Making Our Homeschool Days Work for Us (A Day in the Life)

This is a guest post from DJ! I love her perspective of making things work well for her family. Find her details at the bottom of the post.

Hey y’all! I’m DJ from thebookishden.com and I’m so excited to have the opportunity to share with you what a typical homeschool day looks like for our family. I’m sort of fan-girling over here, as Erin’s blog is one I’ve followed for ages!

We’re a family hanging out in a small town right outside of Charlotte, NC. We have 5 kiddos ages, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10. I wish I could say that those stair step ages were our plan, but that was all Jesus!

Our family started this wonderful world of homeschooling about 5 years ago and man…there’s been a serious learning curve! We’ve been experimenting with how we do school since the beginning, and with each child coming to school age-each year looks a little different.

Most of our choices are heavily influenced by the Charlotte Mason method, although we have mixed in a bit of classical, Montessori, and even Waldorf! Did I mention I have shiny ball syndrome? It’s a real thing, my friend. Writing a homeschool blog means I get to discover some really cool tools and curricula. I love trying new things with my kids!

This year we are schooling all of our kids except the 2 year old. This brings an incredibly different dynamic into this crazy mix!

One thing that has stayed the same has been the fact that we school year round. It gives us so much more grace. We tried sticking with a traditional school schedule, and for a multitude of reasons- it just didn’t work for our family. My husband works 12hr swing shift, so when he’s off we like to have the option to take off! Isn’t it wonderful the freedom homeschooling gives us? We can make it look however we need to for our families!

Homeschool Wake-Up Time

What time should a homeschooler wake up? This can be a controversial topic! For us, we aren’t really morning people. I think this stems from the fact that this mama has been nursing babies for the past 6 years, and I do most of my work late at night. Sleep hasn’t been my closest friend up until recently. Due to all of that, we got into a routine of slow mornings, and it just works for us.

My early riser (8) gets up, eats breakfast, does his chores, and either plays or reads until the rest of the family wakes up. We’re usually all up around 9. The older kids eat breakfast and do their morning chores. This gives me time to have my quiet time and knock out some more work. Once everyone I settled in, it’s time to start school.

Morning Basket

We LOVE the concept of a morning basket, so I have been doing this for the past couple of years. All the kids, including the baby, will sit on the floor and participate. The content changes regularly, but a few things that are always included are:

-a devotional

-memory work

-our history reading

-biography

-fairy tale/nursery rhyme book

I add anything else that the kids might be interested in and just loop them around throughout the week. I love finding books on topics my kids are really into and adding them in here. This is also our core for busy or stressful days as I feel good if we can at least get through this part.

I highly recommend new homeschool families checking this tool out. It has been one of the few constants from year to year and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Time to Split

Now is the time the bigs and the littles split off. The older kids have their independent work to start on. This might be math on the computer while the other one does their Bible Studies. They have a few subjects that can do completely on their own which is amazing for moms of littles!

Once they were independent enough to grab their own stuff and get to work, it gave me the opportunity to start sitting down with the child that may need a little more attention. This independent time means I get to work with the younger kids.

I use Erin’s The Gentle + Classical Preschool Level 2 for them. This takes anywhere from 30-45 mins, longer if we do some hands on art. I won’t lie, the messy art stuff is out of my comfort zone, so we don’t do it as much as I’d like. I’m honestly working on this part because they LOVE all that mess, and generally I love seeing them enjoy it.

After that, we have a short reading lesson. My youngest two have been begging me all year to teach them to read, so we’re slowly easing into that. After this is done, the 4-year-old goes off to play as he’s done for the day.

History & Science

Where these subjects fall in our day really varies. If our morning has been productive without a lot of distractions (is this even possible?), we can get these done before lunch. I’ll be honest and say that this is a rare thing, my friend. Usually we will either finish up after lunch or if the day hasn’t been so great, we will do it in the evening.

For these two subjects, we use living books to go along with the lessons, so these can easily turn into our bedtime reads. The three older kids will sit in on this with the older two having some narration or writing to do along with it. They all love these subjects, so it never feels like schoolwork to them!

We are currently studying birds, so I let the older two create their own “Bird Books”. They write and illustrate things they’ve learned about a species. These are their versions of the Audubon Field Guide. We also take to nature often to actually see what we are learning about.

Wrapping Up the Homeschool Day

This is a typical day at home for us. We get things done and then we have the rest of the time to do whatever we want. That might include just lounging around the house, playing board games, going out with Daddy, visiting friends and family, or going on an awesome field trip.

Sometimes, we decide to take school and do it somewhere else. We might listen to our history book as an audiobook in the car to get groceries or take our books and head to the park or one of the nearby mountains. After a few years of homeschooling, I have learned that making our homeschool days revolve around our life and not the other way around has worked the absolute best for us!

I hope that whatever your homeschool preferences are, that you won’t be a slave to it. Experiment, get out of your comfort zone, and find out what works best for your family. This is such a wonderful journey to be on, don't lose the wonder to guidelines and other’s opinions. Only you and your kids can create the perfect homeschool!

I'm DJ, folks! I'm a wife, homeschooling mama of 5, author, blogger, artist, and life-long literary enthusiast. (That’s just fancy talk for, “I spend all my extra money on books to the point that I may have to build a house out of them.”) I would like to believe that I'm what would happen if Kevin Smith & Joanna Gaines had a baby-whole lotta geek wrapped up in some Jesus loving shiplap. Find me over at The Bookish Den and on Instagram.