Every so often it is fun to take a closer look into what a day is typically like for us. I say "typically" very loosely because every day is different, we do different things on different days of the week, and no two days look exactly the same! But, with that being said, let's jump in! I currently have three daughters - a 9 year old in 4th grade, a 7 year old in 1st grade, and a 4 year old preschooler - with a baby boy on the way due in January which is very quickly approaching!
I work in multiple ways every day - I run Homeschool Glue which takes a lot of time (podcast episodes, blog posts, Instagram content, responding to people, creating resources, backend stuff), multiple Etsy shops with digital products and physical products I outsource but still require some time most days, running the social media for another business, and then watching extra children before and after school. Thankfully we can school around all of this and it all allows me to be able to homeschool our kids!
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Every morning I wake up around 4am and finally get myself out of bed by about 4:20/4:30 at this stage in my pregnancy if I'm being honest! I have coffee (that I setup the night before and set to brew at 4am so it's ready for me - the best!) and then I jump into my Bible time. I read a chapter out of my Bible, fill out one line in my mom one-line-a-day journal, and do some praying to start the day.
Then, I jump into work time. This looks different every day! Some days, I am writing a blog post like I am currently right now (😉), other days I'm editing and uploading a podcast episode, sometimes I'm planning my content, sometimes I'm listening to a business training, and often times I'm working on new resources for my shop! I work until about 5:45am when I need to pack up and get ready.
Now, please note, I have real human children who aren't robots. Our 4 year old has been waking up at about 4:45 for a few months so I'm also taking breaks to set her up in our bed or bring her back to her bed during this sleep regression time she's going through. She's getting better thankfully because we have a baby coming soon and I won't be getting up at 4 for a while then!
I spend about 20-25 minutes getting ready and listening to a podcast most mornings. Then, I head to our room and make the bed and get dressed. I then head upstairs to help my little girls get ready for the day. They get dressed, make their beds, and head downstairs. I will often put a load of laundry in and this time.
I head to the kitchen and my little girls will play. I'll usually do their hair during this time (we keep a bin of hair supplies in a kitchen cabinet) and I'll whip up some breakfast. We usually make one bulk freezer breakfast once every weekend, so we always have at least four bulk breakfasts in the freezer I can pull out. This includes protein pancakes, protein waffles, protein muffins, egg bites, sheet pan pancakes, and then I rotate some other fun ones every once in a while. I pair one of those typically with some fresh fruit and often some scrambled eggs or hardboiled eggs (we usually make a large batch of hardboiled eggs on the weekends).
At 6:45am, the kids I watch before school start to trickle in. They eat breakfast with my children and then they play either in the living room or down in our play room. I clean up breakfast, wipe down the table and counters, and do a quick sweeper vacuum of the floors in the dining area.
The before school kids leave and then my kids brush their teeth and I setup our dining table with our homeschool supplies. I don't know why, but this is one of my favorite things to do! I just love seeing it all set up!
My two older daughters then come to the table and will start on some independent work. My 1st grader will fill out about a page of her handwriting book. My 4th grader will do one page in her spelling workbook and then do a bit of cursive practice.
While the older girls are doing their independent work, my 4 year old picks out a couple picture books and we head to the couch for some one-on-one time cuddling and reading. I will read her Awana story and practice her Awana verse with her during this time as well. This time of 5-10 minutes fills her cup so she is able to play independently around us for quite a long time while I'm really focusing on school.
When we are done reading, she either picks out an activity bin or will grab something else to do independently and she typically will bring it to the dining table with me so we are all together during our main school time.
We start our homeschool time together filling out our Morning Menus. We discuss the day of the week and sing a song using our wooden calendar. This is mainly for my 4 year old to learn the days of the week and their order. The big girls fill it out on their calendar pages and my oldest will practice writing the date both in long form and abbreviated form. Then we sing a song about the weather (again, for my 4 year old) and we will look up the high and low on a weather app and the moon phase on an app. Sometimes my girls will do extra pages but we always make sure to talk about the date and weather every day.
BIBLE + DAILY RICHES
Then we move on to our Bible time. We use our Daily Riches guide to start our morning together which includes Bible, prayer, and Scripture memory. We replace the Scripture memory by practicing their Awana verses each morning.
We then do the rest of our Daily Riches for the day, which varies from day to day. The rotating subjects are hymn, poetry, picture study, artist study, virtue reading, folk song, and composer study. On this day, I read a virtue reading while they finished up an illustrated narration they started the day before for our read-aloud and then we listened to the folk song.
