Special Guest Edition: How we homeschooled today by Annelise Roberts

Homeschooling with five children

Annelise writes over at Writing While Washing, where she manages to balance optimism and reflection with good humour about the realities of everyday life—not an easy trick to pull off! She lives with her family in Colorado, and has 5 children aged 9, 7, 5, 2, and a baby.

I think this is the first ‘How We Homeschooled Today’ guest post where the parent has taken a nap. Annelise Roberts, I salute you.

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It’s January 8th, our first day back to homeschool after Christmas break. Usually we start the first week of January, but with New Year’s on a Monday and family in town, no one was ready (by no one I mean me!)

My husband is working from home today.  It’s the slower season for him and our winter schedule is noticeably different from the spring and fall when his work days often have him out of the house for more than twelve hours. We had a conversation the night before and I asked him to help everyone get going on math and handwriting in the morning. For some reason when Daddy gives the instructions there is far less dawdling and whining… 

6:30 AM - My alarm goes off. It’s not been a great night of sleep because the baby is teething but I still am trying to get out of bed on time on school days. I go straight to the coffee pot and not five minutes later the two year old appears. He’s our early riser, and this morning he is whiny. I’m distracted by my thoughts about a lingering health issue for someone in the family. He asks for “trucks” and I agree. I don’t love starting the day with a screen, but sometimes it’s worth it to buy 20 minutes of peace. I start out with a YouTube off road recovery video, but he then requests animals so I switch to a documentary about bears. I grab my cup of coffee and sit on the couch to journal for a bit, then text a friend to ask her to pray. By about 7:15 more people have surfaced from other corners of the house and the always-hungry two year old is asking for breakfast. I reheat hot cereal from the previous morning for two children—my egg allergic and egg averse. I spend a little bit of time looking up some homeopathic remedies. The iPad lives in the kitchen most of the time and I’ve taken Safari off my phone, so my on the fly computer time is somewhat limited by standing at the counter. The older kids are now emerging, getting dressed and feeding the dog. They usually gather around a book of some sort before being pulled away to eat and start the day. I think this week it’s an encyclopedia about mammals.  Breakfast is often just peanut butter or sun butter on toast, but we’re out of bread and I need to make more. I begin making potatoes and eggs with leftover baked potatoes. While I finish making breakfast my husband reads a part of a Bible chapter with the kids and I listen in. Usually I do this reading in the mornings, but the main thing is that it happens. We often sing a hymn after, but skip it today. 

The boys start in on math after breakfast. One child is in tears already, but once they get started it goes a bit more easily. I am not supervising, so I head back to my room to get dressed. Before I get there the two year old announces he’s soaked. I try to change both the diaper-wearing children at the same time whenever possible, so I line them up and now they’re dressed and ready for the day. I change into workout clothes and make my bed; we’re not leaving the house today but changing into real clothes helps my mental state.

I take advantage of the fact that Daddy is available for math questions and start working on some kitchen tasks. I started a pre-ferment for the sourdough yesterday but we got home late so I haven’t mixed the bread yet. Thankfully this stage of the process is fairly forgiving.

While I mix dough I direct the nine year old’s math questions back to Dad, who is sitting in the living room doing research for a new venture. He’s a harder teacher than I am when it comes to math and will make them work the whole problem. I like our math curriculum, Math Mammoth, pretty well but sometimes the explanations are confusing and math is not my strongest suit so I’m happy to be off the hook. 

Somewhere in the process of the bread making I look at the clock and realize I haven’t eaten breakfast. I head out to the freezer and gather meat for dinner along with a package of turkey bacon and put them in the sink to thaw. I do not have a meal plan for the week, but have ingredients for burritos. I fill up my water bottle and take my vitamins. The bread making takes longer than it should, probably because I keep stopping to do other little things. The seven year old goes downstairs to practice piano, and the little kids are loudly playing dinosaurs with enthusiastic sound effects. At one point the baby gets to the other side of the janky baby gate and shrieks with displeasure when we interrupt her escapist venture. We have to rig up a laundry basket blockade to keep the gate in place. She doesn't like to be left behind and our staircase doesn’t lend itself to a traditional baby gate. 

One child gets annoyed with another’s singing. Their current favorite is the dwarves' Misty Mountains song from The Hobbit. While this is hilarious when it’s a child singing it out of the book in a deep voice, it can get old quickly. 

I finish the bread and set it on the stove to rise, then make my breakfast, a turkey bacon and onion sauté with some avocado. I barely make my ‘eat by 10 AM’ goal and sit down for a few minutes to eat. The baby is on my lap so I feed her bits of turkey bacon and the two year old begs so he gets some too. 

