It’s been a long while since I last shared a homeschool “day in the life” for our crew of Christian unschoolers.

It was easier to document our days when my kids were in the elementary stage, but once we hit the tween/teen years, life has literally been a whirlwind!

We are no longer moving as a “unit” to the same places; as the kids have grown, so have their different relationships and activities … which, translated logistically, looks like a lot of time in the car transporting them to the people and functions that are life-giving to them.

Currently, my kids are 11 (5th grade), 14 (8th grade), and 16 (10th grade).

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BEFORE YOU READ ABOUT WHAT A DAY LOOKS LIKE FOR US

You can read more about our overall homeschool journey here.

Since then, we’ve just continued to move more and more towards interest-led, self-directed days as Christian unschoolers.

And actually, a term we’ve been slinging around lately (I first came across the term via a hashtag on Insta), to more succinctly describe our homeschool paradigm and approach, is “lifeschooling“.

TIME-BLOCKING FOR SUCCESS AS CHRISTIAN UNSCHOOLERS

Time blocking for Christian unschoolers?!

YES.

And you can read more about why it has worked for us here.

Ready to see what an at-home day (which is about half our week) typically looks like for us lifeschoolers?!

AT-HOME CHRISTIAN UNSCHOOLING ROUTINE

These days we aren’t home as much, between Big Bro’s work schedule and the girls’ classes at the local parent-partnered alternative learning program (Big Sis attends twice a week, Baby Sis attends just one day a week).

And since we live out of town, Baby Sis and I end up doing a lot of car-schooling, having dates at coffee shops, going for walks, or just camping out at the library.

I also have to note that not every single home day looks like this! Hubs has a very unconventional shift schedule so when he is off on home days, we often treat it like a weekend and go with the flow so we can do things together as a crew.

But this is a little snap of what our typical at-home days look like right now:

8:30-ISH to 9:30-ISH: BREAKFAST & BIBLE & BUILDING EACH OTHER UP

The kids get up, prep their own breakfasts, and dive into their own devos around this time. We used to do a joint family devo in the mornings, but now that the kids are older they have been wanting to do things on their own. #bittersweet

// Devotionals Kids Are Currently Using //

Baby Sis has been loving Roar Like a Lion: 90 Devotions to a Courageous Faith, gifted to us by my mentor:

For Christmas, Big Sis asked for Live on Purpose: 100 Devotions for Letting Go of Fear and Following God and has been enjoying it:

One of our good friends, who is like a spiritual father to my hubs and I, leads a bunch of dudes through different books of the bible. He writes his own notes/devo in a text to the guys and then the guys read that section of scripture. This is what Big Bro is doing, and they are currently going through the book of Mark.

// Building Each Other Up //

A new thing we have added this year: taking turns sharing one positive thing about each other. I will be honest – teen/tween life has been quite the ride. Sweetness has given way to sassiness, and we’ve been feeling the effects of that shift. During the summer, God led our fam to this verse:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

Ephesians 4:29

In order to help make that verse come alive in our home, in an attempt to fight off our natural tendencies to hurt each other with our words, we started the practice of saying one good thing about each other to start our day. #gamechanger

After cleaning up from brekky, they knock out morning chores and then get ready!

9:30-ISH to 10:30-ISH: MORNING COLLECTIVE

This is when we intentionally collect and convene together before we shoot off in different directions. We do things like:

• discuss what we’ve got going on our plate for the day (and even the next)
• discuss what they are wanting to accomplish in the upcoming days or weeks (including any resources they need me to curate to help make that happen), based on their current quarter’s educational compass
• share anything else they want with the rest of the crew (like dreams or airing out frustrations, LOL)
• take time to pray for specific situations and people in our life

I also share a variety of things, like articles from our Tuttle Twins Magazine, some section of scripture that I feel God is wanting our family to focus on together, news from current events, inspirational quotes or cool videos I personally come across in my own learning that I think they may appreciate, etc.

This time is kind of like a daily family board meeting.

