A (school) Week In The Life Of A Single, Self-Employed, Homeschooling Mom
Hi, it’s me, Victoria, your local source for all things homeschooly. I know that back in the before times, “what homeschoolers actually do all day” was an intriguing mystery, but these days, I’m more likely to field Instagram DMs along the lines of “Ok Victoria we HAAAAAATE distance learning but how tf do I actually homeschool????”.
I want to preface that LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE HOMESCHOOL FAMILY HOMESCHOOLS DIFFERENTLY THIS IS PART OF THE POINT OF HOMESCHOOLING and things like employment situation, number of kids, kids’ ages, educational style, and local resources can drastically alter what a week of homeschooling looks like for each family. But, since sometimes it’s nice to hear from someone who’s NOT a full time stay at home overachieving former elementary school teacher with a full on classroom in her house and a upper middle class breadwinner spouse share a non-pinterest actual real life experience, I thought I’d share with you an actual week of homeschooling as a self employed single mom.
Monday.
Kids woke up around 9 and today I miraculously FINISHED my journaling and workout before anyone got up!
It’s gloomy and I did a craft market yesterday so we all want to take it easy. Monday is the day we review/reinforce the memory work from our homeschool co op so we watched some BrainPop videos relating to our memory work, did some coloring pages about the digestive system, did some read alouds, and filled in this weeks states and capitals on our sticker map. We get through everything except states and capitals around noon.
By then we all needed a break and I made myself some lunch and retreated to my room where I handled all my VERY FUN computer tasks for the day (ordering prescriptions, passing library fines, verifying my unemployment weeks, ordering work supplies... ok I guess that last ones fun). My kids are going through this weird phase where they don’t eat lunch???? And I have to try really hard to offer them some healthy snacks later in the day so there are no meltdowns before dinner.
Around 1:30 the tasks I sat down to do are done and for various reasons both kids are in my bed asking for a variety of things. 9yo has a headache but doesn’t want to do any of my suggestions to feel better and then wants to text my sister. 5yo wants a snack AND an entire chapter book read to him. Also I have a client texting me. I tell the kids I will help them after we do states and capitals. 5yo gets himself a pickle before we start and at 2pm FINALLY we are done with the school day. And also now I have to clean pickle juice out of the fridge.
(I feel like I should mention that at this point in the day NO ONE in this house has gotten dressed and both kids are in dire need of baths after playing outside at my moms while I was working yesterday).
Now begins the time of the day where my kids kind of just run wild while I try to accomplish some work things. Is my apartment getting absolutely trashed right now? Probably. But what matters is that I’ve unloaded my car from yesterdays market, packed up this week’s outgoing orders, finished up a batch of earrings and took the photos for this week’s instagram jewelry sale.
It is now about 4:30, most of my to-do list for the day is finished and I would really like a nap but noooooooooo I have to start getting ready to cook dinner (salmon, artichoke, and hollandaise sauce because my kids will eat ONE vegetable in the entire world and it’s the most expensive and high maintenance of all vegetables). BUT this does mean that the rest of the day kind of takes care of itself (dinner, baths, tidy kids room, bedtime).
The last educational thing we’ll do for the day is read a chapter of Farmer Boy (working through the Little House series since our theme for history in co op this year is American history)
I put the kids to bed around 8:15 but they were still very much awake while I was finishing up the project my client asked for until at least 9:30. This is pretty standard practice for them.
Tuesday.
I got myself up bright and early today because 5yo had a 9:30 zoom appointment with his homeschool teacher (in addition to our co op we are also in a charter school which handles our attendance and record keeping as well as provides instructional funds for curriculum supplies and enrichment. I absolutely could not afford to homeschool without them). This meant one of our three “book school” days got off to a late and distracted start, but we got through it.
“Book school” for 9yo means language arts (grammar and writing), math, and handwriting (science and social studies are mainly covered at our co op) But for today we negotiated that she could trade handwriting for today AND tomorrow for writing a birthday card for my grandma. For 5yo it also means language arts and math but we’re taking things reaaaaaaly slow because he’s just... not really ready for school school (summer birthday problems), so his work was a page from this book, two pages from this workbook, and trying out his letter game on the Osmo (we just got it so I don’t have a review yet beyond it’s super cute)
Both kids were finished with everything except the birthday card around 1:30 (including a break for lunch) so I snuck away to handle some computer work (e-mails, mainly, also fixing up my online shop so I can get it ready for the holidays). I really want a nap but I think instead I’m going to get the card supplies out so that we’ll be ready when it’s time to go drop off my grandma’s birthday dinner and presents.
9yo spent a good hour or more listening to an audio book and making her card for my grandma, while 5yo... convinces me to read him an entire chapter book?!?!? Anyway, after we’re all finished it’s time to run a few errands: dropping off this weeks orders at the post office (my main hustle is my crystal jewelry but I also have an extremely niche Etsy shop that I never market but still someone has orders almost every week???), picking up dinner for my grandma and delivering it (Covid birthdays, amiright?), and stopping at Aldi for a “couple things” which inexplicably turns into almost $40 of assorted groceries because you know what mom is TOO TIRED TO COOK ACTUAL FOOD FOR DINNER TONIGHT. One kid has a Lunchable, the other has chicken nuggets... I... don’t feel guilty about it because I *did * make homemade almond milk this morning. Hashtag balance.
