Our Homeschool Routine | A Day in the Life of Our Homeschool

Before I started homeschooling my kids I was so curious about what a typical homeschool day looked like! Thankfully I have a friend who homeschools who let us come over and hang out with them for one of their school days so I could observe. I’ve had several people recently ask me what our homeschool day looks like and since I can’t invite everyone over to hang out with us I thought I’d show you virtually!

(scroll to the bottom for a video version so you can really see our day in action!)

This post contains some affiliate links. If you purchase a product through an affiliate link I make a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you!

While every day is a little bit different, here’s what a fairly typical homeschool day looks like for us. For reference, I have a 6 year old (Hudson – 1st grade), 4 year old (Parker – preschool), and almost 2 year old (Everly).

In the morning the kids do their morning routine, we eat breakfast, the kids (usually with help from me) do their morning chore (more on their morning routine and chores in a future blog post!), and I do a few morning things (fill the diffusers, clean up from breakfast, maybe start some laundry or do a few pressing work things)

After our morning routine is done we get started with school. That’s usually around 9 or 9:30am.

Last year we did all of our school work in our school room (aka our dining room) at the table. What often happened though was the boys had a hard time sitting at the table for that long and Everly would completely melt down if she wasn’t included at the table and so I ended up holding her so that she wasn’t crying at my feet.

This year I decided to try something different and so far it’s been working for us. We now do all of our “group work” (aka things that we do together and don’t require the kids being at the table to write or color) on the couch. That is working much better for us! The boys are able to sit (relatively) still and Everly either plays on the floor in front of us, sits in my lap, or climbs all over us. Sometimes she still cries but I am able to hold her much easier on the couch than at the table.

So, we start the day on the couch. We keep all of our “group work” in a basket (some people have morning baskets and this is a similar concept) that we store in the school room and bring to the couch.

First up is Bible. I read a short devotional from our devotional book, we do our Bible reading from the Bible study we’re going through, and we practice some memory work (Bible verses and/or songs that teach Bible facts).

Next we move to our Classical Conversations memory work. We go over each item (history, timeline, science, Latin, etc.) a couple of times. We do not spend a lot of time on this! The kids are young and will revisit all of this memory work again in 3 years so I’m not focused on them mastering it this time around. And yet even with just a few minutes of review each day it is amazing how much they retain!

After we’re finished with CC we read a portion of a book that relates to something we’re learning in CC – sometimes it’ll be about one of the states, a president, some information about American in general, some science from one of our Usborne books, etc.

Then we move to history. We are using Notgrass’ Our Star Spangled Story since it goes along so nicely with Classical Conversations’ American History focus in Cycle 3. We read the chapter for the day, and listen to the poems or music that go along with it (if applicable).

Once history is done we then read books for a little bit. Each week I try to check out several picture books from the library that go along with that week’s history topic. We’ll read a couple of those (depending on how long they are) during this time.

That wraps up our group work/morning basket/together time. That usually takes us 30-45 minutes, depending on how long we read.

Parker (my 4 year old) often doesn’t make it that long and gets up and starts playing, which is totally fine! I don’t expect him to sit with us the whole time.

We then move into the school room. The boys get out their dry erase maps and do some tracing. They can do that mostly independently so I take a few minutes to switch some laundry over, put supper in the crockpot, change Everly’s diaper, etc.When they’re done with their maps we move on to their more individualized subjects. We usually do Hudson’s language arts first (he’s currently doing Logic of English, Foundations C) and then his math (RightStart Math, Level B).

I’m not doing any formal preschool with Parker at this point but he 100% wants to sit with us and have his own work to do, so while Hudson is doing his language arts and math Parker will work in his workbook (right now he’s using this one and this one) or practice his handwriting (using Handwriting without Tears). This is my first year juggling more than one child doing separate subjects so we’re still working on a good routine for that.

I have puzzles, toys, and paper for Everly that she will sometimes use while I work with the boys. And sometimes she pitches a fit and I have to hold her. You never know.

After Hudson has finished his language arts and math, the bulk of our school day is done. From start to finish, that usually takes us less than 2 hours. (Think that’s crazy? Read this awesome article that explains how!)

Of course we have days when everyone is cranky or Everly is screaming or things just aren’t going well. And on those days we may wait on language arts and math until Everly is napping or Michael is off work so that thinks are calmer and we can focus. But as long as everyone is doing ok we just rock right through it all in the morning.

The boys then head off to play until lunch time.

After lunch Everly goes down for her nap and the boys have quiet time. I usually have a couple of worksheets ready for them to do during this time if they want to. Last year Hudson begged me for worksheets so I always had some for him to do during quiet time. This year they have not been nearly as interested in them. I am not a fan of busy work for the sake of busy work so I offer the worksheets but if they don’t want to do them that’s not a big deal.

When quiet time is over we have snack, the boys clean up their toys from the day, and then as long as the weather is decent we head outside to play for a couple of hours.

We usually do baths right after we come in and then the kids watch some tv while Michael and I fix supper. Each week I make a list of YouTube videos that go along with what they’re learning in CC so they watch a couple of those while we cook.

Then it’s supper, bedtime routine, and off to sleep!

Whew! A full but fun day!

Want to see our homeschool routine in action? Check out this fun video I made!