A Day in the Life TCT

What does a school day actually look like for us? Well, let’s break it down!

With a new baby in the house we really took this year loosely and I think it’s just going to be how we school and at this point I’m okay with that. Maybe at some point in my life I would have (or eventually will) become more structured on getting things done on a specific day or by a specific time, but right now I like how our days feel.

Our typical mornings start when the baby wakes up. Lately that’s been just him and I with enough time for lighting a candle, enjoying a cup of coffee and reading a few verses of scripture alongside a devotional book. I bop between a few and just grab whatever one I’m feeling for the morning. By the time we’ve played a bit one if not two of the other littles have awakened, join in for my scripture reading and I get to making breakfast soon after that. They’d prefer me to start reading immediately on the couch most days while they ease into waking up, so sometimes we do, but usually breakfast first.

Once I clean up from breakfast and they’ve been playing a few minutes, I start laundry and then plop down on the couch with them to start our school day. Typically someone has a preferred book to start and will be holding it out ready and waiting. Sometimes I pick what we do first, but I just keep a basket of school books on the coffee table and they know those are the books we need to start on. Again, I joke that the kids may not realize they are “doing school” because it’s just our way of life. I make sure that we aren’t only reading one book at a time, that we truly are laying a feast out each week and hit all of the different stories we have lined up, but at this time I don’t have a set schedule where any specific day of the week we plan to do xyz. It’s worked? That may evolve as we add in more students to the mix or our schedules need to be more structured at any point.

Usualy we start with a fairy tale reading and narration where I’ll read a story and will have my Y1 student tell back what the story was about. Then from there we will add in math or Latin to switch things up from just sitting cozily on the couch for the morning. Naturally after this time we’re got a baby awake and ready to play and littles ready to go play for a bit outside.

I call them back together usually for a picnic lunch and while we sit and eat together we usually read our literary novel or a Burgess book while outside, they just feel right being read on a picnic!

After that they scurry off again to play and I usually take that time to read something myself while I’m out of doors with them.

As the day progresses we will often have tea time whether it’s an actual fun baked tea time treat, or just a quick protein shake for another snack we gather naturally again and will hit another stream of learning, sometimes math or Edgeworht readings during this time if we hadn’t during our morning time.

Again after our fueling we usually have been outside by this time for most of the day and the call of the air conditioning lures us inside. This is when I have time to catch up on any inside chores and cleaning, dinner prepping and laundry. I joke (please read as huffingly) that I clean as the children make messes, but this is the season we are in. I’ll tackle the chores while they play inside toys like magnatiles or dolls or whatever fun things they come up with.

To round out the literary aspect of our day, after dinner and baths and teeth brushing and beyond, we snuggle up one last time on the couch for bedtime stories. Usually my middle child picks a few picture books to read, my eldest picks a chapter book (Narnia was the best this year, Dr. Dolittle’s Circus has been the pick of the week!) and I think I probably read a full hour during this time. And by the time I’m done they are still begging for one more chapter. I have started letting our two bigs read stories in bed after being tucked in with low lights just because it helps them wind down. My eldest has been reading through the Betsy-Tacy series and often reads a few chapters ahead of me and then I’ll use that as her reading practice time as we read it together during the day).

I’m probably missing things, but this rhythm of being out of doors as much as we can and soaking in good books together has been the most special time. I hope that we are able to all look back and reminisce about beloved characters, funny inside jokes and stories, and the call of being a family. I just can’t get over how thankful I am for the blessing it is to me and my little family to do this thing called homeschool. Truly a gift. Messy messes and all.

XO McKenzie