Earlier today the kids set up a “campsite” in the living room and say they want to sleep in it so... hopefully that works out ok? Doesn’t bode so well for my prospect of bedtime snacks tho.
Wednesday.
Today it was 9yo’s turn for a zoom call with our Homeschool Teacher, but it wasn’t till 11 so that means we did half of her book school day (grammar and writing) beforehand and negotiated that for math today she’ll need to play her Osmo math game for 20 full minutes later. I managed to squeeze in 5yo’s math page and a little handwriting but we’ll have to finish that up later.
You may have noticed that so far this week I haven’t mentioned chores. And you would be correct! I haven’t mentioned chores because we haven’t done any! My apartment is super gross!!!!!! Since really the only WORK work I have to do today is my newsletter, cleaning is my main focus for today.
JUST KIDDING! I took out the trash and suddenly felt VERY BAD ™️ and needed to lay down for what turned into like three and a half hours if I was going to be able to get my shit together for homeschool co-op on Thursday (don’t worry I have fibromyalgia this is just a DUMB THING THAT HAPPENS ™️). Did manage to get the bare necessities done (materials prepped and bags packed for co op, newsletter sent, partially cleaned one part of my living room) before staying up VERY LATE (11pm, not actually that late) working on a project for a client (pre-Covid I was teaching private sewing lessons but stopped for a variety of reasons, I have one client left who’s a FIDM student I’m tutoring remotely)
Thursday.
This is our co-op day. I have to get two kids that are not on any kind of a morning schedule all the way to the other end of the South Bay by 9:00 (we did not make it by 9:00) so that my introverted ass can teach tiny children (4s and 5s!) memory work in math, science, english, latin, geography, and history, facilitate presentations (the most precious thing you will ever see), do a science project, and attempt to introduce how to play the tin whistle for three hours and then silently decompress eating my lunch alone in a corner.
Ok I probably made it sound really bad and you’re like “Victoria, why do you do this to yourself?” and the answer is that 1. I really do love these kids and watching them learn and grow, 2. this is just one of those things that I know I need the challenge of doing for my own personal growth, and 3. Our charter school will not pay for anything with a religious affiliation so teaching makes the tuition more realistic for me as a single parent.. basically, there was a need in our community and I was able to fill it, and doing so helped us out in return.
BUT because the only thing that’s more difficult to me than being out of my house and talking to humans for that long is GOING BACK OUTSIDE TO GO TO STORES I’ve piggybacked grocery shopping into our co-op day. This was week 7 and I think the first week that it was like, easy. Probably because my kids will be at their dads this weekend so I only needed to meal plan for four dinners and already had ingredients at home for three. Still cost like $100 wtf Sprouts I didn’t even get chocolate bars (I did however, buy two dozen roses because they were buy one get one free, hashtag Libra problems).
Ok so did I mention I’m hella introverted???? So, I’m like DONE parenting for the day at this point but its only like 2:15. 9yo asked if they could watch Hocus Pocus which like, how can any spoopy millennial say no to that??? Which turns into two movies which turns into ok you can keep watching tv but only if it’s educational so then they watch a documentary about King Tut for like three hours which I only interrupt to give them chicken nuggets and then make them turn it off to go to bed. 9yo demands I order her some King Tut books from the library because what even is a childhood without an Egyptology phase.
Also internalized capitalism is making me feel like I should add that I wasn’t doing NOTHING while the kids were having their post-school screen time, I did a little more work for my client and had a flash sale on my Instagram stories because I accidentally bought very much the wrong size of crystals for what I was going to use them for, running your own business is hard, yo.
Now time for my weekly white claw and Criminal Minds binge.
Friday.
Ok so here’s the thing about Fridays in our house: All Fridays are the day I drop new jewelry pieces for sale in my Instagram stories and preparing for that takes up a lot of my mental energy. Some Fridays, however, are ALSO the day the kids’ dad picks them up for his weekends. Now, I signed a contract saying that I wouldn’t make any disparaging remarks about him on the internet (is this a thing? it feels like it’s not?), but, it’s important context here to note that we never know in advance what time pick up will be. Could be 4pm, could be 11am, could be literally any other time of the day!
So Fridays *I* want to get our school day (just “book school” for both kids) and any lingering chores (which this week is all of them) done ASAP so that the kids can just go when he gets here. WELL MY KIDS HAD OTHER PLANS. Blame it on the moon, the retrogrades, or the anticipation of the transition but it was s.l.o.w going and attitudes were NOT NICE and school took forever and somehow only about half their room got cleaned (the half that I cleaned) by time their dad arrived…
But, he did and they’re off for their weekend with him and now I get a nice long break. Jk this is the time I have to go to the laundromat and get as much work done as possible so that I can put as much energy as possible into next weeks homeschooling!
So yeah, for anyone who’s ever wondered how I manage as a single self employed homeschooling mom: this is how! I want to clarify that every single week is different, but this was… pretty average for us.
P.S. if you’re curious about what life is like for a single, self-employed, homeschooling mom of high-maintenance kids feel free to give me a follow on IG (but yes, it is 100% as exhausting as it sounds).
-Victoria aka Homegrown Homeschooler
