A Day in the Life: Homeschooling with a Toddler
I don’t know about you, but I am super nosey when it comes to peeping into the homes of some of my favorite mamas on Instagram. I love to see how other mamas, especially homeschool mamas, utilize their day. I have found so much inspiration at times from simply watching what others do and then recreating my own version of it here.
Last year was our first full year homeschooling and a beautiful rhythm naturally formed to our days. We had a sleepy newborn in the mix, and he slept for most of our lessons. To be honest, homeschooling with a new baby is a piece of cake. It’s toddlers that make things a bit crazy! ;)
As we headed into this year with a nearly 18 month old, I assumed that our old routine wouldn’t work. I prepared myself to have to do more of our work AFTER lunch during the baby’s nap, but to be honest I wasn’t a fan of that plan. I enjoy quiet time in our home and often need the reset for myself.
While I have tried to move most of our lessons to quiet time after lunch, my children naturally flow into our old rhythm. So for now, we do what we can with a rambunctious toddler and then we save the rest for his nap time. It’s my hope to bring us back to our old rhythm completely one day because having majority of our work done before nap time feels GREAT! But at this season, I have to do what brings us the most peace and that means for now, that we will spread our workload as it seems fit.
Mornings:
6:00 (Mom’s quiet time): I wake up around 6:00-6:30 am to have my quiet time and read my bible/pray. Sometimes I get 30 minutes to do this and other days I can rock on my porch peacefully for a lot longer. I NEED this quiet time in order to feel like we have a good day. I find when I sleep in and avoid this time, I lose an inner peace and a peace within our days. Often I can also blog a little, tidy the house, start breakfast and more. I highly encourage you do to start this habit for yourself!
7:00-8:00 (Kids wake and mom prepares for day) The kids start rising. One of the perks of homeschooling is not having to wake my kids up and letting them get the sleep they need. Often they will rise up at their own times and watch some morning cartoons while I make breakfast (I make warm breakfasts almost every day), get dressed or work some. Some of our favorite breakfast ideas are here.
8:00-9:00 (Breakfast School and get dressed/tidy) The goal during this time is to eat breakfast, make beds and tidy the house and then get dressed. We used to start school around 9:30 and some days we still do, however I am finding our days flow better if we start around 9:00. So we are currently working on bumping up our time.
Breakfast schooling: Last year we did breakfast schooling and it worked wonders! I firmly believe in this as eating having their hands busy helps little ones sit down and focus. During breakfast school we often covered bible, poetry, memorization work and sometimes a read aloud. This eventually became complicated with a baby that I had to spoon feed at one point, but we are currently reverting back to it. Different seasons require different things from you, so we are trying to move back into our breakfast schooling routine. Eating together daily will help with this and even having some color sheets for them to color or a handicraft to work on will occupy active ones.
I have also found our days to be most productive if I lay out some morning work after breakfast while I clean up and get myself dressed. This usually includes their handwriting, spelling, and any fun worksheets that I may to correlate with seasons or science/history units. They typically made their way to the table on their own after getting dressed and this kicked off our formal lessons.
9:00-10:30 (First Grade Assisted Work/ Third Grade Independent Work) This is where we focus on a bulk of our lessons and where my preschooler and first grader get a lot of my attention. I will cover math, phonics, religion and poetry/fable narrations with my first grader while my preschooler bounces around between playing and completing fun worksheets. During this time my oldest will go to her room to study religion, Latin, phonics cards and complete any narrations, illustrations, or spelling work that she has. I usually come back and review many of these things with her, but this gives her the chance to go study. She usually also reads during this time for fun as well. I will cover what I can with my first grader at this time, but if she can’t concentrate with the baby being active, we save it for nap time.
10:30 (Break and Snack) Around this time my children often want a break and my goal is to be done with the littles work at this time. This doesn’t always happen but many days it does. At this time they usually grab a snack and run outside to play! During the winter they often find something to build or find some sort of game or imaginative play together.
11:00-12:00 (More Lessons/Prepare Lunch) During this time I try to sit down with my oldest and focus on the math problems that she needs help with and new math material. We’ll then cover whatever religion, language arts and history lessons during this time that we can. Or we will often use this time for arts and crafts and experiments (often times we do this on Fridays). While we all enjoy being at the table together, there are moments where I realize each child needs to have their undivided attention from me for their particular lesson, which makes the rotations of independent work and assisted work flow well together.
Ideally this time before lunch will be a time to sit and work on fun units (like we did last year) that correlate with the seasons or their science. With a toddler around, I have drawn back the extra units and crafts at the moment because of the demand of everything at once. As he gets easier and life slows down, this fun time will come back for us!
Afternoons:
12:00-1:00 (Lunch and Free Play) Around noon we have lunch, clean up and then focus on a little play. I try to clean up, flip laundry or unload the dishwasher during this time. Sometimes we make our way outside as well!
1:00-3:00 (Rest/Quiet time/Wrap Up Lessons) Both of my boys take a nap during quiet time and my girls are required to have a quiet time in their room. They usually craft or play Barbies during this time, but this is also when we finish our school work if we are not done. Since the boys are asleep it is MUCH more quiet, so we can usually focus pretty well on the rest of our language arts and history. Last year we did poetry tea time which meant that we enjoyed snacks (milk and cookies) in tea cups while we read and covered different readings. This year we find ourselves gathering on the sofa under a cozy blanket more. We’ve also created a natural habit of gathering on the living room floor to finish any math that may need to be done for the day. School doesn’t always have to be at a fancy table!
Our lunches are fairly easy. We stick to sandwiches, charcuterie style lunches, mac and cheese, leftovers and the occasional treat of a lunchable or corn dogs.
Completing their math during the boy’s nap time
Evenings:
The boys wake up and we often times eat a snack and head outside during this time. Some days we have dance lessons or soccer practice in the evenings, but otherwise we tend to stay home and play outdoors. When they run outside I will try to clean up the house, switch the laundry and start dinner if it needs to be. For quick dinner nights, I usually try to play outside more and then just start dinner around 4:30-5:00 so we can eat for 6:15 or so. We strive to eat dinner together every night as a family, but sometimes our extra curricular may prevent that (about 1-2 times a week).
Using the boys nap time to get some phonics work done and math drills graded.
Dinner is usually around 6:00-6:30 and then we may play outside some more or head straight to the bathtub. Our goal with the kids is to have them in their beds between 8:00-8:30. We usually have an evening dedicated to dance classes and for a smaller portion of the year, we all have soccer practices. My goal is to bring us back to a bible readings and story before bed, but with a toddler who doesn’t settle well right now, we just aren’t there.
I find myself stuck in the trenches right now and in what has been a difficult season with my youngest, but somehow our natural rhythm just seems to keep unfolding as my children go about their days. It’s amazing how they stick to something once it’s programmed into their little minds and body!
I’m sure there’s so much more I could say about our days together, but this tends to be the general rhythm of it. Just remember to give yourself grace when your day doesn’t unfold the way you wished it would and make sure to take the time to see how natural rhythms form. Try not to force something that isn’t working for your family. We do go to a homeschool center twice per week and to be honest, our days at home are my favorite. I know that as my children grow and mature a bit and the baby becomes less of a handful, that these days will be all the more merry and cozy!
Our days are never perfect and sometimes they can be a little rough around the edges, but there is always so much beauty to find within it. Always!
PIN US BELOW
