Do you have a minimum viable homeschooling day?

The week before Easter is always one of the busiest weeks of the year for me. Our church does several extra services, and with that brings extra hours of practice and planning. Normally, I try to take this week off, but my kids wanted to observe the same spring break as the local schools, so we're doing school this week.

To account for the extra busy week, we are entering "minimum viable" mode. What's that? It's the school work that needs to be done to count as a school day.

It can be helpful to have a plan for your minimum viable day. You may live in a state that requires a certain amount of time to count as a school day - how can you fill those hours with activities that are educational for your kids but don't require tons of planning and hands-on time for you? Which subjects are most critical for your child (math and reading are always part of our minimum viable day)? What can you save for later?

A minimum viable day is not meant to be a long-term plan, but it can be helpful when you are dealing with sickness or intense family situations. Try it for a day, or a week, but then try to restore to a fuller plan as soon as your external situation has stabilized.

If you'd like help creating a minimum viable day plan, you might like my Busy Moms Rock Homeschooling free guide (if you haven't already grabbed it). It shows you how to create minimal plans for time of stress, balanced plans for everyday use, and abundant plans for when you have more time to devote to extra projects.

I encourage you to think about your minimal viable plan. Think about what it will include and under what conditions you'll use it. Having a minimal plan in place will help alleviate stress when you need some space to breathe.