also become more independent and need less adult interaction. If parents are in a position to be at home full-time with kids or change their work schedule to spend time with their children, that’s the ideal set-up. An extended family member or caregiver can be an effective alternative. While we understand that daycare is an inevitable solution for some families, we don’t consider this high-quality, engaged time. 

“The most important stage for brain development is the beginning of life, starting in the womb and then the first year of life. By the age of three, a child’s brain has reached almost 90% of its adult size.[2] This rapid brain growth and circuitry have been estimated at an astounding rate of 700–1000 synapse connections per second in this period.[3] The experiences a baby has with her caregivers are crucial to this early wiring and pruning and enable millions and millions of new connections in the brain to be made. Repeated interactions and communication lead to pathways being laid down that help memories and relationships form and learning and logic to develop.[4] This means a human baby’s brain is both complicated and vulnerable.[5]”

For more on the vital role of family time in cognitive development and mental health, see  “The importance of early bonding on the long-term mental health and resilience of children.” Winston R, Chicot R. The importance of early bonding on the long-term mental health and resilience of children. London J Prim Care (Abingdon). 2016 Feb 24;8(1):12-14. doi: 10.1080/17571472.2015.1133012. PMID: 28250823; PMCID: PMC5330336.

Thinking about scheduling differently

One of the ideas we discussed in the section on mastery learning is that any child can master a concept if given enough time. What’s important is not time spent but mastery of concepts. 

Everyone has different preferences for structured vs. unscheduled time. We found many kids prefer to-do lists to work through at their leisure, but some value a schedule. Here are some ways different modular learners structure learning. 

As in any approach, no one is a purist - and usually integrates a combination of the following methods to structuring modular learning. 

• Milestones: Some families choose to focus on milestones rather than tasks or time. Milestones can help ensure students are learning for mastery and have activities to keep them learning and give them a sense of achievement. 

• Tasks: Many modular learners focus on daily tasks rather than daily time slots for learning. Some families have a jar of tasks or milestones that students can select during each work period. Others use a planner, checklist, or a stack of index cards. 

• Blocks: Some modular learners set aside 2-3 hour blocks of time where students have the option to engage in a variety of activities. Blocks can be essential for parents who work remotely. If students have clear boundaries around blocks of time when parents are working, and they’re learning, family time, and 1-1 parent-led learning, it prevents interruptions during work periods. 

• Strewing: In addition to being a cool vocabulary word, strewing is a concept in modular learning that parents use to refer to setting up their child’s environment with a variety of learning tools and resources. Rather than having blocks of time, tasks for milestones, some families focus on creating an environment that’s ripe for learning. Lesley Grossblatt, Chief Product Officer of KQED and unschooling mom, wrote this great blog on “Sparking Independent Learning With Strewing.” She gives examples of different objects families can place in a room to help inspire children to direct their own learning. 

• No schedule: Many modular learners will laugh when asked if they have a schedule. As people have different preferences for scheduled and unscheduled time, routines can fall together naturally - or not. As long as families try to get to their 1-2 hours of mastery learning in every day and make time for social interaction, there’s no need to have a regimented schedule. 

Is having a schedule better? 

Some research on homeschoolers and standardized testing suggests some degree of structure is the best choice to optimize learning for most kids. However, this may also be because parents who care more about academic outcomes tend to implement schedules more often. And standardized testing is a highly limited method of measuring learning. 

Different children have different needs when it comes to scheduled or unscheduled times, so that’s also important to keep in mind. Some kids thrive on structure, while others are highly self-driven and thrive on unstructured time, devouring books, writing, and planning projects without any prompting.

Sample schedules for Kindergarten, Elementary, and Secondary

As we explain in our section on childcare, families can homeschool well with two full-time jobs, with multiple siblings, as a parent with a part-time job, as a stay-at-home parent working on a degree, or with a newborn. We’ve provided use cases for all these scenarios. 

As tempting as it is to imitate what others have done, hopefully, these schedules will instead serve to inspire you to curate a plan that works well for your own family. If you do get into a rhythm that works, please let us know, and we’ll share it with other families to inspire them too! 

Here are some sample schedules we’ve set up for families at Modulo

1. Kindergarten

2. Elementary 

1. Middle

1. High

Slices of life: A film and a podcast episode

Sometimes a schedule isn’t enough to give families a real sense of what a typical day looks like in homeschooling. Here is a film and a podcast episode that provide a particularly great picture of what life can look like as a secular homeschooler practicing modular learning. 

Class Dismissed: Class Dismissed is a documentary that chronicles the experiences of a family in the Bay area that remove their children from traditional schools to pursue homeschooling. The family tries almost every method of homeschooling until they find the right approach for each of their kids. It’s inspiring to watch the kids grow more curious, happy, and relaxed throughout the film. The film also gives a great look into the social side of homeschooling.

Unruffled: Adventures in Free Range Learning: In this podcast episode, internationally renowned parenting expert Janet Lansbury interviews Laura Grace Weldon: poet, editor, writer, author of Free Range Learning, and homeschooling mom of four, about her choice to homeschool.  Weldon gives a vivid portrayal of what their lives look like on a daily basis. 

Real-life examples from social media

Here are some actual schedules we’ve pulled together from families on social media. Here are some real families making modular learning work in various circumstances.

Multiple siblings 

Stay-at-home parent 

Family with a 7-year-old, toddler and a new baby 

Parent with a part-time job outside the home 

Parents working remotely

Grandparents homeschooling siblings 

Getting a degree while homeschooling

Homeschooling with a newborn

Worldschoolers: Traveling while homeschooling

Night owls

 Early birds

Two full-time working parents

Single full-time working mom: 

Figuring out how to make homeschooling work for your family is often a balancing act between childcare and work schedule.

In the next section, we’ll help you understand the different options for affording homeschooling and how to make the best choice for your child and for yourself. Kids do best when parents are happy and healthy too.