A Day in the Life of Our Homeschool

“What does your day look like?”

I often get asked this question, and as a part of my weekly commitment to the Instagram group for #HSMiddleSchoolandBeyond I am sharing a day in our life today, but with a caveat. My day will not look like your day. I mean, it might, by chance, but everyone creates their own rhythm based on the needs of each family member, so do not feel like your day has to look anything like mine.

We’ve literally had the same rhythm to our day since my children were small, with only small adjustments. The adjustments have been made to account for teens who prefer to sleep in a bit longer, start their morning slower and are just generally more independent (re: they can feed and water and care for their bodies all by themselves!). This means the time we spend together is still about connecting, but less about survival, so my life forces our drawn upon differently.

Below is a typical week day in our house with teens:

1. I always start my day meeting the daylight on the porch with the dog and a cup of water and lemon. Now that the seasons have shifted, it happens a bit later, but I’m still out of bed at the same time because that blessed dog demands breakfast. I usually wake between 5 and 5:30am and do some reading until I physically get out of bed at 6:30.
Side bar: It is so funny, I always woke with my children when they were young, and generally, our wake up time was around 7:30am. As I’ve aged, and hormones have shifted, I’ve naturally started to wake much earlier than before. It’s life’s cruel joke that as soon as you don’t need to wake up with children, your body starts waking you up regardless, ha.

2. After a slow breakfast and a walk with the dog, I start to get things set up for the day. I look at each child’s chart and prepare anything I need for main lesson. My youngest wakes up early, my eldest sleeps in, so they work on their tasks in any order they want, starting when ever they want. We include any personal projects in the checklist because they feel it keeps them accountable, so the chart it isn’t all necessarily school related. Any extra tasks around the house also get placed on the checklist. I’m here to help and hang out if needed. I’m usually working on my own stuff along side them.

3. Then, lunch! Usually my youngest will have lunch at the same time. Usually, my eldest has just finished his breakfast at this time and is in his room working on independent tasks.

4. After I have lunch, I go for another walk to clear the cobwebs. I try to do this one on my own but our dog rarely lets me put on my shoes without bolting up from a dead sleep to join me. And who can say no to this face!

Once back from my walk, I give the main lesson reminder, which usually starts at 1pm. We all come together for main lesson. I always start this time with an exploration of some topic, and right now everyone is super interested in traveling and geography so we are looking at some hidden wonders of the world and sometimes watching a YouTube video of the location. It always sparks some great conversations. Next we work on our unit/block (we are just finishing up neuroscience) and then read aloud from our current book, which is Enola Holmes. I saved this for highschool because while it is marketed towards 9+ there are many references to prostitution and struggles of the lower class Victorians that I felt were well beyond the understanding of my children. My fourteen year old calls those bits quite “cringy”, ha ha. Main lesson time usually takes about an hour and a half. This is also the only piece in our rhythm that has changed from when they were small, when main lesson was in the morning.

5. There is always baking. Sometimes while I read, sometimes before I read so we have a snack with our book, sometime randomly throughout the day. It’s not every day but at least once a week, sometimes twice.

6. After main lesson everyone is free to work on their charts, or if it is complete, do what ever it is they want. I usually end up working in here for a while, my desk covered in organized chaos, lol.

Not included in this is outdoor time for each of my children, which they do but whenever they want and usually involves a walk, a workout or just taking their work outside.

And that’s a day! Things, of course, will sometimes go awry, but this rhythm is in the bones of my children at this point and we pretty much fall into it easily again. If you’d like to learn more about our days when my children were younger, please add your choice to the poll below!