A Day in the Life of *This* Homeschool Mom
I always find other people's daily routines fascinating and helpful for me. I've gotten some great and lasting habits from posts like this: Morning Time, chore cards, reading aloud. I love how the homeschool community inspires each other! So it is in that spirit which I write a post about a typical day in our home.
7:00 - I wake up to a quiet house. I sit in my favorite place reading until 7:30. My husband works from home, and some days, he's here all day. This morning though, he left a couple of hours before I woke up. About three mornings a week I get up and go for a nice long walk while I listen to a podcast. Starting my day with a walk or reading time in this chair is good for my soul.
7:30: Shower time for me. Some of the kids are now stirring, laying in bed reading themselves, quietly playing in their rooms.
8:15: Breakfast. This is one of those rare days that I made breakfast the night before: banana bread. So we quickly gather around the table and get to eating.
8:30: After breakfast chores. Kiryn clears and wipes the table...(and everyone gets dressed and brushes teeth and makes beds)
Luke unloads and then loads the dishwasher.
I go upstairs to grab my calendar and a few things, and find Charlie (our dog) has gotten into the shower. Ick! So five minutes escapes to clean that. Note to self: close the shower door.
8:50: Everyone heads to the basement for Morning Time! We were in a leisurely mood this morning, so Morning Time lasted until 10:05. It varies from 30-60 minutes usually.
10:05: Independent work for the Upper Grammars. We go over their checklists, and they stack up their books, find a quiet spot, and get busy!
10:10: Seat work with my Lower Grammar kids. We'll spend the next hour and fifteen minutes here working on math, spelling, handwriting, phonics/reading, and beginning writing.
11:20: Lower Grammars get a break outside. I sit down with Luke for twenty minutes of math on the couch. Mostly we're checking over what he's already done.
11:40: I drop Luke off a couple of blocks away at the local middle school for his orchestra class. He's here till 12:40.
Meanwhile, at home, the Lower Grammars are called in from the trampoline for their read aloud time. Today we read from two volumes of My Book House, Milly Molly Mandy, How We Crossed the West: The Adventures of Lewis & Clark, Christian Liberty Nature Reader Book 1, and each of them read from their phonics readers.
12:40: I pick up Luke and come home to make lunch. We're eating by a little after 1. Everyone has the same chores after lunch as breakfast, and we're cleaned up and moving on by 1:30.
1:30: The littles are done for the day, and are having quiet time in their rooms. My Upper Grammars gather in the living room with books for Writing & Rhetoric, history, spelling, and Latin (or French, depending on the week). From 1:30 -3:00, we talk through the writing exercises, I read history aloud and we discuss their independent readings, we do map work, spelling dictation, and watch our Latin lesson, practice our chants. This wraps up our day.
At 3:00, everyone heads to what I call the command center to get their chore pack. There are three daily chores, plus one special chore assigned to each day. This was Thursday. So everyone tidies their rooms, common areas, feeds the dog, takes our recycling, etc. Luke vacuums his room, Kiryn cleans the back glass doors and french doors, Levi empties all trash cans, and Meryn brings up her laundry. While the kids do this, I do any checking over independent work, like math work or science the older kids did in the morning.
By 4:00, it's porch time for me. I have gotten into the habit of sitting on the porch for some quiet reading and thinking time about 4 in the afternoons. Its usually beautiful, and let's be honest. By 4:00, I need a mental sanity break and some quiet time. :) I don't really know or care what the kids are doing for this hour. They're on their own. Ha! Not really. They are *supposed* to be rotating in and out of the music room for piano and instrument practice for 20 minutes each (Meryn's not in lessons yet). The rest of the hour is free time for them, until dinner actually, which usually means riding bikes outside, trampoline, playing with neighbors. Right now, I'm reading Norms & Nobility and Robinson Crusoe. Both equally slowly it seems...
5:00: Inside for more chores, laundry, dinner prep. Luke also has soccer practice at 5:30, so he gets ready for that and takes off on his bike. I have dinner ready at 7 when he returns. Dad is out of town tonight, so we eat without him.
After dinner, everyone gets pajamas on, brushes teeth, and gathers in the living room for bedtime stories. Tonight, we are nearing the end of The Hobbit. We read until about 8:30, and everyone heads off to bed.