10:30-ISH to 12:30-ISH: SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING

The kids dive into their interests after our Morning Collective. During this time, they usually spend their energy on “eating their frogs” to make headway with any of the current objectives they have on their compasses. Currently this is what it can look like for each kid:

// Big Bro, 10th Grade //

• Checking on his stocks, reading about different companies he may be interested in investing in, and learning about technical analysis of stock trading.
• Learning about real estate investing (his current goal is to grow his trading account in the next couple of years to be able to use for a down payment on his first investment property).
• Reading books, watching on YouTube, or listening to podcasts about success principles, leadership, entrepreneurship, biblical manhood, etc. (He is part of the Student Leadership Team for our church’s youth group, so he also gets assigned reading there.)
• Working out.

// Big Sis, 8th Grade //

• Writing. She has a bunch of stories and a couple plays drafted, that she wants to complete before the end of the year.
• Drawing on her new IPad (which she saved up for and paid for herself!). She’s really been into fashion design and has been taking Outschool classes on the subject.
• Learning French (she has used Outschool as well for this, but also uses other resources available to her like Dualingo, books from the library, French films and music, etc.).
• Experimenting in the kitchen with gluten-free and dairy-free versions of her favorite recipes. Unfortunately, she has been experiencing more health issues and we are currently in the process of investigating some autoimmune disease markers that showed up on some blood panels this summer. 🙁 But, I’m super proud of how invested and consistent she is with her health these days!
• Reading. She is going through The Green Ember Series and has also been enjoying The Riverbend Friends Series (young adult fiction from Focus on the Family).
• Working out.

// Baby Sis, 5th Grade //

• She’s really been into playing the piano lately. She spends HOURS practicing and learning new songs.
• She also likes making worksheets to play school with her friends; she puts together vocabulary and spelling words, science experiments, math problems, some history lesson, etc. I personally love it, because she doesn’t even know that she is learning all these things as she prepares to “teach” her friends when they play school!
• Thinking and learning of other ways to make money, besides from the jewelry business she started last spring.
• Doing other creative things like crafts, putting together puzzles or Legos, making stop-motion videos, painting, writing stories, playing with her stuffed animals (yes, she still loves to do that), planning parties for the upcoming holidays and celebrations, etc.
• Making a mess while doing all of the above (she’s like the Loony Tunes Tasmanian Devil!).
• Reading. She reads anything and everything, from picture books to chapter books to dictionaries and encyclopedias, to instruction manuals and recipes … all depending on what she wants to learn on any given day.
• Working out.

// Math //

The kids also do their math lessons at some point during this time. As I mentioned, the girls are part of the local alternative learning program that our school district offers so that they could take fun, elective-type classes once a week, and in order to participate, we need to report at-home hours for certain subjects … like math.

If you are curious, this is what they are using this year:

Baby Sis: Math-U-See Delta and Epsilon

Big Sis: Teaching Textbooks 7

Big Bro: Even though he isn’t part of the program the girls are part of, he has been plugging along at his own pace through Math-U-See Algebra 1. But most of his math energy these days is spent on what he is learning and living out with his personal finances/investments.

// Mom //

Yep, me too! Lifeschooling isn’t just for kids!

I’ve been spending more time growing in my knowledge and skills of writing, blogging, making printables, etc., so this is when I will fit that in. And, of course, if the kids need me for anything, I will stop what I’m doing to help them out.

This fall, Big Bro shared his admiration for the vision, drive, and work ethic I’ve modeled as I pursue my own interests. #heartswell

That is one of the beautiful things of this home educating life – awaking wonder and cultivating a love for learning and growing, by modeling that for our kiddos! #growtogether

12:30-ISH to 1:30-ISH: LUNCH & LITERATURE

I have always read to the kids while they stuff their faces, LOL.

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”.

But things are shifting now that I have big kids. #homeschoolingthelateryears

We used to do lots of wonderful and classic fiction, but Big Bro and Big Sis now prefer to read those on their own (I still read these kinds of books with Baby Sis while we are out and about in town).

