Homeschool: Quiet time for a 5 year old

My 5yr daughter has not slept during "naptime" for quite some time, but I've been reluctant to simply let go of that hour at the beginning of our afternoon. As short as it may seem, the opportunity for me to quietly introvert makes such a big difference in the rest of my day. My motivation hasn't been entirely selfish: the quiet home helps my 4yr fall asleep; is helpful for the toddler and baby I watch a couple days each week; and is a good opportunity for my 5yr, a very talkative extrovert, to practice being quiet and alone. Yet I knew the days that I could get away with our current routine, as it stood, were limited in number.
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Over Christmas break the limit was reached. My husband permitted our 5yr to stay up with him while our 4yr took a (mostly) daily nap and I laid down for a rest. Yet when life returned to normal, of course our 5yr didn't want to return to a daily "nap" or even a "rest time". I understood completely, but I didn't want to lose that hour. So we began a homeschool D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) time for her instead. Completely optional (she can choose instead to lay down or sit in her room and quietly read, look at picture books, play with a quiet toy, nap, etc.), it gives her a bigger purpose for the first activity of her afternoon without disrupting the rest of the household's peaceful quiet time.
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Instead of laying on her bed (also allowed), she is given the freedom to sit anywhere in her bedroom and read one or more books. The books are selected beforehand from our bookshelf; this is free reading time, not assigned schoolwork reading time. Rather than requiring a whole hour of complete quiet, she's allowed to get up after about 45 minutes. She then grabs her reading journal and a pencil and maybe eventually a timer set to 5-10 minutes. In the journal she chooses something (as little as one sentence) she wants to say about one of the books she read and draws a picture. Finally, she brings her journal to me so I can review what she's done and she can tell me about her book and/or about what she wrote and drew.
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We're still growing into our new routine. My daughter is learning what kind of question to ask about her book, to know what to write and draw each day. She's also still growing in doing her working quietly on her own, rather than talking to me while she completes her journal. I suspect that she will always struggle with this. ;-) But so far we are both enjoying the blessings that come from it also.
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By the way, this is the first time my daughter's been expected to write something on her own. It's an adjustment for her not to ask me how to spell every word or to copy a pre-written sentence. I don't correct her journal entries, particularly not her spelling, because I want her to try to sound out her words, even if they are constantly spelled wrong. I would miss our main goals with this assignment if I distracted both of us by correcting spelling every day, so that will be addressed in other assignments but not in her daily D.E.A.R. writing journal. My husband thinks I should rethink this: that giving her correct spellings when we review her work each day will help her improve far more than any other writing assignments. Maybe I will do that someday, but not for several weeks, months, or even years. Even if he is a former schoolteacher, our education approaches don't always match and I don't always take his advice in our homeschool classroom. He doesn't seem too bothered by that, especially since what I've been doing with our children is working extremely well so far and he doesn't want to take over their homeschooling.
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Linked with Works for Me Wednesday and Modest Monday