I am joining in with Simple Homeschool today to share a day in our homeschooling life.

We have a pretty solid routine in place with Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays being our more academic/at home days and Tuesdays and Thursdays reserved for extras and group activities. Because every day is a little bit different, I’ll be sharing one specific day with you: Tuesday January 27, 2015.

5:00am  My alarm goes off.  I normally look forward to this early morning time,  but our family has had a nasty stomach bug lately, and I’ve been dragging the past few days. My husband, Jason, is the definition of an early riser.  He got up at 4:30 and left for work already.  I hit snooze a couple of times and finally get up around 5:20, knowing I’ll be so much happier if I do.  I pray, study scriptures and write out my to-do list for the day.

6:00am Elijah (our one-year-old) starts crying in his crib, unusual for him at this hour.  I go in to check on him, change his diaper, give him a drink of milk and snuggle him in the rocking chair for a few minutes.  I put him back to bed and head downstairs for my morning creative time.

I paint for a while and then work on a couple of blog projects, answer emails, etc.

7:15am The big kids usually wake up sometime between 6:30 and 7:30.  We have a deal that Mama gets to work on her stuff in the mornings until 8:00 and then I turn off my phone and shut down the computer and focus on home and school.

Right now I exercise and shower and get dressed while the kids play quietly, read and eat some fruit.

8:15 Ethan helps me make breakfast and we all eat together. Normally we do a short devotional and a little bit of copywork at breakfast, but my old-school Kindle is frozen up and I can’t open the devotional, so we just wing it today.

I write down Ellie’s schedule in her bullet journal and she gets started on her independent school work.

9:00 From now til lunch is generally reserved for chores and homeschool work.  Tuesdays (like today!) and Thursdays are lighter formal schoolwork days for our family.  These are the days I schedule group activities, lessons, fieldtrips, our weekly co-op, the occasional doctor appointment, etc.

Ethan does Explode the Code at the kitchen table while Ellie starts making biscuits for our Culture Club presentation later in the day.

The kids take turns going to piano lessons at our next door neighbor’s house (this is a fantastic arrangement!)

I cook collard greens for our lunch date and tidy up the house in preparation for Culture Club.

12:00 to 4:15   A couple of our very favorite homeschool families arrive for our once-a-month Culture Club meeting.  We eat lunch together which includes canned soup from the family who studied 1950s America; bread, apples, and “beer” (aka Ginger Ale) from the family who studied the Elizabethan Period; and our biscuits and collard greens.  We studied slavery and the Underground Railroad.

After lunch we head downstairs for the presentations.  Each family has prepared a 20 minute (or so) presentation on the culture of their choice.  Today we learn about Anne Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth, The Tower of London, Life in the 1950s, McCarthyism and black lists. Ellie does a presentation she put together almost entirely on her own about our study of Slavery and the Underground Railroad. Once presentations are concluded, the 12 children scatter to play and the moms gather in the living room to chat and encourage each other.  We talk for 2 hours straight, with regular interruptions from little people.

Jason arrives home. After our friends leave, I put Elijah down for a nap and Ethan has a bit of down time while he watches Wild Kratts.

Normally in the afternoons we have a lot more calm and quiet.  We usually have Quiet Time for 60-90 minutes while Elijah is sleeping.  The big kids and I all do our separate recharging activities in our own space.  This could be reading, playing with Legos and listening to an audiobook, I might even take a 20 minute (glorious!)  nap before I do a little computer work.

4:30 Miss Ellie has choir practice.  I leave the boys home with Jason and drop her off.  I answer emails and blog comments, make a few phone calls, and check a couple of other things off my list while I wait for her.

6:00 We’re all home.  We eat a simple dinner and clean up the meal and remaining messes from our day of friends.

7:00: I sit down to type this post while the kids play a bit.  They put on pajamas, brush teeth, etc. and then we gather for our evening family prayer and scripture reading.  Jason puts Elijah to bed.

Jason reads Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets aloud while I work on an embroidery project and the kids color or snuggle with a parent.

8:00 The kids are in bed, and the older two are reading or listening to an audiobook for a few mintues. Jason and I watch an episode of our latest obsession: LOST (we missed most of this show when it actually aired) and I embroider while we watch.

9:30 We get ready for bed, read for a bit and turn out the lights.

Tomorrow will be a more serious schoolwork day, with a couple hours in the morning full of reading, writing, math, science and history.  We generally get all of our school work done between the hours of 9-11, then Jason comes home for his lunch break and we enjoy Family Fun Time together for an hour or so. Our afternoons are spent either at home (I try to be home all day 2 days per week) or away at swim team practice, karate lessons, gymnastics, art lessons, playdates, etc.  Thursdays we spend almost the entire day at our homeschool co-op.


I am really happy with the routine we have in place right now and I love this beautiful and at times messy and loud, lifestyle we’ve chosen.

Head over to Simple Homeschool to read more Homeschool Life in the Day posts.