Instead, we’ve moved more towards inspiring stories of Christian heroes to read aloud from. For example, this fall we read through Eric Liddell (Men of Faith Series). Right now, we are plugging along through Jesus Freaks (yeah, not the most attractive title, LOL) and are just about to start Joni: An Unforgettable Story.

We’re also learning logic together this year. One of the most valuable classes I took in school, which has served me well as an adult, was logic. After discussing with The Bigs (especially in light of all the hullaballoo going on in this crazy world to undermine God’s design and authority), they agreed that this year they wanted to be more equipped in this particular area as they are getting older and closer to launching. For this, we have been using The Fallacy Detective and The Thinking Toolbox.

1:30-ISH to 4:30-ISH: MORE SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING

This chunk of time looks more like a leisurely extension of the morning, and can look completely different each day, based on whatever is floating our boats.

And then again, life happens and we need to be spontaneous or flexible. Therefore, this afternoon time is where we can swap with our morning agenda and not feel stressed about being able to go with the flow with spontaneous moods and emotions. #raisingteens

One of the biggest tricks to this unschooling life besides conviction and paradigm? Margin.

4:30-ISH to 5:30-ISH: BLESSING HOUR

Blessing Hour is term I am borrowing from somewhere (I can’t remember exactly, but I know it is from another homeschool family) for our “household chores time”. This is when we pick up from the day (or should be, anyway!) and tackle any necessary housekeeping duties (laundry, dusting, vacuuming, etc.).

I used to simply call these tasks “house work” but I love the connotation of “blessing hour” way better – we all bless each other by working together to be good stewards of the home and possessions we have been given.

5:30-ISH to 7:00-ISH: DINNER & DIALOGUE

By now you’ve probable realized I like alliteration and tying our meal times with something else. Hey, it’s more fun for me with these kinds of labels.

Nothing fancy during this block of time; it’s simply prepping and eating dinner and talking about our day.

Big Sis has dance class 1 night a week, the kids and I have youth group 1 night a week, Dad has been working a lot and with long hours, so our Dinner and Dialogue times on home days gives our whole crew an opportunity connect as a family in the midst of this busy season of life.

After dinner, we clean up and usually hang together to watch a movie or a show. (This doesn’t happen always, but one of my homeschool mom hacks is to try to intentionally pick something related to what any of us are learning or a movie based on a book one of the kids recently finished reading.)

NOT TIME BLOCKED: ORGANIC DISCIPLESHIP OPPORTUNITES

Real life means real mess. And sprinkled all throughout our days is the effects of sinners doing life with other sinners.

Often, bickering would turn into hurtful digs at each other as they would bring up past transgressions and instances of selfishness against each other.

Everyday, we can choose which battles to fight as a parent. Contentious moments are the ones I pick; where I have sensed deep-rooted issues affecting outward behavior (not run-of-the-mill behavior that just comes with being a kid, like forgetting to put stuff away).

This is when I choose to stop whatever I am doing and talk through the kids’ in-the-moment struggle, intentionally pouring energy into the issue at hand, helping them (and myself!) remember how the gospel should inform how we respond and deal with each other in any given situation.

Yes, it is incovenient, and we’ve even had to cancel pre-scheduled activities with others in order to work through things. But let me tell ya – as a mom of older kids, this laying down of agendas has borne so much fruit now that they are adolescents. Even now, I am seeing the bickering less and less as they are living into what God calls them to and remembering how to forgive and let go.

Oftentimes, this takes minutes. But sometimes, this can be our entire homeschool day.

OUT-AND-ABOUT LIFESCHOOLING DAYS

Again, roughly half the week (sometimes more), we are basically living in the car (I seriously can’t wait for Big Bro to finally get his own!).

These days are literally like a free-for-all, and so I can’t share what a “typical” day looks like for these days.

I do try to schedule appointments on these days, knock out errands, get grocery shopping done, and do #lifewithoutschool with Baby Sis.

THAT’S IT!