Colleen’s Homeschool Day in the Life (with an 11-, 14-, 16-, and 21-year-old)

Colleen’s Homeschool Day in the Life (with an 11-, 14-, 16, and 21-year-old) ~
Written by Colleen Kessler of Raising Lifelong Learners

It’s eight a.m. and I just want to roll back over. It’s not like anyone else will be up anyway. 

But, it’s Thursday, and Thursdays are a little bit crazy these days, so I drag myself out of bed, and Daisy Mae (the three-year-old Border Collie who still thinks she’s a brand-new puppy) jumps around my legs before waiting patiently-ish at the top of the stairs until I get to the bottom and release her to follow. 

I let Daisy outside, call up to the younger two to get up and dressed, and bring Bellatrix LePug down with them so she can go outside, too. Bella sleeps on Logan’s bed, under her covers, curled behind the crook of her knee. Her favorite place to be is wherever I am, and her second favorite place is in a bed, snuggled up with whoever will let her sleep with them. 

Logan and Isaac reluctantly make their way downstairs, let Bella out to join Daisy and eat breakfast while my coffee brews. On Thursdays, they have their “Homeschooling with Horses” class, which is a wonderful two-hour program run by an incredible woman who unschooled her own kiddos (now adults) and opens her barn four days a week to homeschoolers while also running a nonprofit that provides equine therapy to veterans at no cost to them. If you’re local to northeast Ohio, let me know in the comments and I’ll pass along her information because she’s doing wonderful work and I’d love to send more people her way. 

The dogs come back in and the two kids and I go our separate ways to get ready to leave for class. I also make my first attempt at waking my 16-year-old for the day and go in to remind my 21-year-old that he needs to pick up the kids from the barn as I have an eye appointment to go to. One of the “costs” of being able to live here rent-free is that my adult child needs to act as a taxi if I need him to and he usually doesn’t complain about that as he knows how great he has it. 

He’s up and caffeinating, I’m ready to go, and so I give the younger two the 10-minute warning and attempt to get the 16-year-old up again. She might just be getting up this time… fingers crossed.

It’s 9:30 a.m. and we’re loading up the car. Time to get on with the craziness of the day. 

Our homeschool has always been busy, but it’s been a different kind of busy each year as we’ve learned and grown together. Some seasons have been full of co-ops and classes, some have been filled with therapies and appointments, and some have been a mixture. Now, in our fifteenth year, we have an eclectic mix that keeps me on the road with different kids each day, means lots of waiting around for me while one or two kids finish and activity and another works independently at home.

It’s pretty rare to find us all at home and working on projects simultaneously. I love that homeschooling gives us the freedom to make learning a part of our own unique lives, and not have to fit life in-between someone else’s prescribed schedule.

I drop the kids at the barn while the 16-year-old gets herself going at home. She’ll be working on some Shakespeare for both an audition she has coming up and an assignment from one of her teachers. My 21-year-old has a few freelance jobs he’s working on right now, so while I’m gone he’ll get started on one of those before he needs to leave to pick up his siblings for me. 

Trevor is an audio engineer who produces several podcasts (including mine), a videographer and editor who works for several clients regularly including a race car company and a local film school. He recently taught a special effects class to teens at that film school, and is slated for another class this fall. He’s always looking for more podcast and video clients, and spends time continuing to learn new tech skills. 

While Logan and Isaac are at horse class, and Trevor and Molly are at home, I head out to the eye doctor. I’m notoriously bad at remembering to schedule appointments for myself, and can’t miss this appointment. 

It’s 1:45 p.m.

Contacts are ordered, it’s been confirmed that my eyes are as old as they feel, and that I need to wear my reading glasses more when I look at my phone, computer, or books and papers. I definitely turned fifty this year, as my body keeps reminding me!

I’m home in time to get Molly set up on my computer to meet with her acting coach for their weekly lesson and check on her Shakespeare assignment. Logan and Isaac have actually done parts of the checklist I left for them, so I head over to check their math, handwriting, and language arts while Logan makes lunch and Trevor takes a Zoom call from a new client in his room. 

The dogs mill about, dropping toys at our feet, begging for food while we eat, and looking at us with sorrowful expressions when we ignore them and play a game of SET after lunch. Logan tells me about some of the cool things she learned about manta rays in the nonfiction reading she’s currently doing, and Isaac complained bitterly about the grammar and reading workbook I’m having him do each day. 

We’re pretty eclectic homeschoolers who lean pretty heavily towards unschooling and self-direction, but every once in awhile, I throw in something I know they need to work on. Isaac is definitely the baby of four strong-willed kids with big personalities, and he’s perfected ways of cutting corners. While he can read pretty well, he lacks stamina and attention for anything other than video games, and misses some key comprehension when he reads because he rushes through.

The workbook he’s doing is more about forcing him to slow down, read for meaning, and build stamina than any of the actual skills involved. And it’s working as he’s making fewer mistakes in all things he does, and he’s talking more about the books he’s choosing to read because he’s understanding more of the plots. 

It’s approaching 3:15 p.m. and we need to be pulling out of the driveway pretty much now in order to get Molly to rehearsal on time, so I grab my things, check in with Trevor, and remind Logan and Isaac to empty and load the dishwasher before I get back. Isaac gives me a thumbs-up as he’s on a call with his buddy from North Carolina. The boys have a standing weekly Zoom playdate where they game and chat together since they live so far from one another and they both struggle with motivation and ADHD.

It’s kind of like a carrot to get them each to follow through on their chores, school, and behavior throughout the week, and it works surprisingly well for both boys (and both of us moms!). Logan will remind him to get off in an hour when the timer signals. 

