A Day in the Life of a Christian Unschooling Family (Ages 9, 12, and 14)
It’s that time of year again … little snap shot of a typical day in our Christian unschooling life. Currently, my kids are ages 9 (3rd grade), 12 (6th grade), and 14 (8th grade).
BEFORE YOU READ ABOUT WHAT A DAY LOOKS LIKE FOR US …
This has been a lifestyle of ours for several years now. We didn’t always unschool (though I have always valued interest-led, organic learning and have implemented that as much as possible in our home). You can read more about our overall homeschool journey here.
OUR CHRISTIAN UNSCHOOLING RESOURCES
We no longer use any one curriculum (or boxed curriculum) for our Christian unschooling life; it looks more like a bunch of resources, pulled into our days as needed, depending on what the kids are learning. Books, movies, YouTube (lots of it!), field trips, crafting supplies, other people/professionals, etc.
OUR CHRISTIAN UNSCHOOLING RHYTHM
Just because we unschool, doesn’t mean we don’t have a rhythm. In fact, raising healthy kids means having some sort of structure, and we definitely have one that works for our crew.
Our Christian unschooling life is heavily influened by Leadership Education. One of the tenets of this educational model is structuring time, not content … and so I do time block our days accordingly (a necessity for this Enneagram 1, Type A, INFJ!).
Now with that said, I am pretty open-handed with my time blocking. It primarily serves as a wish list of sorts for making sure we do carve out time in our days for intentional learning about subjects the kids are interested in.
The time blocking is more to help keep ME in check so that I can make sure the kids (and I) do make headway with our personal goals (i.e. Max having the time to learn about the technical aspects of trading stocks, or Gracie having the time to complete the water color course she picked up online, or Cha Cha having the time to read from the new sled dog books we ordered because of her interest in them, etc.).
So, without further ado, here is a typical day for our crew’s Christian unschooling life:
8:00-ISH BREAKFAST & BIBLE
We are pretty leisurely in the morning (not morning people for sure!) and it takes us a minute to get our blood going.
The kids usually make their own breakfasts. While they eat I read straight from the bible or from a devo (we are currently going through Foundations by Troy and Ruth Chou Simons). A new thing we are doing since the beginning of the year is memorizing different bits of scripture. One of our family intentions for 2021 is to equip ourselves with our swords, by tucking God’s Word into our hearts and minds.
This is also when my kids love to share about their dreams. In fine detail. I consider this their “speech class”, LOL.
After cleaning up from brekky, we knock out other essential household tasks before we get dressed and get on with the rest of our day.
9:30-ISH MORNING COLLECTIVE
We typically start this block of time with a pow-wow sesh. We talk about the day ahead (play dates, errands, items they need for projects, etc.) and what they are wanting to accomplish for the day (I may make suggestions based on the current quarter’s educational compass).
We also recently picked up our history learning again (after a hiatus due to our move), so this is when I read a chapter from “The Story of the World, Volume 4: The Modern Age”. We just read; I don’t make them do worksheets or even activities anymore. If they want to dive deeper about a person or an event, they will let me know.
10:30-ISH INDEPENDENT LEARNING
These Christian unschooling kids are free to pursue their interests after our Morning Collective time. Currently this is what it looks like for each kid:
// MAX //
- Checking on his stocks, reading about different companies he may be interested in investing in, and learning about technical analysis of stock trading.
- Reading personal development or economics/business/financial books.
- Watching videos about RC’s, disassembling and reassembling his RC, or learning about motors and other aspects of automobiles.
- Reading through his bible (he wants to facilitate a bible study with his buddies).
// GRACIE //
- Watching videos about baking or crafting techniques and then trying them out in the kitchen or with craft supplies.
- Dressing up her Barbies, doing their hair, giving them back stories, and photographing them (and also learning about photography as well).
- Plugging along in the online watercolor class we enrolled her in (one of her goals this year was to learn how to paint with different mediums).
// CHA CHA //
While the older two are more independent, this one needs – and likes – time with me. Together, we’ll learn about things she is interested in (right now it is horses and sled dogs). Depending on what she’s feeling (she usually makes the requests), we may do an art project, watch a video, draft up a story, etc. all related to what we just learned.
With her, I take more of a unit study approach (which is what I did with the bigs for a while, until they were old enough to take initiative with their own learning activities).
Sometimes this time may just be playing a game or doing a puzzle together while she jibber jabbers about all kinds of things, LOL.
// BUT, WHAT ABOUT MATH??? //
And all the other subjects, for that matter?
Gosh, that could be a whole blog post of its own!
But for now, I just want to say that I am learning we don’t need set and separate curriculum to learn all those things. Many educational disciplines are covered organically as kids plug along learning about the world around them. It takes a paradigm shift to wrap our heads around the fact that learning is not limited within the four walls of a traditional classrooms, and does not have to be as disjointed as institutional education has laid it out for so long.
It also takes intentionality as a homeschool parent to also recognize teaching opportunities that arise as part of the process in this unschooling life.
For example, the other day Cha Cha expressed that she wanted to earn a certain dollar amount by the end of the week – $2.50 (for exactly what reason, I have no clue, LOL!). She reverse engineered the math in her head, and figured she needed $.50 each day from Monday to Friday to reach her goal.
She wanted to confirm her calculations with me, so I took the opportunity and the time to review some multiplication and money math with her. I guarantee you that lesson stuck with her more than if she had to work out some arbitrary problems in a workbook!
Now, with all that said, we have still hung on to our Math-U-See curriculum because our kids have always loved that program. They are using it less this year, but do occasionally dive into some of the lessons as they choose.
12:00-ISH LUNCH
I love reading while they are eating lunch, to take advantage of the fact they are sitting down and stuffing their faces!
Our family read aloud time has been a staple our entire homeschool journey, and is my absolute favorite part of the day. There is something about the shared experience of stepping into a story together, which later serves as fodder for inside jokes or deep discussion, even when we aren’t actively “in the book”.
Right now I am reading “Stone Fox” (sled dog story for Cha Cha), “Across Five Aprils” (Civil War story for the bigs), and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (just something silly and light to counter the other two genres). Usually our read alouds have something to do with one or more of the kids’ interests, but sometimes we try things that are recommended and have nothing to do with anything they are intentionally studying.
1:00-ISH FREE TIME
Once we wrap up with our reads, the kids are free to do whatever they want. Usually they go back to what they started in the morning. Sometimes they choose a show to watch or a game to play together. Often, they video chat with friends, if we aren’t heading out to for some outside time, or errands, or playdates.
Right now, with it being winter, they usually head up to our local ski resort for some skiing/snowboarding, aka P.E.!
THAT’S ALL, FOLKS!
That’s pretty much it for our Christian unschooling life in this season! Have you ever documented a “day in the life” for your own family? If you have a blog and have done one, comment below with a link! I’d love to see what others do.
Thanks for reading!