This really is quite a typical day for us! This year we are just about four weeks in, and I am loving our daily routine. It does not feel rushed, finally! We seem to have plenty of time most days to get in everything and get it done peacefully and well. I am having plenty of one-on-one time with each of the kids, and we are all just really doing well with our schedule and subjects this year so far... for which I'm thankful to God, because He is truly the one who has ordered our days...
7:00 - I wake up to a quiet house. I sit in my favorite place reading until 7:30. My husband works from home, and some days, he's here all day. This morning though, he left a couple of hours before I woke up. About three mornings a week I get up and go for a nice long walk while I listen to a podcast. Starting my day with a walk or reading time in this chair is good for my soul.
7:30: Shower time for me. Some of the kids are now stirring, laying in bed reading themselves, quietly playing in their rooms.
8:15: Breakfast. This is one of those rare days that I made breakfast the night before: banana bread. So we quickly gather around the table and get to eating.
8:50: Everyone heads to the basement for Morning Time! We were in a leisurely mood this morning, so Morning Time lasted until 10:05. It varies from 30-60 minutes usually.
Grammar during morning time with Michael Clay Thompson's Grammar Voyage. Notice there *is* a table and chairs directly behind them. But they prefer to sit awkwardly on the floor....
10:05: Independent work for the Upper Grammars. We go over their checklists, and they stack up their books, find a quiet spot, and get busy!
10:10: Seat work with my Lower Grammar kids. We'll spend the next hour and fifteen minutes here working on math, spelling, handwriting, phonics/reading, and beginning writing.
11:20: Lower Grammars get a break outside. I sit down with Luke for twenty minutes of math on the couch. Mostly we're checking over what he's already done.
11:40: I drop Luke off a couple of blocks away at the local middle school for his orchestra class. He's here till 12:40.
Meanwhile, at home, the Lower Grammars are called in from the trampoline for their read aloud time. Today we read from two volumes of My Book House, Milly Molly Mandy, How We Crossed the West: The Adventures of Lewis & Clark, Christian Liberty Nature Reader Book 1, and each of them read from their phonics readers.
12:40: I pick up Luke and come home to make lunch. We're eating by a little after 1. Everyone has the same chores after lunch as breakfast, and we're cleaned up and moving on by 1:30.
1:30: The littles are done for the day, and are having quiet time in their rooms. My Upper Grammars gather in the living room with books for Writing & Rhetoric, history, spelling, and Latin (or French, depending on the week). From 1:30 -3:00, we talk through the writing exercises, I read history aloud and we discuss their independent readings, we do map work, spelling dictation, and watch our Latin lesson, practice our chants. This wraps up our day.
At 3:00, everyone heads to what I call the command center to get their chore pack. There are three daily chores, plus one special chore assigned to each day. This was Thursday. So everyone tidies their rooms, common areas, feeds the dog, takes our recycling, etc. Luke vacuums his room, Kiryn cleans the back glass doors and french doors, Levi empties all trash cans, and Meryn brings up her laundry. While the kids do this, I do any checking over independent work, like math work or science the older kids did in the morning.
By 4:00, it's porch time for me. I have gotten into the habit of sitting on the porch for some quiet reading and thinking time about 4 in the afternoons. Its usually beautiful, and let's be honest. By 4:00, I need a mental sanity break and some quiet time. :) I don't really know or care what the kids are doing for this hour. They're on their own. Ha! Not really. They are *supposed* to be rotating in and out of the music room for piano and instrument practice for 20 minutes each (Meryn's not in lessons yet). The rest of the hour is free time for them, until dinner actually, which usually means riding bikes outside, trampoline, playing with neighbors. Right now, I'm reading Norms & Nobility and Robinson Crusoe. Both equally slowly it seems...
5:00: Inside for more chores, laundry, dinner prep. Luke also has soccer practice at 5:30, so he gets ready for that and takes off on his bike. I have dinner ready at 7 when he returns. Dad is out of town tonight, so we eat without him.
After dinner, everyone gets pajamas on, brushes teeth, and gathers in the living room for bedtime stories. Tonight, we are nearing the end of The Hobbit. We read until about 8:30, and everyone heads off to bed.
This really is quite a typical day for us! This year we are just about four weeks in, and I am loving our daily routine. It does not feel rushed, finally! We seem to have plenty of time most days to get in everything and get it done peacefully and well. I am having plenty of one-on-one time with each of the kids, and we are all just really doing well with our schedule and subjects this year so far... for which I'm thankful to God, because He is truly the one who has ordered our days...
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