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A Day in the Life of a Large Homeschooling Family

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Large Family

“How do you do it with 6?” is something I hear often and I usually don’t know how to answer. Yes, it’s true that I’m a mother of 6 kids who range in age from 1-18. I’m also a wife, a daughter, a business owner, a freelance writer, a blogger, a homeschooler, a support group leader, a theatre mom, and an all around busy person. Maybe I thrive on the busyness, maybe it’s my ADD kicking into gear; but, when things are happening, I’m in my element! I’ve never been good at sitting down or dealing with schedules, so homeschooling a lot of kids is sometimes a real challenge for me, and I make it work by bending our days to meet our needs instead of being a slave to a schedule.

If you’re looking for a “day in the life of …” article in which the kids do hours of school work while sitting around the table, well, that’s just not us. I learned a long time ago that boxed curriculum and rigid schedules do nothing but make us all miserable. It may have taken me a few years, but eventually I realized that if I’m not happy teaching, they aren’t happy learning…and if they aren’t happy learning I’m not happy teaching! As a result, we have developed a very relaxed way of homeschooling, preferring to encourage curiosity and natural learning while allowing the kids to discover their interests. Our method of homeschooling allows us to get everything that is important to us done while providing the time to pursue interests. We’re not unschoolers, but we’re not traditional homeschoolers either. We’re eclectic and nature-based and relaxed…Flexibility is the key for us!

I have six children, but consider them to be in three categories: the older kids (18 & 16), the younger kids (11, 10, 8), & the baby (1). We’ve always combined schooling between the ages as much as possible, even when we only had two kids. We maintain a goal of transitioning the kids to being completely self-directed by the time they are teenagers. This means we tend to school with more of a unit study approach, with a unit lasting as long as there is interest. Some unit studies, such as our study of Florida pioneers, last a year, whereas others may only last a week. The only subjects that are not done together are math and reading.

I’ve mentioned that we aren’t really big schedule people, but we do have a routine in place that helps our days run smoothly. If you had asked me about our schedule a year ago it would look a lot different than it does today. The last year found a lot of changes in our lives, including the passing away of an elderly relative we helped to care for and the addition of a little girl via adoption. What we have these days isn’t so much of a schedule as it is a list of things to try to finish. If, at the end of the day, the kids go to bed exhausted and smiling, I know the day was a success.

7:00am – I am a sleeper but since the baby came into our world I’ve been consistently sleep-deprived. Thankfully my kids are staggered wakers so I know that, when I leave my bedroom, I’ll still have 3 kids sleeping. Baby tends to wake around midnight, 2am, 4am, 6am, and is finally up for the day around 7am, therefore I wake up for the day around 7am. My younger sons, ages 8 & 10, are almost always awake at this time, watching tv or playing video games and waiting for me.

I spend the morning planning our day and working. As a business owner and stay-at-home-mom, I try to make use of every free second. While the kids occupy themselves I work, though I’m not always very productive as the kids tend to pop their heads in at my desk every 2.4 seconds to talk to me. Our rule for this is simple: if mom has headphones on, she is up against a deadline and, unless you are bleeding, don’t bother her! I recently rearranged my office area so I have full view of the living area while I work, another change we had to make since the baby’s arrival.

8:00am – By this time, I am a little more coherent and our thoughts turn to breakfast. Breakfast is a fend-for-yourself deal at our home. The kids are welcome to rummage for leftovers or make something. My kids are welcome to make what they want with one rule: clean up after yourself, and that means washing your dishes!

Our mornings are very laid back unless we have to go somewhere. My goal is to have 3 days at home, it’s just easier with the baby here and her nap schedule, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Some of my children are involved in theatre and some days my older kids take dual enrollment classes at the community college, and as such there are weeks in which I am gone 6 hours a day, 6 days a week. I try to make the most of these days by doubling them up with library visits and park days, or watching educational DVDs and picnicking in the van during inclement weather. On our slower, non-rehearsal weeks, we typically spend 1 day at the theatre and one day on a field trip of some sort.

The schedule from this point on assumes we are staying home for the day (which is ironic as I am writing this from a parking lot waiting for a play rehearsal to end!)

11:00am – Lunch! It also happens to be that my 11 and 16 year olds typically wake up around now, meaning lunch is their breakfast. My 1 year old typically goes down for a nap around this time, which means this is the time in which quiet work has to be done.

