OK today I’m going to give you a peak behind the curtain into my world.
For context – for those of you who don’t know much about me – I’m a wife and mumma of 4 children. We’re been homeschooling our children for 2 years now.
I started homeschooling because the schedule of school was driving me crazy. I hated the uniforms and the lunchboxes and the sports days and having to be somewhere. When every other area of our lives felt chosen – this felt forced. And I didn’t like it – even though my kids loved school and were thriving.
So yes – I realise that this was a selfish move. And I also want to take the charge out of that sentence and normalise that a happy mum, happy parents, set the tone for the whole household. So for us – we’re all better off when mum is calm and joyful. And yes of course I do as much as I can to make school fun for them, and they see their friends and they do a bunch of afterschool activities. And yes they miss their friends and they’d rather be at school hanging out with them all day. BUT it’s a trade off.
We get to travel around the world for months at a time because of the life we’ve chosen. And I reserve the right to change my mind at any point. If any of my kids were seriously unhappy – of course I would listen to them and make some changes.
But we actually are all thriving with homeschooling. It means later mornings, studying what they want to, more time together, flexible schedules, more adventures and having the majority of the day to play.
So let’s dive into what it actually looks like to maintain this, run a business, and give them a rich education, and not go insane.
So for me – I get the early mornings completely to myself. I wake up between 5 and 6am, and I have until 9:30 to do whatever I want. Hubby is on kid duty and his job is to get them fed and dressed and ready to start.
In this time, I do my morning mindset routine, I write and I go to the gym at 8am most days.
I walk in the door about 9:15, have a coffee and then I take over with the kids. The bulk of our schooling is done 9:30 – 12:30.
Our first hour is a rotation of Greek language, reading and handwriting, and piano. They do 20 mins each and swap. I help my 6 year old and make sure the other 2 are doing their work. The 3 year old runs around and makes a mess.
Then we get into English and Maths. We use Brave Writer, Literacy Planet and the Night Zoo for English, and the Maths Australia program for maths. This takes about an hour. They usually get snacks during this time while they’re working and then have a break around 11:30 on the trampoline.
At 11:45 or 12 we do our last table work for the day. This is usually either science or history. Though all the subjects merge because they write reports on what they learn, and they draw what they learn, and they present what they learn, and draw maps and hypothesis. So we don’t follow a schedule with this and one subject might take us one lesson or twelve – depending how deep we go.
At 12:30 they have lunch and I get to work.
In the afternoons they are with their dad and will do sport or a passion project like coding, or watch a documentary or play music or go to the library or to the beach or watch netflix – or whatever. It’s not planned and they do what they want because as primary students, all they need every day is actually English and Maths and one other subject – and they already do more than that.
So I work 12:30 – 4:30 ish – and my days are blocked by tasks – it’s either meetings or strategy or client work or content.
Then we go for a walk if we can, make dinner together and do the after school activities or read books.
Evenings we clean up together and then hubby and I get to sit and have a cuppa or a bath and connect. And that’s our day. Full and noisy and messy – but exactly what we wanted.
I’ll do another episode on what this looks like when we’re travelling.
I look forward to your questions and comments on this and I know it’s very unconventional – but yet – nothing I do is really conventional which is exactly how I like it.
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