Homeschool Day in the Life: Ashlee, homeschooling mom of four and creative YouTube content creator

A homeschool day in the life looks different almost every day, right? Over on our Instagram page, we love to give you a peek into lots of homeschool days regardless of how they change day to day.

Today, we’re going to give you a peek into the homeschool day in the life of Ashlee, homeschooling mama to four kids, and creative YouTube content creator.

We can all learn and be inspired by one another, regardless of our homeschool approach. It’s not about looking good for social media, it’s about the connection going on inside our homeschool walls and sharing with others what works for us.

Learning Well LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate links from Amazon or other programs are used on this website. For more info, please refer to our disclosure statement.

We might all homeschool a little differently, but we can always look for ideas from each other that inspire, encourage and equip us in our own homeschool days. 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!

Meet Ashlee

Ashlee @ashlee_graceandgrit is a homeschooling mama of 4 kids. They were all once 4 under 4, and now are ages 14, 12, 10, and 9. Ashlee and her kids are wrapping up their sixth year of home education and will be entering the homeschooling high school chapter next year! 

Ashlee has a YouTube channel, Grace and Grit, that she started after her second year of homeschooling because she felt there was such a lack of homeschooling moms sharing “HOW TO.”

Though the lack of people sharing isn’t necessarily true anymore, Ashlee’s journey continues to unfold, and she loves sharing with her community weekly over there.

Gathering Around Our Table

Hi Learning Well Community! I’m Ashlee from @ashlee_graceandgrit. Like clock work, at 9:00am every morning, we gather around our table. We start our homeschool days here. We go through our morning basket (which is really a cart now) together and complete anything that we learn together as a family. This is my favorite part of our day. The conversations, the thoughts, the hard topics, the heart work. The ultimate reason I homeschool is because I believe all of that is my responsibility and even in the toughest seasons (and trust me there have been many) I will never regret the time and love I poured into their hearts. 
You get one life and your children get one childhood. This calling is a gift. ❤️

Morning Basket

Morning basket☀️
A look at what was on the table this morning and the subjects covered. This time in our homeschool generally takes 60-90 minutes. 
•bible
•theology
•poetry 
•historical fiction story 
•character trait study
•scripture memory
•government 
•US history 
•US constitution review
•Easter story recitation 
•prayer

We cycle through the many books we have in our cart, and I’m always amazed at how much we touch on because we use this system. If you want specifics on what’s in my morning basket, I have a recent video WHAT’S IN MY MORNING CART||NIGHT TIME HOMESCHOOL TABLE PREP that may help you!

Reading Aloud

I do not identify with a specific homeschooling style or method. I’ve never felt called to put a label on how we do things or the methods we use. However one thing we have always done since day one of our homeschooling journey is read aloud. So if I had to find one style, I’d say we are a literature based homeschool. Every book we read has a purpose and a lesson held inside it. We read all kinds of books as long as the content is appropriate. I read aloud, and my kids read aloud. My teens are even still apart of our read aloud time and I pray it’s one of their fondest memories they take with them when they leave our homeschooling table. 

Curriculum

Curriculum isn’t what homeschooling is based on, in my humble opinion. It’s not the foundation of a homeschool. I believe the foundation is your heart and motivation for this choice. Curriculum should serve you and your family. 
It should help you and your children reach goals both academic and beyond. 

With that in mind this is a list of technical curriculum we use in our homeschool. This is not counting the endless books and additional resources we find.

My Non-Negotiables

Ever feel so overwhelmed with all the things to do, you just don’t start… anything?

When I began homeschooling my kids I was a working as a personal trainer with a successful business I had built with literal blood, sweat, and tears. I trained clients in the morning and homeschooled all afternoon. It worked for awhile, but it was tough on me. I didn’t want to let my clients, many of whom had become dear friends, down. They needed me. And I couldn’t drop the ball on school with the kids, that was my biggest job. I also had to find time to keep myself healthy, operate my home, keep my marriage thriving, be a friend, the list went on and on and I was constantly the one suffering. 

After some interesting turns of events and God using things to get my stubborn attention, I left my business behind. After that period of stillness and much prayer. I developed my three non negotiables. 

What are three non negotiables? They are the three things I must do daily before I do anything else. Things we don’t push aside for anything else. These three things are the greatest priority to me.

1. Time with God

2. Homeschooling

3. My workout

Those three things are what I require of myself daily and anything beyond that is a bonus. Once I really narrowed down where my focus needed to be I felt so relieved. And while I still feel like there aren’t enough hours in most days, I am no longer spinning my wheels and not getting anywhere. 
If you’re struggling with time management and accomplishing the most important things {and your health and physical well being is one of those things} maybe give this a shot.

Every Homeschool Is Different

Well friends, it’s been wonderful sharing my day with you all. I hope you enjoyed a peek at just a normal homeschool day for us. I didn’t plan anything extra to make it seem more entertaining. Just our normal rhythms in this homeschool life we are so blessed to have. 

The last thing I want to share before I sign off is that we are truly so blessed to be homeschoolers living in this time. I think back to when I started sharing our journey publicly just five years ago, there were so few women talking about how they did things. Since that time the online homeschooling community has grown tremendously and what a blessing that is! But it can also leave you feeling inferior if you allow it. Every home is different, and so naturally every homeschool is different. Every mom or dad has a unique gift mix that they bring into their homeschools.
I am a naturally schedule oriented person who loves a paper planner and checking off boxes. You may not be, and that’s totally okay. 

Learn from others, gather good things they share, get inspiration and then make it your own. That’s always the intention behind what I share. I’d love to have you all keep up with our adventure. If you’d like to, you can find me @ashlee_graceandgrit ❤️

Thank you so much to Ashlee for sharing your family’s day with us!

If you want to see more Day in the Life photos and videos, be sure to check out our Instagram profile.  There are highlights of each takeover at the top.