Lusi’s homeschool day in the life (with a 10-, 12-, 17-, 18-, 19-, year old)

Lusi’s Homeschool Day in the Life  ~
Written by Lusi Austin of That Homeschool Life

First, I have to say that our homeschool day in the life varies A LOT due to my journey with chronic illness and the fact that we are also on our BIG school holiday break here in Australia! We take the approach that we are learning all year ’round anyway, but we do less structured work during this break.

Over the years we have found having a rhythm to our days has helped us to have a sense of flow and predictability. Our rhythm revolves around activities and actions rather than time.

I’ll get things done for myself in the morning while the kids are eating breakfast. I find that I sometimes need to give them a gentle reminder to move along, otherwise that breakfast can last and last – anyone else?!

My older three children and hubby are out of the house working by 9am almost every morning (sometimes a 10am start for my librarian-daughter). This means that most days it’s now just myself and our 10- and 12- year olds at home during the day. This is a huge difference to when the five were gathered around our learning room table.

With all that said, here’s how our day flowed today.

Lusi’s Homeschool Day in the Life

Morning

Every morning, hubby wakes me up with a kiss before he goes to work. I used to get up with him, but living with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) leaves me pretty fatigued and sore in the mornings.

I go back to sleep before my sons (17-, 18-,) come and kiss me goodbye before they start their work day. My daughter (19) starts later. So she’s usually still home by the time I get up.

With round one of meds taken, it’s coffee time!

I try getting my own quiet reading time in whether it’s from the Bible or my current read. (afflink)

This helps to centre and calm me (most of the time!) Of course there *had* to be crumbs in this photo 😉

A homeschool day in the life for us starts with the youngest two finishing up an episode of their favorite recorded shows (especially since we are on holidays!) While they do that and move to having breakfast, I tidy the kitchen and make myself my fave anti-inflammatory green smoothie.

Nourishing my body as best I can is really important to me. Sometimes that means a longer sleep in. Sometimes that means a green smoothie. I know it looks gross, but it doesn’t taste too bad!

Mid Morning

After breakfast, the kiddos get dressed, brush teeth and do their regular chores. Everyone here pitches in as a team for chores.  Most mornings during a homeschool day, we kick off the next part of our rhythm by reading a couple of stories from this devotional.

Sometimes we have a prayer or go through some of our memory verse songs. Other days we just chat about things on our hearts. Today we read from the devotional and then read the passage in the Bible that the little story came from in 2 Samuel. The kids talked aloud about where the ark of the covenant might be now and we listened to the Dave Crowder band song ‘Undignified’ together.

Most days my hands-on-kids get crafty. Today, the kids designed a volcano out of a big box from a recent delivery.

They are planning on using it for a New Year’s Eve’s tropical-themed party.

Cutting led to painting and eating ice cream (because summer holidays!)… and it was left to dry.

After a quick face-time chat with one of my sisters, we moved onto our read alouds.  Tom Appleby is the story of European settlement in Australia through the eyes of a convict boy. There’s lots to discuss. We read about an Indigenous man named Bennelong and look him up in another book that we have.

I love this about the way we homeschool – one thing leads to another – all in the name of learning and BEING together. While I read aloud, Zippi worked on a piece of crochet and Zeeki was snacking on a frozen juice box (we call them ‘poppers’ here).

We also read a few pages from another read aloud we are enjoying and began discussing life during The Great Depression.

Afternoon:

In between reading, I’d put washing on. I got to hang it out while the kids got themselves some lunch. Our 18 year old came home from work for lunch. Lunch for me was some turkey, cheese and olives that we brined earlier in the year. I usually eat around 2pm.

By now I’ve taken medications, returned a voicemail and settled a few squabbles. Walking down to the clothesline is the main way I get some gentle exercise in for my often sore body. 

A homeschool day in the life for the adult children and younger ones differ. This afternoon, the 10- and 12- year olds focused on creating and building their Minecraft worlds, whereas our older adult children are working.

While at work, our 17 year old had called his 19 year old sister to ask her to drop off his basketball shoes once she was off work at 2pm.  He planned to go straight from work to the basketball courts. They arranged this themselves. I’ll admit, I’m happy that I don’t need to leave the house in the heat to do extra running around! Yay for driving teens 😉

I worked on editing a 3 minute video. It is a gardening video for our little YouTube channel. It’s a bit of creative downtime for me which I need each day for my sanity’s sake.

Evening

Our 18 year old was having an after-work celebration with work mates to see out the year. My 17 year old was driven home from basketball by a friend of mine (so kind!). She purchased a couple copies of my new book and we had a little chat.

Our eldest cooked chilli con carne and rice tonight for dinner. We ate together and chatted about our day around the table. Hubs got the washing off the line and then watched a cooking show for his downtime. Evening chores were completed by everyone. Zippi organised her room while Zeeki and Ethan played Super Mario Bros. Soon it’ll be time for showers, brushing teeth and bed.

I like this time of night when everyone is doing their own thing. I enjoy a glass of chilled wine before I tackle washing the dishes. I’ll be in bed before 9pm because hubs has an early start in the morning.

I’ll get some rest before getting up to do it all again tomorrow – Thanks for tagging along with our day!

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