Homeschooling Day in the Life: Lauren, homeschooling mom to two kids with Type 1 diabetes

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 Lauren, homeschooling mom to two children who have Type 1 diabetes.

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 Lauren

Lauren @everettschoolhouse is a follower and worshipper of Jesus, a wife, a homeschool mom, and a part-time pancreas to her two kids who have Type 1 diabetes.

Her days are consumed with God, learning alongside her kids, checking on blood sugars, exercising, feeding her family, checking on blood sugars, reading aloud, keeping her sourdough alive, petting her dog, checking on blood sugars, working in her small garden, doing laundry, and checking on blood sugars.

Lauren finds joy in all of it and is amazed at what can be accomplished while listening to an audiobook or memorizing scripture. Her favorite hobbies are learning sign language, playing video games, and creating art.

Good Morning!

Good morning! Our days typically start a little later then most. We love sleeping in and having slow mornings. I am usually the first to rise, after hitting snooze 2-5x. I like to start my day with my Bible. Then I move on to making breakfast and that is usually when my son (age 9) comes down. His nose leads him. 🤣 He normally would start on his independent work while he waits for his sister to get up, but he has finished most of his independent work for the school year. Once my daughter (age 11) wakes up and everyone is finished eating breakfast, we start on our morning basket.

Morning Basket

Our morning basket is broken into 3 different subjects: Bible time, literature loop, and our current read aloud.

Independent Work

This is what our independent work time looked like today because we are transitioning into summer. Normally we are all sitting at this table. Their Independent subjects are:
•Math
•Reading
•LA
•Geography
•Writing and Rhetoric
•Loop subjects: Typing/HW, Journal, Notebooking, Wordly Wise, Reading Detective.

We do history and science as a group and we alternate those subjects each day.

Incorporating Art

We love doing art. Although the kids are drawing and creating things throughout the day, we try to do an actual art lesson everyday. The main things we learn are clay, watercolor, creative drawing, and origami.

Sometimes with our morning basket we learn about a famous artist and then create a piece of art using the method the artist used. Also, on Fridays we do notebooking.

Reading Aloud

I spend a lot of time reading aloud. The kids enjoy it because they are able to spend time drawing, painting, playing with clay, playing with legos, playing with their yo-yos or laying down and snuggling with our dog. We always have one fun read aloud, one history read aloud, different picture books, and “literature” loop (which is basically any book that I feel like we need to read) Our latest loop was Shakespeare (The Winter’s Tale), American Tall Tales, a Child’s Book of Church History, and When We Were Very Young (poetry). There are so many books I want to read, but I know we won’t get to them all because other subjects get in the way.

Screen Time

My kids do use screens. That usually looks like typing a story, watching Dude Perfect videos, playing Arcademics or prodigy, coding, or playing Minecraft or Rocket League. The kids and I have seasons where we play video games together (I love video games). We also have movie nights, and sometimes watch shows as a family. The kids have been really enjoying the Tuttle Twins Show. For about six months we used a marble system, where they earned marbles throughout the day and then they were able to use those for screen time: 1 marble = 5 minutes. This summer the rule is no screens before 2:00 and 2 hours of screen time per day. That may seem like a lot of time to some people and a little to others. It seems to be working for us as of now.

Being in Nature

It was raining most of the day so we didn’t spend much time outside today. I hate to admit it, but we are pretty fair weather explorers. Being in nature is one thing that I have to be super intentional about. We used to do phenology wheels, and that helped us to really get out and explore. We need to start those up again this summer.

Wrapping Up

I’m so glad I obeyed the call that God placed on my heart when Lyla was heading into Kindergarten. I am thankful to be able teach and learn alongside my kids. Thank you for following along with us today! You can find us over at @everettschoolhouse

Thank you so much to Lauren 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.