Home Schooling - What Can A Working Dad Do?

How can a working dad be more active in their home schooled children's education?  This is a question I have often thought about.  As a team, my wife and I have established and tweaked our "home education philosophy" over the years and chosen our curriculum.  I provide a small measure of accountability and support for my wife; the master teacher of our home school.  We have also committed to eating breakfast and dinner together.  Breakfast time includes a brief devotional reading, a hymn, and prayer.  Dinner time may include reading an Aesop's fable or perhaps some discussion.  And of course there is Dad's evening read-a-loud session.

This morning we also implemented something more:

Each of my three boys will individually join me at 6:30am for a time of prayer and individual study (about 30 or 40 minutes total) once a week.  This morning promptly at 6:30am, my 6 year old made his way out to my office (I work from home in an office behind my house).  We said our prayers by candle light together.  Then I read the story of King Alfred and the Cakes from Fifty Famous Stories Retold.  Then, with a little coaching on standing still and speaking clearly, my son proceeded to narrate the story back to me.  We talked a little and  he returned to the house with a spring in his step to rejoin his siblings.  When I later came in for breakfast, his older brother (7 years old) said that he could hardly sleep the night before since he knew he got to come to my office on the following day to study together.  Initially, we will be looking into some of his questions about the liturgy at church for our study session.  Finally, my 10 year old and I are reading Plutarch's Lives together.

I think this is going to be good for all of us, especially Dad.