I then read a chapter of The Horse and His Boy from the Narnia series to my kids. My older girls played with playdough during this time while I read. Many days we do other subjects after this time like geography, history, science, or art - much of which are from the Kind Kingdom curriculum by Peaceful Press - but we had already done those this week, so we were pretty much done with our family subjects once we finished the chapter. I always stop a few times while reading aloud to have them narrate orally to make sure they are understanding what I'm reading.
After family subjects, we launch into independent subjects. I usually have my oldest start on her math which includes a video lesson first and she does that in another room so she can focus. On this day, however, she had a math assessment, so instead I got her started on her Language Arts that she brought to her room to work on while I did 1st grade subjects with my middle daughter. My 1st grader then did a few pages of Explode the Code for her phonic lesson. If there isn't a lot of sentence reading in the lessons, I will have her read some reader books to me. Then, she does one lesson of 1st grade math from The Good and the Beautiful. Then, she's free to go play!
My 4th grader then came down and finished her Learning Language Arts through Literature lesson with me. Then, we did half of her assessment from Math 4 from The Good and the Beautiful. Then we are done with our main homeschool time! It's about 10:15am on this day.
Usually during homeschool or just after, I will do some chores. Sometimes, I fold laundry while my kids are doing math/phonics. Sometimes, I clean something or change sheets. Today, I finished up our meal plan while the girls did their math and language arts and got everything loaded into the pickup app for my husband to pick up on his way home from work the next day.
We took our dog, Rupert, for a walk while my older girls roller skated and my youngest rode her scooter. We looked for some nature to draw in our nature journals, but didn't find much we wanted to draw since we are definitely getting close to winter here in Minnesota. Our dog of course peed on himself on the walk, so he got a bath when we got home!
I usually make a super simple and quick lunch. This day it was crackers, cheese, turkey, salami, carrots, and apples. I whip up a little "juice" as we call it where I mix strawberry lemonade (I make this once a week in a bigger batch and keep it in the fridge to use each day) and our Earthley tinctures (we are currently using Nourish Her Naturally and Elderberry).
While eating, we listened to a Yoto card about Kings and Queens and then I read a fairy tale (part of our Kind Kingdom curriculum). Then the girls help me clean up the dishes, counters, and floors.
When we are done with lunch, if I have time, I will read a couple picture books to the girls, but we didn't have time this day. I then laid my littlest down for a rest time (she has to rest for 45 minutes and if she doesn't fall asleep she can play in her room until 2pm). We cuddle and play for a bit and sometimes watch some cake decorating videos on IG. Then, I have my work time until about 2:30pm. I do all kinds of work tasks during this time - it really depends on the day!
While I am working, my older daughters have quiet time. They can use this time how they would like, but my older daughter has a few independent tasks she must get done by the end of the day so she usually does this during this time. She has to read for 30 minutes independently (I usually have her read a couple pages aloud to me during this time so she slows down and I can make sure she's reading the words correctly), practice piano for 15 minutes, and do a typing lesson.
My middle daughter will sometimes read some reader books, but otherwise she is free to play. She usually will do a craft or play in the backyard with a neighbor homeschooled friend.
At 2pm, they are allowed to have screen time until 3pm. They are allowed to play 30 minutes of an educational game and then 30 minutes they can watch an approved show. I get my littlest up around 2pm if she did fall asleep since she takes a while to wake up!
Around 2:30pm, I finish up my work and will do a couple chores. This day, I prepped supper and got it in to the crock pot. It was a Marry Me Chicken pasta recipe I found on Instagram. I tidy up the dining area after my work time, switch over a load of laundry my oldest started earlier that day, and then I got snack ready for the after school crew. We had popcorn and raisins.
After school, a few kids come to our house. We have snack and then play until 5pm. Sometimes we play outside, but it was cold and dreary, so we stayed in and they played with magnetic tiles and roads.
I then took my oldest to her piano lesson and got some work done in the car while she was doing her lesson. We then came home and had supper which my husband had finished while we were gone. While we were eating, he gave the little girls a bath. Sometimes we will read picture books or a read-aloud before bed, but this night is too busy and we have a late night the night before so everyone is tired.
Around 7:15pm, my husband laid the little girls down. We sing, pray, and then look at TimeHop and cuddle with them when we lay them down. At 8pm, I laid our oldest daughter down doing the same thing. Then it was wind down time! I took a glorious hot shower and sang to the original Wicked soundtrack (of course) since the movie comes out next week - and who am I kidding? I have listened to that all the time since I saw the musical the first time in 2007. Then I read a little of a Hypnobirthing book and by 9pm I'm exhausted and I went to bed!
Woo-wee! That was a lot! It's amazing how much you realize you do in a day when you have to write it all out! I hope this post was helpful and showed a realistic picture of how I balance motherhood, homeschool, and work all in one day!