Erin’s Homeschool Day in the Life (with a 9-, and 14-year-old)

Erin’s Homeschool Day in the Life (with a 9-, and 14-year-old) –
Written by Erin Vincent of Nourishing My Scholar

A note from Jamie: And with Erin’s lovely post, our 12th annual Homeschool Day in the Life series is a wrap!! If you’ve missed any of the posts along the way, you can find those here!

I wake up to my little silkie rooster crowing at 7 am. Eggbert loves to announce his importance as early as 5 am, but luckily we sleep through it all.

We are not morning people, folks.

I let our Great Pyrenees, Tanu, out of his crate. Tanu and I make our way down the hall and into the kitchen. I let Tanu out into the backyard to go potty and bark while making coffee.

The kids won’t be up for a few more hours, so now is my time to start laundry, catch up on emails, shower, dress, or browse Facebook. My daughter wakes up around 9 am.

Our morning ritual includes snuggling on the couch and watching funny pet videos together, and it sets the tone of our day with laughter. Afterward, she makes herself a bowl of cereal, and I remind her of her must-do’s for the day. She decides to get dressed and then relax on the couch with her newest library book for the next hour.

I set up her school books on the kitchen table.

At 11 am, I knock on my son’s door to wake him. Being a teen, he sometimes sleeps in until noon. But today, he has an online Italian class at noon. To my surprise, he’s already awake and in bed reading The Lord of the Rings; his book for language arts.

He let me know he’s already watched the next course on Wondrium concerning WWII and the Pacific theater. My son comes into the living room at noon and gets set up for Italian class.

I start another load of laundry.

When my daughter has finished reading, she makes her way to the table to do her school work. This year she asked to learn more about our states, so we used Waldock Way’s Traveling the States curriculum. This week we are learning about our home state of Tennessee!

Afterward, she does a chapter or two of Life of Fred math, and I read aloud to her about Aretha Franklin. My daughter grabs leftovers from the fridge for her lunch when we’re done.

I did batch cooking two days ago and there are still premade meals of spaghetti, lasagna, chicken, broccoli, rice, and kale in the fridge. The kids grab a meal when they’re hungry. It works for me to only focus on cooking a couple of days per week instead of every day.

After she finishes her lunch, my daughter sits in the afternoon sun and continues reading her book until it’s time to do chores.

I let Tanu out to go potty.

Chores in Erin’s homeschool day in the life…

We all have chores we do around the house. My son’s tasks include sweeping, emptying the trash, and watering all pets and outside animals like our goats and chickens.

Some days he’ll mop the kitchen. He’s also responsible for his own laundry.

My daughter empties the dishwasher so I can wash the dishes and clean the kitchen, then she goes and vacuums the living room before going outside to help me feed the chickens and goats.

She’ll also check for eggs. On nice days we let the chickens out to forage.

It’s 3 pm when we make our way back inside and settle down for our read-aloud. Unfortunately, my daughter falls asleep halfway through!

It’s ok; They’ve had me re-read this series to them three times, and it’s a family favorite.

At 3:45 pm, my son starts his online computer class while I’m tackling the third load of laundry and trying to catch up with my reading of The Lord of the Rings. My daughter has woken up and gone outside to jump on the trampoline.

When my son finishes his computer class at 4:45 pm, we get the chickens back into the hen house. I let Tanu out to go potty, again. My son and daughter play on the Nintendo Switch until 6 pm, which is when it is time to get ready for Taekwondo class.

The kids and my husband have Taekwondo classes four nights per week. This means we don’t get back home until 9:30 pm on those nights. At that point, we all grab a pre-made meal out of the fridge.

My daughter likes to read while eating, and then she’s in bed by 10 pm. I let Tanu out one last time.

My son will stay up and either game with his friends or watch something on television with me and his Papa until midnight-ish.

However, none of our days look the same. Guess what? Math didn’t happen for my son today, but usually, it does.

Some days have violin lessons or guitar lessons. Other days we may have friends coming over to hang out or online social clubs to attend. Fridays are for fine arts and nature study.

It never looks the same, so we go with the flow and roll with the interests and rhythms of each new day – thanks for tagging along for this one!

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