Between 11:00am and 1pm is when we do the bulk of our schooling. I know, I know, it doesn’t seem like two hours is enough, but for us it works as our life is built around learning all the time. It’s during this time that the 8, 10, and 11 year old and I read our history lesson together (we use a literature-based approach), do our science activities, and I have the kids do their math independently (we use a computer program for the 11& 10 year olds, the 8 year old does a mental math program), and we work on grammar and writing lessons, which they are almost ready to do independently.

We have a very loose weekly plan that we follow; basically I list out what we are to cover for the week and cross it off as we finish it. This plan includes 4 days of math, 5 days of reading, 2 days of history, 1 day of science, and 1 day of art. We always hit our goal for math and reading one way or another, and we usually hit our goal for history. Science and art we sometimes skip but we make up for it by doing 3-4 days at a time during slow weeks.

1:00pm – 3:00pm – by now the baby is awake again, the younger kids are done with school and at 2pm every day my phone calendar reminds me that it’s time to nag the 16 year old to do his algebra 2 lesson. See, this kid is one of the most intrinsically motivated people I’ve ever met…when it’s something he WANTS to do. Math isn’t something he wants to do; but because he is transitioning to being completely self-directed, I have to set an alarm on my phone to remind me to have him do his math. I have a lot on my brain! By the way, my phone calendar is my favorite tool.

Afternoons are also very relaxed for us. My only rule is that I don’t want the television on because I am very sensitive to noise and, by this point in the day, I have usually reached my threshold of noise pollution. We normally put on quiet music and use the time to create art projects or play outside. I try not to work during this time so I can be totally there for the kids.

My oldest child is usually leaving for work or her volunteer job around this time, some days that means she takes my vehicle and some days that means I have to drop her off at work. Car shopping for her is definitely in our plans for the near future.

5:00pm is our chore time. We have a rotating chore chart that covers the 5 major chores that need to be done every day. These chores are washing dishes/clearing off the table, taking care of the pets/cleaning the porch, taking out the trash & recycling, doing a “house sweep” (we start at one end of the house with a broom and work our way to the other side), and doing two loads of laundry. This hour is vital to our home running smoothly and each day the kids have one of these chores to do in addition to keeping their rooms somewhat tidy and cleaning their bathrooms.

6:00pm is usually when I start preparing for dinner and when my husband walks through the door after his day job. The kids love to help us cook, especially our 10 year old son. Most days my husband cooks but there are days in which I have to start dinner earlier in the day, and on some occasions my husband and I sit at the table talking and supervising as our 11 and 10 year olds make dinner on their own.

This is also the time in which we encourage the kids to read. Each child has assigned reading they have to do for 30 minutes. I’m really lucky in that all of my kids are voracious readers, so I always said I wouldn’t assign reading. What happened is that I noticed that they were only reading fiction and turning their noses up at nonfiction, so now we require them to read at least one nonfiction book a month.

7:00 pm is when baby girl goes down for the night and when we sit down to eat. The kids are responsible for clearing their place at the table and, while the child with the dishes chores starts washing, the other kids start their showers. The husband and I use this time to work together to build our business. Some days we will work until midnight, other nights we only work for an hour.

8:00pm – usually the dishes and showering are done by now and we settle in to watch television until bedtime. Weekdays find us watching something calming yet educational, the Wildest series on Netflix is currently our favorite. On weekends we like to rent movies for the kids so my husband & I can work.

The last two years we dedicated one night a week to history lessons, we would watch a TV show (America the Story of Us, Ken Burns’ The Civil War, and Big History) with the teens completing a writing assignment afterward. My teens have fulfilled their credit requirements for history so this isn’t our routine anymore, however pretty soon we will be devoting one night a week to complete science in the same manner.

Lately, this hour has been used for TV watching, however that isn’t always the case. Some nights you’ll find us playing a game or taking a walk around the neighborhood, some nights we supervise while the kids make dessert.

Between 9:00 and 9:30pm is “go to your room” time, in which we send the kids to bed with a book. We do allow my 11 year old to spend this time writing, she is an enthusiastic writer and normally spends 2-3 hours a day writing stories for fun. Lights are out by 10pm for the 11, 10, & 8 year olds. Our teens are allowed to stay up as late as they like. In days past, you would find me cuddled in bed with a book for the next few hours, though these days you’re more likely to find me watching tv I don’t have to think about or falling asleep on the couch before 10pm.

I hope this gave you a little insight into what a day is like in our life. We’re crazy busy, but I’d have it no other way!


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