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A Day in the Life of Homeschool Mama Robyn

A Day in the Life of Robyn, Homeschool Mama of Three

I hope you’ll follow along tomorrow! Here’s more about Robyn… Hello! I am Robyn from @mywildoaks. Together with my husband we are raising & homeschooling our three kidos… two girls, ages 11 & 9, and a 6 year old boy. We live in the middle of a large city, Calgary ??. We are most definitely homebodies, but we are also a sports family, so on the go lot. Looking forward to sharing our day with you all!

Good Morning Learning Well Friends!

We have been homeschooling for 7 years, since my oldest was kindergarten age. Our homeschool could be explained as relaxed, unschooly & minimal, with strong Charlotte Mason & Classical influences. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We are small home dwellers in the midst of a large city. We choose to follow our families natural rhythms & have flexible routines, instead of set schedules. For school lessons we follow loop schedules, instead of a set yearly plan.

One of the biggest things I have learned so far in being a home educator is that it is necessary to regularly ask yourself what is working & what is not. Then tweak where & when needed, and then again. As our children grow the more their individual learning styles emerge, and it is our job to facilitate them along the way. It would be easy if each of our children learned the same, but in my experience, that is not the case.
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Anyway on to our day…

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A Day in the Life of Homeschool Mama Robyn

Mornings start for me around 6am, not because I am a morning person, but because my days always go better when I wake up before my kids. I use that time each day for meditation, some quick daily reading, my own studies (I am working towards my holistic nutrition certification), and actually drinking my coffee hot. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

My youngest two wake naturally around 7-7:30. There is usually a bit of cuddling on the couch before breakfast is being requested. My oldest, being 11, tends to sleep a bit later these days, but she is usually up by 9-9:30.

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Loop Scheduling Our Days

A Day in the Life of Homeschool Mama Robyn

So I mentioned Loop Schedule in my previous post, how many of you have heard of it?
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If you haven’t, it is basically just a list of subjects or books that you would work through, a few at a time, each day, instead of on set days. If you take a few days off, you just pick up where you left off.

All of my children have their own blocks of time with me. We work through their individual Learning Loops, along with a few daily musts, like math, copywork & reading.

My youngest, who is 6, begins his lessons around 8 am. He started his Learning Loop last fall, starting with daily musts & I have slowly been adding to it.

Today we read a few pages from Usborne Lift the Flap Engineering, a chapter from Dragon Masters, and he completed a few pages in Get Ready for The Code & Handwriting Without Tears.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

A Day in the Life of Homeschool Mama Robyn

He plays with Bananagrams most days, spell out words he knows & a few times a week we read through a early reader book together.

He is math minded, always counting & adding numbers out loud. I call him my walking word problem. He has a few math workbooks & also uses Prodigy Math online.

9:00 AM

A Day in the Life of Homeschool Mama Robyn

My youngest has completed his planned lessons & is currently playing Prodigy math. My oldest is awake & preparing her breakfast. Which means I have some time to sit down with my 9 year old and go through her Dailies & Learning Loop.

A Day in the Life of Homeschool Mama Robyn

She is a self-led learner through & through, actively creating and learning all the time. For fun, she will often write out a page of math equations just so she can solve them, she is always digging in our recycling bin & building with what she finds, she also loves copywork using one of her favourite books & drawing maps (both imaginary and real).

A Day in the Life of Homeschool Mama Robyn

Today I started by reading a chapter from By the Shores of Silver Lake. Her & I have been reading through the Little House books since last year. I never read them as a child so this has been very special.
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A Day in the Life of Homeschool Mama Robyn

From there she completed her Memory work, Phonics & Math. On her Learning Loop today was History & English. We are currently learning about Ancient Greece, today I read from A Child’s History of the World & she gave an oral narration. She then read a few pages to me from her current history reader The Trojan Horse. English today was a lesson from Primary Language Lessons, where is did some copywork & filling in the blanks.

11:00 AM

A Day in the Life of Homeschool Mama Robyn

It is my oldest turn for some one-on-one time with me. She does the majority of her lesson on her own though, and while she does her lessons on a loop as well, it isn’t set up the same.

A Day in the Life of Homeschool Mama Robyn

She gets a daily assignment list that has Math Copywork, Memory Work, Assigned Reading & Math Practice using Prodigy. Her current loop goes between Chemistry lessons & English lessons. We are in the process of adding some new curriculum in & tweaking things to help her become more independent, so her load is quite light today.

A Day in the Life of Homeschool Mama Robyn

Today was a Chemistry day, she did some copywork (vocabulary & timeline dates), memory work from the periodic table, and labeled a sketch of different crystal formations.

Afternoon Loop

Once lunch (peanut butter & jam with sprouted bread for them, scrambled eggs for me) & midday chores are complete, we all meet to do our Afternoon Loop which finished up formal lessons for the day.
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During our Afternoon Loop we cover topics like Canadian History, Folk Tales/Mythology, Shakespeare, Health & Geography. I use schedule cards to keep track of this loop, because sometimes I throw in an art or crafty lesson, or game school.

Today was Folk Tales, we are currently reading American Tall Tales. Each day I also read from our current read aloud, which most often is tied with Canadian History. We are currently reading Dear Canada: With Nothing But Our Courage.
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Once those two things are done we move on to our Media Loop. Today’s media was watching an episode of The Kindness Diaries. We also watch Carmen Sandiego, Brainchild, Somebody Feed Phil and documentaries from Curiosity Stream & Netflix.

For the longest time I tried to have everyone do everything together, I thought it would be the quickest. But it truly wasn’t working. By switching things up to what it is now, with individual blocks of time has proven to be much more efficient, and I am not a frazzled mess at the end of the day.
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I love how we come together at the end of the day now, it is the perfect way to finish up our daily lessons.

3:15 PM

A Day in the Life of Homeschool Mama Robyn

It finally (slowly) starting to warm up here in Southern Alberta, which means we can finally go outside without hurting our faces.
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Our whole backyard is an ice rink, this is our second year having it in & it’s been so great!!

Good Night Learning Well friends!

A Day in the Life of Homeschool Mama Robyn

Thank you so much for stopping by today to check out our day in the life. I purposely chose a day where we were home most of the day, just doing our regular thing. And while our pictures may seem calm & peaceful, the reality is far from that. A few things you did not see today… my messy kitchen at the end of the day & floors needing washing; fights amongst the kids; food complaints; me snapping at the end of the day; our homeschool closet that is a complete mess; kids messy bedrooms; and lots of loudness. I guess within all that is just as much our life as the highlights. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

I am now crawling into bed, it has been a long day, I am exhausted, and my alarm goes off early.

Thank you so much to Robyn 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.

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