Molly and I head out the door pretty close to on time. 

She’s in a musical at an all-boys Catholic high school about 35 minutes away. It’s her second year in the program and she loves it. The groups of boys and girls (recruited from all over the area) are simply wonderful and the director and music director are two of the most incredible mentors I could ask for.

Today I get to drop her off and head back home. She’ll have rehearsal until 7:00 p.m. and then my husband will pick her up and head to her music school where she rehearses with her acapella group “Double Treble” until 10:00 p.m. 

My husband and I split the pick-up depending on what everyone else is doing. Some days I stay and work on my laptop in the lobby of the performing arts center and he heads home to take care of dinner and activities for the others. Some days he goes to the performing arts center to work in the shop, helping the crew design and build set pieces, while I do the dinner and evening activity thing.

And sometimes, we need to be in three different places and my oldest picks Molly up. I kind of miss the toddler, preschool, and elementary years where I got to choose the activities the kids did and I could lump them all together. With Molly taken care of and dropped safely at the school for rehearsal, I head back home.

It’s close to 5:00 p.m. when I get there, and Trevor’s gone. He had a meeting at the film school about an editing project they want him to do for a short film they’re working on. Logan and Isaac are playing Minecraft together, and I throw dinner together. 

We all clean it up together and scatter. 

Logan is working on organizing her room so that she can have a dedicated art space. She heads upstairs to keep working on that, but since I know her well, I am pretty sure she’ll get started and then lose herself in her drawing for the rest of the evening or she’ll go to put away a book, and “accidentally” start reading instead. Hours will go by and the room will stay unorganized.

Isaac has had enough screen time for the day, so he’s staging an epic (his words) battle with Star Wars and Harry Potter LEGO minifigures, Magnatiles, and sensory blocks. It’s pretty much taking over my kitchen table at this point, but I have some work to do, so I let it go. He’s engaged, being creative, and staying unplugged. 

I go to work. 

In July, I have a brand-new book coming out – The Homeschool Advantage: A Child-Focused Approach to Raising Lifelong Learners (afflink)– and just received the layout proofs from my publisher to approve.

It’s always amazing to me how much there is happening all at the same time during a book’s publishing process. Here we are, just getting the book into its preliminary layout format so I can look it over to make sure it’s visually appealing, and the publisher already has it listed in book catalogs and on websites!

I haven’t even had the chance to think about promoting it because I’m still in the throes of editing! (If you decide to reserve a preorder copy for yourself as it’s going to be GREAT, hang on to your digital receipt and keep an eye on my site because I’ll be announcing preorder bonuses soon, and you can grab those once they’re announced with a copy of your receipt!)  

Proofing is done for tonight, as I can only focus for a bit on it before my eyes start crossing, I give my kids a 30-minute warning to wrap things up because it’s bedtime, and I turn my attention to email. I’m terrible with my email and have (ahem) several thousand sitting in my inbox waiting for my attention. Thirty minutes later, and I’ve made a small dent. 

It’s 9:30 p.m. and while I know the kids won’t go to sleep, I send them up to brush their teeth, change, and head to their rooms. I do not hover, and can’t force active minds to sleep (including my own), so our rule is that the 14-year-old and 11-year-old need to be in bed by 10:00 p.m. They can read, journal, dream, or draw, but they need to be in bed and try to wind down in some way.

I go back to work. Since it’s quiet, I record a podcast episode and the three intros I forgot to record after the interviews I did last week. I also keep slogging away at my inbox and spend about an hour in The Learner’s Lab answering DMs and posts from members of my community. 

My husband and Molly get home around 10:30 p.m. and Brian heads straight upstairs to bed. While I’m recording, Molly is in the kitchen making herself a late dinner of stir-fried vegetables and Italian sausage. Late nights are her catch-up time where she’ll finish school work, do some chores, and do some reading before heading to bed.

Tonight, I work until about midnight. Trevor came home about the time I finished up and he and I talked for an hour about all sorts of things. I love those late-night conversations.

More often than not, you’ll find me chatting with either Molly or Trevor until 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. in the kitchen or in my office. I love that we can take that time and not feel pressured to cut it off because of early starts. 

One of the greatest things about homeschooling is the relationships my kids have with each other and the ones I have with them.

We have time in the car to chat, over games at the kitchen table, and late at night while the house sleeps around us. I’m often having coffee in the morning while Isaac, who is our earliest riser, talks my ear off before everyone else gets up. 

Some days we have therapy appointments (anxiety is tricky, friends), voice lessons, acting classes, hip hop class, and other random classes we hear about and want to try out (like the intro to archery class we just took and loved). Some days are filled with work as both my girls are volunteer assistant teachers in several preschool classes each week. 

It’s eclectic, it’s ever-changing, and it’s ours.

My, how the days have changed:

• 2023: Colleen’s Homeschool Day in the Life (with a 10-, 13-, 15-, and 20-year-old)
• 2022: Colleen’s Homeschool Day in the Life (with a 9-, 12-, 14-, and 19-year-old)
• 2021: Colleen’s homeschool day in the life (with an 8-, 11-, 13-, and 18- year-old)
• 2020: Colleen’s homeschool day in the life (with a 7-, 10-, 12-, and 17-year-old)
• 2018: Colleen’s homeschool day in the life (with a 5-, 8-, 10-, and 15- year-old )

What’s Your Homeschool Mom Personality? Take Jamie’s quiz now and receive a free personality report to help you organize your homeschool based on what your personality type needs most!