When I’m done eating it’s time for a phonics lesson with the seven and five year old. The two year old tends to join in and just repeat whatever they say, which is equal parts adorable and obnoxious. We do flash cards and then the five year old wants to do a reading lesson. When reading was still a struggle earlier this year, I stopped teaching new content, so for several months the seven year old has been drilling phonics and reading a story a day, starting back at the beginning of the All About Reading readers. He’s now almost caught back up to where we were and his confidence has improved quite a bit. He goes off to the toddler’s bedroom to read his story to the two year old, and the nine year old joins them (having finally completed math, handwriting and piano). His brother can help if he gets stuck with the reading, and the audience seems to help. I pull out my teacher manual for AAR Lesson 1, and the five year old and I go over M, S, P and A. It’s a quick lesson but he seems excited. I wouldn’t have pushed any reading instruction, but since he’s requesting it I’m happy to oblige. I suspect that the real reason for wanting to learn might have more to do with the letter tiles app on the iPad (incredibly helpful as after many moves I have lost all the magnetic letter tiles). He gets a chance to play with the letter tiles for a few minutes after we finish. 

It’s now close to 10:45 and the baby is getting sleepy. I go back to my room to try to nurse her down but someone barges in and she’s awake. I decide it would be best if they all went outside and tell them if they go outside for 20 minutes I’ll make tea and we'll read aloud when they come in. Grumbling commences about the necessary warm clothes, but they eventually get rounded up and outside. I go find the two year old to see what he’s up to. He’s happily playing downstairs and doesn’t want to go outside. While I’m in the basement I switch the laundry. I try to put the baby down again and at 11:10 I am back out to the living room. I’m about to start a workout video when my husband walks in and we start talking. I switch to something that requires less focus and get about 15 minutes done while we talk. I’m interrupted by the kids barging in the door and saying they’re cold. I move to the kitchen, taking the computer with me so I can finish a bit of the barre workout while I wait for the electric kettle to boil. We debate a bit about where we left off in Story of the World V. 3. We don’t need to stay on track with the rest of the co-op since we’ve taken a step out for the semester, so we decide we’ll go back to some of the chapters we missed. We decide on Chapter 24–all about Captain Cook. At this point I’ve abandoned the workout video and my husband has gone back to his work. 

I pour tea and people clamor for snacks, the baby starts crying (a short nap, darn it!) and someone goes to get her out of her crib. Several children argue over who gets to bring the bag of jerky for me to open and I dole out a few pieces per kid. It’s pretty close to lunchtime so I do not give in to requests for more. 

We sit down to read with tea (more coffee for me) and snacks. I remembered while we were talking about Story of the World that one of the books we received for Christmas was about Captain Cook — Meet Captain Cook by Rae Murdie. We start with this, pausing to pull out a map from downstairs because I can’t remember if Cape Horn is the tip of South America or South Africa. As usual, the nine year old is correct (it’s South America). The two year old sits on the map which makes it hard to see, and the five year old whines about not sitting at the table. We finish reading the picture book and I flip to the section of traveling poems in Favorite Poems Old and New. We read a poem about longing for the sea and the boys ask what it’s about. I reference Carry on Mr. Bowditch and the sailors who can’t stay away from the sea as a means of explaining. 

The baby has been crawling around upstairs, pulling out toys in the living room, then crawling into the toddler bedroom/closet office where my husband is working. She’s now back out with us and I turn on the audio version of SOTW so I can make lunch while we listen. We have leftover rice so I’m making fried rice. The dishwasher is clean so I ask the seven year old to unload while I’m cooking. We finish the chapter on Captain Cook but they beg for more so we also listen to the next one about the French Revolution. I preheat the oven and score the bread, then set a timer. My husband heads out for a run and the boys eat lunch. 

It’s 1 pm! I’m allowed on Substack (you can see why the prior chaos does not go well if I’m distracted). I check in with a few comments and start reading but then realize I need to make my own lunch and put dishes in the dishwasher. 

My husband walks in the door and I realize I have about 20 minutes I could seize for a quick walk; one of my goals for this year is to be outside. I’m great at getting the kids outside, and not so great at getting myself outside when I don’t have a garden going to make it ‘productive’. I pop in earbuds and listen to part of a Lazy Genius episode about habits. It’s not ground breaking but it makes me think of Sarah Mackenzie’s adage that “three times a week is a habit”. I get back with five minutes to spare on the bread timer, it’s time to take it out of the pans and switch to a lower temperature. The eldest is narrating what he just learned about the French Revolution to my husband. 

It was cold outside. And now I’m cold. And I’m also tired, and realizing that I may have gone a little too hard this morning, as I am wont to do. We got a lot done, but now I’m wiped out. I think about doing grammar or writing with the nine year old but decide we’ll tackle it tomorrow. Our formal school day rarely extends past noon for everyone’s sake.

