Day in the Life With Alicia: What Does a Homeschool Day with a Senior, 8th Grader, 6th Grader, and 1st Grader Look Like?
Here’s a little look at the Day in the Life of Alicia, mama to a 17, 14, 11, and 6 year old. At Learning Well, we understand that homeschooling doesn’t look the same for all of us. We understand it doesn’t have to either for us to learn and glean good things from each other. Each Wednesday, on our Instagram feed, we feature a new homeschool mama to take over the feed and show us what her day looks like.
Some of us homeschool for religious reasons and that inspires our homeschool days. Some of us homeschool from the road and never do school in the same place twice. We might have been homeschooling for years and years. Or we may have just begun our journeys. We understand that those details don’t really matter though. The common thread that binds us all together is our desires to educate our children differently.
We might all homeschool differently, but we can always look for ideas from each other that inspire, encourage and equip us in our own homeschool days.
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So, each week, we create blog posts for you to access later of each of those “days in the life”. We hope you keep coming back for more inspiration. Keep going, mama! These days at home are so worth it!
Day in the Life of Homeschool Mama Alicia
{MEET ALICIA} Hi! It’s me, Alicia! @overatalicias Day in the Life is back, my friends!! We take summers off, but now that many of us are back in full-swing, we’re back too to share our days with you every week. If you’re new, #lwdayinthelife is a chance for one mama to walk us through her day–the good, the bad, and the crazy! We feature a different mama (or dad!) every Wednesday.
We don’t all homeschool the same, or follow the same religion, or use the same books…but we’ve all chosen to educate our children differently. We’re different but connected by rebelling against the norm and choosing something as unique as our family is: and that is why I love homeschooling so much.
I’m Alicia, and I started blogging about our homeschooling days about 10 years ago. I still write about our days and share curriculum reviews, tips, and things we’ve learned along the way. Jarrod is my husband and we have four kids and we’ve been homeschooling for 12 years. My kiddos are 17 (12th gr), 14 (8th), 11 (6th) and 6 (1st). We live outside Minneapolis, take an eclectic approach to homeschool with a strong dose of Charlotte Mason, and we can’t wait to share our day with you tomorrow!
The way I see it, if I don’t take the early morning hours and do something good for myself, it may not happen at all that day. My kids wake up around 8am and I know baby-life makes for an unpredictable morning routine, but at my current season of parenting, it’s easier to plan to get up early and do something just for me.
It used to be my tendency to wake up, grab coffee and dive into my work to get in a few hours before we started school. But over the summer I really started to fill my own cup right away in the morning…a long face washing, a walk or jog outside, a good sweat session with Teacher Fit Online, a hot shower, and best of all…coffee! Or even better: coffee with a book that’s filling me up!
I know we’re not all in the season of getting up early before our kids…and believe me, it’s a struggle every single day for this natural night owl! But little by little, I’m seeing how filling my own cup: body, mind, and soul right away makes our school day so. much. better. @overatalicias
Here are some tips on getting up earlier.
People ask me a lot how to juggle the different ages when they all need to do school at the same time. My biggest tip is to combine wherever you can. If you have a couple of kids that are close in age, use the same writing, history, science–where ever you can combine, do it!
If that’s not an option, here’s what I do: take turns giving kids instructions and turn them loose. I need to take the most time with Vera (6), so I will give my two middles some instruction and direction and then they can mostly complete their work on their own while I turn my attention to Vera. We’re all at the same table, so it’s easy to stop and help someone.
My kids all have assignment notebooks that they use every single day. It’s nice because if I’m busy with someone else and a kids wants to work on something else for a minute, they know exactly what else they have to do that day. Their chores are also listed in their notebooks too, just as a friendly reminder ?
It’s a bit of a dance, but before I know it, they’re Seniors in high school, working almost completely on their own, so I’ll enjoy the polka while I can! – @overatalicias (I know juggling the homeschool morning with toddlers can be SO tough! Check out this post for something we called Sibling Preschool for one way we did our days with toddlers.)
And he’s off for the day! Noah is 17…nearly an adult. I am the luckiest because I seriously don’t know what I’m doing and I have had to learn from so many mistakes I’ve made parenting him. I’m always apologizing to him and he’s always telling me it’s ok.
He and I have been doing this homeschool thing for 12 years now. He gets up, grabs his list and does a few hours of work mostly on his own and a few days a week, he heads to work after lunch. His high school career has consisted of online classes, college classes, co-op classes, classes with me and classes he’s worked through independently.
Recently, someone asked me how he was doing academically. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a big deal in our home to do the best academic work you possibly can. But that is just the icing on the cake. Much more importantly to me, is he a problem solver? Organized? Able to work with others? Does he look people in the eye? Is he confident, assertive, loyal? Does he know what he believes? Is he using the talents God gave him? Academia is much more secondary to becoming a thriving, independent adult to us.
Jarrod and I aren’t raising robots to cram for tests and spew out facts. We’re not sure what our kids will choose to do after high school, and we’re sure we’ve made mistakes along the way, but the space that homeschooling has allowed Noah to grow into his own person has been immeasurable. You can’t put a grade on that.
ONE THING with Alicia
I’m a 1 on the Enneagram. 1’s really like lists and getting things done. The problem with “the list” is that it’s never finished. Just the other day, we finished school and lunch and cleaned up and it was about 2pm. I decided to hit the list hard and get my house all fall-i-fied for the season, run to Target, make dinner and then get to a meeting by 6pm. There was no possible way.
I did run to Target. I did make dinner and I did get to the meeting (only 5 minutes late). But I realized on the way home from Target (it takes me a while to figure things out), that after the homeschooling is done and the meals are cooked and cleaned up, I might have time for mayyyyyybe one thing off the to-do list. That’s really it.
So, today my ONE THING was sitting down for an hour at the computer and making some appointments, paying a bill and printing out a return receipt. Then, it was time for band, dinner, and bed.
I have to constantly remind myself that my worth is not a number of check marks.
Do you know your Enneagram number? Do you struggle with “the list”?
Evenings are the best. Usually, it looks like this: fold a load of laundry that I started that morning, write in the kids’ assignment notebooks for the next day, and fill in a rundown of what we did that day in my planner.
Inspired by @elenamgrover, I’m doing it a bit different this year and organizing it by week. I’ve kept records like this over the last few years and it’s so fulfilling to look back at what we have done together. I forget so much! And we really do a lot each year.
It has been a blast sharing our day with you today. I hope you’ve enjoyed it!! Thanks so much for being here and being a part of Learning Well Community.
We’ll be back next Wednesday with another day In the life, but you’re stuck with me all the other days of the week. ?
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