90-Minute School Day was born from my own laboring in the homeschool world. From the first year, where we spent 4-6 hours a day on school and plowed through our curriculum to finish by mid-April, to a couple years where we just quit in May because we were burnt out. From feeling like the curriculum was the master and we were at its mercy.
We finally found a solution.
It has evolved slowly over time as a result of my real life failures, connections with other families in similar straits and the guidance of some amazing mentors. By redefining what I wanted homeschool to be like for my family, 90-Minute School Day was born.
Rhythm
This model is designed to provide healthy rhythm for you and an enjoyable experience for your children. Like a good recipe, it allows you to experiment and make it your own. If you’ve ever been to a chili or gumbo cook-off, you know what I mean. The competition is all about creating the same meal, but each competitor has their own special ingredients and flavor they’ve developed that gives their dish a different identity than their neighbor’s.
Simple
We have only listed 5 books to acquire. These books provide a common trajectory. We are all operating within the same framework and method. To continue with the metaphor, the books are part of the recipe for the common meal we are all going to be cooking.
Freedom
There is freedom to add your own individual flavor to the community meal. The book lists that we have curated are like optional ingredients for you to experiment with, as you develop your own secret sauce and technique.
Community
Community is key in this method, because we share and build together. Seeing a project that was completed in the same Circuit you’re in may inspire you to do likewise. Hearing what someone else read may spark some imagination in your own creative soul to add a similar story to your shelves. Sharing a discovery of your own and having it celebrated by others is affirming and rewarding. It has been said it takes a village to raise a child. We are your village.
Layers of Learning
Within the windows of time that make up the 90-Minute School Day, we have selected readings and activities that stack subjects together in an organic way, helping your child understand context as they learn. This increases comprehension and understanding.
For example: If you read aloud from a history book, that’s both history and language arts, and as you connect the ideas from that chapter to the corresponding Atlas reading, you are building geography and social studies. The activity for that session is working on a timeline, which builds fine motor skills, spatial awareness, and understanding of time in space, which is math.
Math is also assigned in a more formal setting within the Circuits. Writing class may look more like art class, as your child might color rocks to correspond with what happened in history, enhancing their fine motor skills and strengthening their writing ability and pencil grip for a more formal copy work assignment later.
Living learning is layering on multiple skills. This is how real life works as well. It’s not static and singular, it is multi-dimensional. It is fluid and moving.
Designed for Real Life
This method is designed for real life interruptions. There is built-in flexible time to adapt to the unexpected. There is no calendar schedule or week designation–this is designed to take the pressure off your schooling. Learning is happening all the time, and a day skipped here or there doesn’t mean learning stops–it just means it’s less formal. You can then pick up the circuit where you left off and resume on another day.