I finish making my lunch, and sit down to eat it, everyone is slowing down and dispersing to afternoon activities. The two year old is begging for my lunch again, so I share, but warn him it’s naptime soon. I round the kids up and ask them to clean up the main area of the house before they disappear into the basement to play Legos. 

At about 2 pm, I put the two year old down for his nap and then face the dread question: More coffee? Nap? Or shower? There’s a project hanging over my head that is due by Thursday and I’d really like to finish it but I’m just too tired. I watch the baby play and goof off, read a little more on Substack and attempt a few more pages of the book I started but am not really enjoying. 

The baby needs to nurse again and is finally ready for her nap, so I get her squared away and then make another cup of tea and hide in my room under blankets with chocolate chips and peppermint tea. I lay down for a nap about 3:30 and wake up around 4:30. I’m still cold! Our bedroom is the coldest in the house and it makes it hard to get up. As soon as I walk into the kitchen, people appear out of nowhere to heckle me for snacks. I am trying my best not to be grumpy but I feel like I’m sleepwalking. Everyone gets bread and butter with honey. This is the main reason I learned to bake bread, so I could dispense it as snacks to fill the bottomless pits that are little boys. The baby is up now and a little sad, and I think the boys went back outside. They played cowboys with their cousins the day before so are still inspired to dress up and have some game going. 

I’m not moving very quickly, but finally decide I need a shower to warm up and then I’ll start dinner. Someone texts me with a question about the project I’m working on and I spend too much time staring at a Google spreadsheet on my phone before giving up. By the time I make it back out to the kitchen it’s 5:45. Somehow the day just disappears. I notice it does this much more quickly when I’m looking at a screen. We’re just having burritos for dinner so prep is simple. Start rice in the Instant Pot, warm up the beans, cook ground beef and make a cabbage slaw. While I make dinner the boys are playing a game in which they’re pretending to be wild hogs. It’s really loud. I put my headphones in because I’m trying not to bite anyone’s head off. We eat by about 6:45 or so. A headache has set in and I’m in my head about something I’m thinking of for a Substack project (stay tuned!). The boys are asking a series of “do you like this or that better?” questions that mostly center around Tolkien books and are impossible to answer. Not everything is a comparison!  They’re almost done listening to The Hobbit and I can’t say I’m sad about their fantasy world allegiance shifting from Star Wars to Tolkien.

After dinner I help clean up a bit and then leave the rest for the nine year old who’s getting better at loading the dishwasher. There will still be some for me to do later, but not too much. My husband is reading aloud while they clean up and the little kids bounce around playing with various things. I disappear to the basement to work on my project for a bit. I’m not thinking very clearly, so I make some progress but then end up texting a friend for a while before I realize it’s almost 8:30 and I need to put the baby to bed. The kids are all getting jammies on and I say goodnight before I nurse the baby in my room. Thankfully she falls asleep pretty easily, and I am back out in the kitchen relatively quickly. I’m a slug at this point. My husband has turned on a few episodes of Seinfeld which is what we’ve resorted to in the last month. I’m a terrible movie watcher and we have vastly different tastes. Comedy is usually a hit, but it’s hard to find something that’s not too raunchy. Tonight I’m too tired to join him so just start the routine of taking vitamins and starting the dishwasher. I’m in bed by 9:30. I will wake up the next morning with a touch of something and the fatigue will make sense. Our Tuesday school day will be much slower, but we get a similar amount done. It’s the winter of interminable illness, but in some ways it doesn’t make that much difference. Life just keeps proceeding, some days fast, others slow, but always learning something. 

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Thanks for reading. If you liked this, have a look at Annelise’s newsletter, Writing While Washing.

And if you’re new to How We Homeschool, you might like to take a look at previous Special Guest Editions:

Oliver Cresswell, regulating emotions and enjoying a new puppy in Nova Scotia.

Will Orr-Ewing on flexischooling alongside Charlotte Mason.

Dixie Dillon-Lane on homeschooling through sickness.

Eloise Rickman, on putting children’s rights at the heart of home education.

Ruth Gaskovski on building community.

Katherine Seat getting out of the house on a noisy day in Cambodia.

Renee’s account of a homeschool day with her son, who has autism.

Mary-Ann Horley’s account of home education at home and on holiday.

Allyse Hopkins’ very relatable day with her family of four in New Zealand.

Susie Wales’ life with her three boys in Florida.

Rachael Ringenberg’s thoughtful glimpse into her life with four girls in Vermont.

Joel Bowman’s ‘away schooling’, travelling around the classical world with an eight year old.

If you’d like to be next, get in touch! Everyone is welcome, whatever your homeschool looks like.

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