Hey everyone!

I apologize for the delay in this follow-up to our last Revolution email. Some family and life events turned the last few days into what felt simultaneously like minutes and years. But... hopefully the time out gave you all a chance to create your House Map and now you're ready for the next step! If you haven't gathered the data yet, don't worry. Pick a normal day this week and do it. I promise it's worth the effort.

Today I want to talk about what you're actually looking for now once you have this HeatMap....

The goal is to begin seeing patterns that have probably been there all along. Once you start looking for them, I don't think you'll ever stop noticing them. I do this exercise personally in my home about once every changing season (at least 2 times a year, sometimes 3 or 4). Here's what I look for:

One of the first things I look for is proximity. Who naturally gravitates toward other people, and who seeks solitude? Is one child almost always within physical touching distance of you while another disappears into their room for hours? Does someone always end up in the kitchen when you're cooking? Does one sibling seem to need constant interaction while another is happiest with long stretches of uninterrupted time? None of those things are "good" or "bad," by the way. They're simply information. They're clues about how your children naturally interact with the world around them. This information helps me determine our day's natural touchpoints. Hold onto this word - I'll be talking about it more soon!

The next thing I pay attention to is time. Are there certain times of day when your children naturally come together? Are there times when everyone seems to spread out? Maybe one of your children is incredibly social in the morning but needs quiet in the afternoon. Maybe another seems to do their best thinking/creating after dinner. We often build routines based on what we think should happen at certain times of the day, but what if we built them around what our families are already telling us? If you took the step of marking down the times on your map, this will be super helpful info for you when designing a good family routine.

Finally (and most importantly), I look at location. Where are your children choosing to spend their time? Not where you've told them to be, but where they naturally end up when nobody is directing them. Are they always on the floor? Curled up on the couch? At the kitchen counter? Hanging out in a totally random place like on the staircase or kitchen counter? Outside? Building forts under the dining room table? These natural choices by your children matter because our environment shapes our behavior, and our behavior gives us clues about what helps us learn best.

This is where the concept of strewing becomes incredibly practical. If you know your daughter spends half her day curled up on the living room rug, maybe that's where the basket of beautiful books belongs instead of on the bookshelf in another room with all the covers hidden. If your son always ends up at the kitchen island while you're making dinner, maybe that's where the microscope, sketchbook, puzzle, or interesting article gets left out. If your teenager inevitably wanders into your office every afternoon just to chat, maybe that's the perfect place to leave a biography you've been hoping they'll notice or some fidget-friendly toys to keep them busy while they chat. We don't have to force learning into our children's lives. Sometimes we simply have to place opportunities where they're already living.

As you look at your Heatmap, I'd also encourage you to notice yourself. Where are you spending your time? Are you always behind a computer in a room nobody else enters? Are you constantly moving while your children are trying to settle in one place? Are you unintentionally creating barriers to connection? Remember, your home isn't just revealing your children's patterns. It's revealing the rhythm of your entire family.

Ok now yes, we're gathering this data and interpreting it, but cool your jets.... The biggest mistake I've seen parents make at this step in this process is trying to change all of these patterns and routines immediately. Please don't do that. Observation always comes before intervention. For the next few days after you analyze this data, pay closer attention to what you observed. Do you see these things as patterns that are always true? Was something a fluke that day? Are there any days during the week that things feel super out of the ordinary, and if so, why do you think that is?

Right now, your only job is to become a student of your own family. The more you understand how your children naturally move through their day, the easier it becomes to build routines, environments, and learning experiences that actually work with them instead of constantly fighting against them.

And that's exactly where we're headed next.

Now that you've started observing your family's natural rhythms, we can begin talking about how to intentionally build a daily routine around them. Not a schedule that looks good on Pinterest. Not a routine based on what another homeschooling family does. A rhythm that grows out of the unique people living under your roof.

I'll see you tomorrow.

🫶🏽 Leah

PS - We talk way deeper about all of this routine building stuff (plus have a cool workbook to go with it!) in the Aligned Homeschool Routines Workshop, which is freely available to all families enrolled in Bridge Academy. Just another reason to join our family this year! Learn more here.​