It’s time for this year’s edition of “What do those homeschoolers do all day anyway?”. If you’re new around here, we have five kids: Jonah (5th grade), Matthew (4th grade), Hannah (2nd grade), Elizabeth (Kindergarten), and Sarah (3 years old). My husband Jesse is a grad student at Baylor, and I’m the home manager/teacher/writer.
This particular day in the life was a Tuesday, and was pretty typical.
6:15am. I wake up. I am the last person awake. That should tell you something about life in our house. You must be an early riser. Those are the rules. (I did not make the rules). I scroll on my phone a bit from bed. The girls are watching cartoons. The boys are on a walk.
6:30am. I roll out of bed but still lounge around. I used to think I was a morning person, and then I ended up with all of these super-early-morning people, so I’m not quite as into mornings as everyone else.
7:00am. I make breakfast. We are using up a few kinds of sausage, with eggs, and freezer waffles for the kids. Our grocery stores were low on bread with the Texas snow/ice disaster so I grabbed these in lieu of having toast. I still have gluten free bread for myself.
7:40am. Breakfast is done, so it’s on to the morning routine. Jesse leaves for work. I do dishes. I used to have a kid help with these, but really in the mornings I just want them done quickly and out of the way so I switched our evening dish routine around and I take care of them in the morning.
I correct yesterday’s schoolwork, prep today’s schoolwork, get dressed, make coffee. It’s laundry day so I start a load. That will continue throughout the day as we wash the kids’ clothes and all the sheets. I start a whole chicken in the instant pot.
The kids are fighting over blanket forts, at one point they all end up at the table having a pretend tea party with plastic cups and mandarin oranges, and I even snapped a picture of them reading together, which almost makes up for them acting like feral animals five minutes later?
8:50-9:30am. Part of my morning routine is also a hot cup of coffee and Instagram. It doesn’t usually take 40 minutes, but this morning is full of kid squabbles and I can tell it’s going to be a bit chaotic, so I need some calm and enjoyment in my morning.
9:30-10:10am. We start school with our group subjects. David and Goliath for Bible time, which they all know and it’s a story they enjoy. Then it’s on to science, which is to finish our introduction to stars and constellations. The kids are exploding with facts they already know. I love when they’re excited about something! We read a few books, talk about stars and the night sky journaling project we are going to do, and talk about how far a light year is (5.8 trillion miles).
10:10-10:30am. Next up is a Magic School Bus episode about stars. Ms. Frizzle is good at explaining things at a kid level, and I feel like they understand more how a star forms than when I tried to summarize a bit ago. Plus I get to drink more coffee.
10:30am. Snacktime! We have leftover applesauce muffins (recipe here) from yesterday’s breakfast. I take the chicken out of the instant pot to cool.
10:30am-12:00pm. We shift to one-on-one time for school. Some kids are more hands on than others, but I’m available to everyone for their time. Jonah makes quesadillas for lunch and takes out the garbage because we almost forgot it was garbage day (it came like 20 minutes later so that was a good catch!). Having big kids is pretty awesome sometimes. The sheets are clean out of the laundry so I help the kids make their beds back up.
12:00pm. Kid lunchtime. While they eat, I pick chicken off the bones, start broth, and tidy the kitchen.
12:30pm. Kids have quiet time in their rooms and fold laundry. This used to be naptime, and it’s morphed into “just stay in your room quietly and read or play for awhile” time. I eat my lunch (some leftovers from the fridge), have a bit more phone time, and play with my Valentine’s Day gift, an Ember coffee mug. It keeps the coffee at your specified temperature for as long as you need it to. So cool!
1:30pm. I let the kids up from quiet time, and we prepare for our homeschool group’s virtual art festival, which starts at 2:00. The four big kids are each playing a piano song, Jonah is showing a lego house he built, and Hannah and Elizabeth are showing a drawing. Jesse also gets home from work.
2:45pm. Screen time for everyone! Some kids play Pokémon on old cell phones, some watch an episode of Ninjago. I update my Instagram stories.
3:30pm. Ice cream for snack. Then I send the kids outside, because it’s 77º and they still have tons of energy. I also have a bunch to do in the kitchen, so I turn on my 90s pop music and get started. I do more dishes, because we only have one counter, and some days I need the space.
I strain the chicken broth, make a batch of butternut soup for Jesse’s lunches this week, make peanut butter chocolate chip muffins (recipe here) for breakfast/snacks, do a batch of hard boiled eggs, and get mini pepper nachos ready for dinner. I also post to Instagram stories while stuff bakes.
Normally I would spread all of these kitchen tasks over a couple days, but everything was thrown off with the winter storm, so my shopping was late, and we really do need this stuff done today. The kids come inside after about an hour and play inside with each other.
6:00pm. Dinner time. I am hot and tired. But the food is done.
6:15-6:45pm. I finally get to make our bed, and the kids clean their rooms. The two kids on dish duty are fighting, and it turns into a mess, so I end up finishing the dishes. I’m really excited for this summer when we hopefully get a dishwasher. We talk about responsibility and expectations and we’ll do better next time. Two other kids sweep and take care of filling our diffuser night lights.
6:45pm. We watch one episode of Family Matters together. We’ve been watching through this show on Hulu, and it’s fun to remember back to TGIF days when we were kids. All of my kids can do a pretty good Urkel impersonation now too… Afterwards we have our family devotion and prayer.
7:05pm. The kids go to bed. I make up a bedtime story about the Frozen characters having a chili cookoff, and it gets some laughs. Jesse and I watch a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother (which we’ve watched through several times by now), and then we go to bed a little bit after 9:00.
It was a very productive day, and I have a feeling that means tomorrow will be a much more relaxed day, because that’s how it usually goes.
Previous Day in the Life Posts:
I really admire your cooking output without a dishwasher. I also do lots of cooking from scratch, but I HEAVILY rely on a dishwasher.
We are doing a bit of a kitchen remodel this summer, and the plan is to get one. I cannot wait!
Great post! 🙂 Thank you for sharing your day!
I love your “Your Can Do It” coffee mug!! ☕☕☕ Thank you for sharing your day with us!
Do all your kids go to bed at 7:05pm, also the older ones?
They do. They all also wake up before 6am. If the older ones start to sleep later we’ll adjust accordingly.