Erin’s Homeschool Day in the Life (with a 10- and 15-year-old)

Erin’s Homeschool Day in the Life (with a 10- and 15-year-old) ~
 Written by Erin Vincent of Nourishing My Scholar

7:30 am – I am up and groggily swap out my pajamas for real clothes and winter boots. I have no little kids to wake me up in the mornings anymore, but I have a 115-pound Great Pyrenees dog to take for a walk before anything else. It’s a cold winter morning here in the mountains of east Tennessee; cold and wet.

I won’t see the kids for a few more hours. They are not morning people. Though my 15-year-old does manage to get up early on the days he goes to his part-time job without prompting from me.

So I take the mornings for self-care. After beating breast cancer last year, I now prioritize my health.

8 am – I scroll Facebook and Instagram for a few minutes while I make my coffee. I decide to make pancakes for breakfast.

8:30 am – After finishing the pancakes, I change into workout attire and head for the treadmill.

9 am – I finish walking on the treadmill, shower, and change.

9:30 am – I do some light yoga stretches while I wait for the children to wake up. I’ve found stretching helps with both my mobility and reduces my anxiety.

10 am – My 10-year-old daughter Jade wakes up and wants to snuggle. We like to watch funny cat videos while she sits on my lap.

10:15 am – My daughter eats the pancake breakfast I made while listening to The Land of Stories audiobook. (afflinks) She’ll listen to audiobooks all day long if I let her, and most of the time, I do!

Getting Started with Our Homeschool Day

10:45 am – While we have a very eclectic and unschooly homeschool, a few “must-do’s” are required nearly daily. Those “must-do’s” include math and reading. My daughter starts her Kitten Math workbook while I start the dishes.

She’s doing a combo of her Kitten Math workbook and Teaching Textbooks for her math. She loves the fun factor of Kitten Math, and I love that we are filling any holes in learning with her Teaching Textbooks.

As I do the dishes, I listen to the Raising Lifelong Learners Podcast on when a child has a diagnosis. It is so good. I highly recommend this podcast if you have children that are gifted or have learning disabilities, or both.

11:15 am – My daughter watches the show MythBusters while I clean the kitchen.

11:45 am – After an episode of MythBusters, my daughter settles in to read a chapter of Inkheart. This is a well-loved and well-worn book. I take the dog out again.

12:oo pm – My son Gabriel wakes up and eats what’s left of the pancakes while my daughter eats lunch.

12:15 pm – After he clears his place at the table, he gets started on his chores; empty the trash, sweep the kitchen, and give the chickens and goats fresh water.

12:45 pm – My daughter takes it upon herself to write a story based on a forest game she plays in the evenings. Her story is about a mama bear and her three cubs. I love her creativity and encourage her to write and expand her love of gaming with writing.

She has several different games that simulate animals in different environments. She loves coming up with new and unique stories about the different animals in their different biomes. Tomorrow we’ll go over the grammar and punctuation of her story.

A Homeschooling Afternoon

1:00 pm – The doorbell rings. It’s the little girl next door that is also homeschooled. She comes over nearly every day at 1 pm.

She and my daughter love to create stories and do art with pencils and watercolors together. They will spend the rest of the afternoon playing together, either inside or outside on the swing set.

2:00 pm – Now that my son’s chores are done, he starts on his Wondrium/Great Courses videos on psychology. He loves these courses, and they are perfect for an audio/visual learner like him.

3:00 pm – My son has a guitar lesson with Gentle Guitar. He’s been taking lessons for over four years. He and his teacher like to take music from his favorite video games and compose them specifically for the guitar.

It’s awesome to witness. Today they are working on a music composition from the game Ark.

3:30 pm – Now that the guitar lesson is over, it’s time for math. Math is not his favorite subject, but my son is doing well with Denison Success Algebra.

4:00 pm – My son starts another Wondrium/Great Courses video on World War II as part of a modern history course. I take the dog out again.

5:00 pm – I start to make dinner.

5:30 pm – The neighbor girl is called home for dinner, and my daughter starts to play Minecraft until our dinner is ready.

A Homeschool Evening

6:00 pm – My son and I go over his Brave Writer Boomerang for the book he’s been reading, Divergent.

6:30 pm – Dinner is ready, and my husband comes home. He’s only home long enough to change, and then he and my son head off for their Tae Kwon Do class.

7:00 pm – My daughter and I settle in to watch more MythBusters until bedtime. We usually watch some educational shows in the evenings while my husband and son are at Tae Kwon Do.

9:00 pm – I take the dog out one last time. My husband and son returned from their martial arts class. They fill me in on new techniques and sparring that happened.

They only have another year and three months before they become black belts!

10:00 pm – Bedtime for me and my daughter! I’m exhausted. But my husband and son will stay up and either play a game or watch a show together. It’s part of their guy time, as I call it.

Not all days look the same with our unschooly/eclectic approach to homeschooling. Some days are filled with more games, movies, or books.  We are always learning and growing in a way that works best for each kid and for us as a family.

Thanks for following along!

My, how the days have changed:

• 2022: Erin’s Homeschool Day in the Life (with a 9-, and 14-year-old)

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