Homeschooling alongside a pre-schooler, toddler, and newborn.

What a Typical Day Looks Like as we *Attempt to Homeschool with a House Full of Littles

The Pre-Morning

You might be asking to yourself, ‘What is a Pre-Morning’? Well, that is a time that I am awake before the “older kids”, and by older, I mean any of our children that is not the newborn. So this particular morning, The Baby, woke up at 6am for the day. He ate, we played, and he watched me make breakfast for everyone else: blueberry muffins, scrambled eggs, and yogurt.

The Morning

At some point, all of the other kiddos trickled in, including Big Man (5.5), Little Miss (3.5), and I could hear Little Man (2) hollering for me from his crib. It is now close to 7:30, the older two play with the baby while I change Little Man’s diaper and get everyones plates ready for breakfast.

Close to 8, everyone sits for breakfast, and I go ahead and lay The Baby down for his first nap. While the baby is napping, and Little Man is still eating, this is when we can get the most schoolwork done. So, while still eating breakfast, we go over our letter and number of the week, and our bible lesson for the week. This week happens to be frogs. We do a quick review. This is for our oldest, but Little Miss does it all with us as well. She loves “school time”, and is just as engaged as our oldest. Big Man will then do some kind of a worksheet on handwriting, math, or phonics. During this time, Little Miss gets her “school book”, which is either a coloring book or a preschool work book that has letters and she just colors in it. I don’t require this of her, she can go play if she wants to, but if Big Man is doing school, then so is she.

If Little Man has finished his breakfast, then he is probably roaming the house looking for more food to scavenge. Once he has had his fill he will come back and try and steal markers from the older kids. So, at this point, I usually find a page for him to color, or random manipulatives. And I better find something FAST, otherwise he is coloring on the table, or playing in the toilet, or dumping laundry out of the hamper. Or maybe all three.

Mid Morning

After our table school time, which ends up being 30 minutes, we read any books we currently have about frogs. We will read usually until The Baby wakes up. It is now a little after 9 when The Baby wakes up. While I feed The Baby, the kids get dressed, clean up toys, markers, and breakfast, and they empty the dishwasher. It is now outside time and the kids will be out until lunch is ready. The Baby and I will play, go outside, clean the kitchen, and make lunch. This day I also made some fast “lily pads” out of tinfoil, and I put them in our water table with some frog figurines for the kids to experiment with floatation and weight. But it was mostly just unstructured play time.

We frequently have lunch early, since our day starts early. This day we had burritos, salad, and blackberries. I put The Baby back down for a nap around 11, and the kids will have lunch usually by 11:30.

Afternoon

I usually try and time The Baby’s nap with quiet time for everyone else. Little Man also still takes a nap. It doesn’t always quite workout though. As soon as the kids finished lunch it was quiet time. I put Little Man down for his nap in the kids room, Little Miss has quiet time in our bedroom with a kids podcast and some activities, and Big Man has quiet time in our living room with me. He listens to something while playing Legos or drawing. This day he listened to Frog and Toad audiobook on Spotify. He was very into the story that he just laid on the couch to listen. Quiet time is usually 1-2 hours, depending on how tired the kids are, or what the day looks like. This is the time I work on the blog, or social media. I will do this until the baby wakes up.

The Baby wakes up around 1, and after feeding, Little Man will frequently play with him and I will either do house chores or work on something Sprouting Arrows related. Around 1:30 or 2, everyone is up and quiet time is done and everyone will have a snack. On this day snack is an apple and a cheese stick.

After snack time, the kids usually play outside again, or if we need to go to the market, it is often around this time. The Baby takes another nap around 3:30, and that is when I usually think about dinner. We usually eat dinner around 5:30. Today, however, it is nice outside, so I start weeding in the garden as we prep for spring.

Evening

On this day, The Baby woke up around 4:45, which is also when Matt got back home from work. He decided to start burgers while I fed The Baby. The kids came in from outside and were allowed to watch a show. This day they watched a Wild Kratts on Youtube about Frogs.

We ate dinner around 5:30, and cleaned the kitchen afterwards. All of us then went out to the backyard until 7. At this time, I get The Baby ready for bed and put him to sleep, and then the kids get their pajamas on and brush their teeth and we start bedtime in their room around 7:30. We usually read a story, pray, and sing songs and then everyone heads to bed.

And that’s the day. Of course, it’s always different. But, in general, that is the flow.