Create a Minimum Viable Day for Tough Homeschool Days

Homeschooling can be a crazy ride. We all want to be amazing homeschool moms, with fun and exciting lessons with lots of activities. But let’s face it, life doesn’t always go how we want, and we can’t always get in a “full day” of homeschooling.

That’s where the Minimum Viable Day comes in. It’s like your secret weapon to ensure you don’t fall off the homeschooling wagon. This tool lets you check off your daily school day, even on those crazy, unpredictable days when you can’t do it all.

In this blog post, we’re going to break down the Minimum Viable Day concept. We’ll explain what it is, when you would use it, and how to create a Minimum Viable Day for your family.

So, if you feel constricted by your life or homeschool schedule, stay with us. We’re about to give you a tool to balance your goals with real-life demands in your homeschool routine.

What is a minimum viable day for homeschoolers?

A Minimum Viable Day (MVD) is the minimum things in your daily homeschool routine you can do to feel like you have still accomplished a good day of schoolwork.

In other words, this is what you can accomplish in your school day to still be able to check it off as a school day and still accomplish some things toward your year-end goals, but also deal with the fact that sometimes you just can’t do a “full day” of homeschooling.

Think of it kinda like a mental health day without completely taking a day off. A way to help prevent burnout without completely getting off schedule. Doing the bare minimum.

This is something you have decided in advance so that you can still feel good about being diligent with school while taking some of the pressure off yourself.

I’ve seen this idea in a Medium article by Rebecca Pendleton about the concept of an MVD. The concept originates from the idea of a minimum viable product in business. That’s the most basic version of a product you release so you can get something out there for the least effort. That’s my gist for you.

If you usually consider a full day of school to be five subjects, maybe on your minimum viable day you will only do 2 or 3. Maybe you just read aloud in your morning time and skip the bookwork. Or perhaps you do the opposite and only do bookwork and skip morning time.

You also could have a completely different set of tasks you do on your basic minimum day. You might decide to watch a documentary, play a math game, and call it a day!

When would I use a minimum viable day?

A minimum viable day for your homeschool is great to use on any day you can’t do a full day, but still want to accomplish learning. Those days when you wake up and don’t feel well but your kids are all doing fine. Or on a day when your kids have a little bit of an attitude and you just can’t push through it all.

You also may use a minimum viable day in the seasons of life that are particularly hard for your family. When you have a baby or a toddler running around the house. Or a relative who has a prolonged illness. Any time your family is dealing with a life struggle that can make homeschooling a little more difficult.

You may use it only once in a while on particularly hard days or you may use it for several days in a row to get through a rough patch in life. You could also use it weekly on days you need to get through school more quickly for other outings.

It’s ok to not do it all every day! Whatever you can do to still feel like you are accomplishing a good school day and your kids are learning can be a great help for keeping consistency in your homeschool.

How to create a minimum viable day

If you’re interested in turning your homeschool routine into a minimum viable day for an easier homeschool day, here are my 6 steps to get there!

1. Start with your basic homeschool routine 

Look at everything that you normally want to do in your homeschool routine. These are the things you have planned to do on a regular basis. If they aren’t already, write them down.

These will be the subjects and regular activities you do. Like math, science, reading, writing, history, and art. It doesn’t need to be in-depth. Just think a basic list.

If you need help creating a basic homeschool routine for your family check out my post with my 10 tips to create your own daily routine homeschool schedule.

2. Prioritize 

Take the list of your daily homeschool routine and prioritize what you feel is most important for your child to regularly be doing. This will be different for each family and each child.

You might be teaching your child to read, so reading instruction is very important to not skip. You might want to be sure that math is done often. Or perhaps you do a lot of reading aloud in your homeschool and skipping a day on that can make things difficult.

You might consider doing only the things your child really enjoys, or you may want to stick with the things your child has a harder time with so they don’t forget what they have learned.

Whatever approach you have to prioritize subjects, go ahead and rank your day in order of what you feel is most important for your child.

3. Keep what is important

Once you have decided what is most important for your child to do, keep the top-ranking subjects for your minimum viable day. This may be only one thing they do. Or it could be three. The idea, though, is that you are doing less than your full day. You get to decide how much that is.

Decide these things in advance so you have a less emotional look at your routine. In the hard moments, it can be difficult to make decisions with an objective eye.

4. Skip the rest 

It can be hard for some to understand that it is okay to skip some subjects in your homeschool day occasionally. But let’s be honest. If you’re going to stick with this homeschool thing long-term, something has to give sometimes.

So skip the subjects you don’t feel are as important right now and focus on the ones that are more important. This doesn’t mean you never do these less important subjects. But you will just skip them for today.

I hear you thinking now. You have those subjects planned out for the whole year, and if you skip a day your plan is “messed up” and you now have to “make up” the work. You won’t be able to finish “on time!”

No, you don’t.

Just push this schoolwork back a day. Don’t add more stress to you and your child’s lives by making them do an extra day of school or doubling up. Just take it off, do it later, or skip it altogether. It’s gonna be alright.

Read: Do we have to finish our homeschool curriculum this year?

5. Implement on the hard days

Have your minimum viable day prepared in advance, and on a day that you know your time or sanity will be limited, you can implement it. Let your kids know it is a special day and to help with the stress of the day you are having a minimum viable day.

This teaches your kids flexibility and understanding that some days adjustments are needed. It shows your kids some ways to be diligent and consistent with our obligations in life while also saving our sanity. It will give them tools for the future to help with time and even project management and will help them find the balance in life that we all crave.

6. You can change it

Just like with any other part of homeschooling, nothing is ever written in stone. You can easily change a minimum viable day that you create as needed.

You may choose certain subjects to do and then choose different subjects later in the year. Or if you end up needing to scale back on school work more long-term, you can do that as well.

Don’t let anything you decide as a homeschool mom make you feel tied down. It can always be changed.

Examples of a minimum viable homeschool day

Here are a couple examples of what you could do with your daily homeschool routine to create a minimum viable day.

Minimum viable day

A minimum viable day can help you stay consistent with homeschooling despite life’s unpredictability. Using your homeschool routine as a basis to create your own basic minimum can bring adaptability when a “full day” seems impossible. It’s about being realistic in your homeschool life by maintaining diligence toward your yearly goals.

So use your minimum viable day as a tool when you need it, and give yourself and your children some extra space when life doesn’t go to plan. Don’t let the tough days keep you down.

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