Homeschool Day in the Life: Dana, homeschooling mama of two, living in the UK
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 Dana, homeschooling mom to two girls, living in the UK!
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.
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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 Dana
Dana from @blossom_schoolhouse is a homeschooling mum of two girls ages 7 & 5, living in the U.K.
Before they even had children Dana and her husband made the decision that they wanted to home educate. For many reasons to be honest, but some of the most vital were because they desired the following…
?to do life with their kids
?to witness their children’s education firsthand
?to have input on their kids’ character and hearts
?to give them the opportunity to LIFE LEARN
?to teach them about Christ and His fullness
These are only some of the many reasons their family has chosen to home educate. Dana describes their journey as a roller coaster four years of trial and error. They are learning from mistakes and building foundations as they go. Dana and her girls are heading into their 5th year happy and hopeful!
Good Morning!
Good morning!! So excited to share our day with you today?
We almost always start every weekday morning the same with Bible, breakfast, and morning basket. I usually get up before the girls,around 6:30/7am. The girls are late risers, they’re usually up around 8/8:30am. I like to let them catch those extra z’s!
I get up and read the word with my coffee and then once they are up I read with them and we chat, pray and then I make breakfast. Our first hour is always spent in the word and we pretty much do this every day no matter what the rest of the plans are for that day.
On a school day it’s usually followed by morning basket which changes all the time? but at the moment it consists of –
?Morning menu’s – calendar, poetry, scripture, math, map work
?Handwriting – both girls are using @thegoodandthebeautiful
?Devotional (sometimes)
?Grammar Tale (sometimes)
?Poetry (sometimes)
We basically alternate the last 3 on that list ?
Then after our morning basket the girls will run off and clean their teeth, get dressed and I clean up breakfast. Somewhere in that time I grab a shower, have my coffee, and eat too!!
Formal Lessons
Around 10:30am we tend to gather back at the table and start formal lessons. Everything we need for this is on our trusty homeschool cart. I love this thing! It holds almost everything we need for school lessons and at the end of the day I can wheel it under the stairs in the cupboard.
Every weekday we will do math and language arts, but on about three of those days we will also add in geography, history and science.
In all honesty, we have no true schedule with those. Some days we will add in all three and some days we won’t get to any, only math and language arts. Some weeks our focus might be more on nature, other weeks it might be art and crafty lessons. It’s all balance!
Balancing Teaching Both
I tend to get them both started with their work and then bounce back and forth between them when they need help. I look at what they have laid out for their lessons in math or language arts, and can judge who will need one on one time with what.
While I am doing one on one time with one of them I will give the other something they can achieve independently. This is usually reading or sometimes their work is doable without my full attention anyway.
Learning Together
The girls spend roughly 2/2.5 hours a day completing formal work. It’s a bit less for my five year old, but to be honest, I tend to teach them both at a similar level. I just adapt where I need to, especially for our other subjects like history and geography. Of course they are at different levels for English and math, but with everything else we all like to learn together.
That’s one of my favorite things about teaching my girls at home. We learn together. I’m not ashamed to admit I have learned a ton since we started homeschooling!
Afternoon Activities
After lessons the girls help clean up pencils, books, and their work before heading outside to play. While they do this, I make us some lunch. Mondays we have a kids club in the afternoon, and on Thursdays we have a kids climbing group. But today, on Wednesday, our afternoons are free for either extra lessons, housework, free play, nature walks or meeting friends/family at the park.
Evening Activities
We usually start dinner early around 5pm, and then I like to be cleaned up by around 6/6:30pm. The girls are usually bathed and ready for bed around 7pm, and bedtime is usually 7:30pm. Evenings are always for spending time with daddy and being together. Then we go up, jump in mummy and daddy’s bed and read a little. My seven year old sometimes reads to me too.
I then come back downstairs, and spend time with my hubby. I am always the last one to bed at night as when my hubby goes up I like to get the house straight for the next day. I do this every single night because starting the day just goes better when I do. Water distillers on, kitchen clean, morning basket and any other school prep ready and then I’m off to bed around 10:30pm. And that’s it! Of course every day looks a little different but for the most part this is our current school routine?
Thanks so much for having me today, I’ve loved sharing our day with you all!
Thank you so much to Dana 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.
