A Day in the Life: The Coté Family

We have another A Day in the Life post today! A couple of times a trimester we ask a SLOCA family to give us a glimpse into what a typical homeschool day looks like for them. Track A mom, Stacey Coté shares with us from a recent home day with her four kids. We hope you enjoy having a sneak peek into the homeschool life of the Cotés.

Hi, we’re the Cotés! Family of 6 with a 3-month-old baby girl, a 5-year-old boy in Junior Kinder, an 8-year-old girl in second grade and a 9-year-old boy in fourth grade. This is our fifth year at SLOCA. My husband, John, is an engineer at Diablo and I (Stacey) am the primary homeschool parent. I’m a former teacher and work part-time at home writing for the Wisdom Wonder Project this year. I love homeschooling our kids but it is very different from classroom teaching. It’s taken us a few years to find a rhythm that works for us. We are still figuring things out and our days aren’t always the same but we strive to enjoy our time together at home. Here’s a typical Tuesday homeschool day at the Cotés:

4:20 a.m. Baby P wakes up to nurse and then goes back to sleep.

5:30 a.m. John is up and getting ready to leave for work.

6:25 a.m. Baby P is awake again but falls back to sleep with a little snuggle time.

7:00 a.m. I’m up before the kiddos and getting ready for the day. I make some black tea with honey and non-dairy creamer and get a few sips in before the oldest wakes up. Our fourth-grader is annoyed by the game closet, so he pulls everything out and reorganizes it while I make breakfast for everyone and do the dishes. Baby P is still snoozing as the other two kiddos wake up.

7:30 a.m. Baby P is awake and nurses while everyone else eats breakfast. I think about what our day will look like and plan it out in little chunks. I’ve found that breaking our day up into chunks by subject, we get it all done in a reasonable amount of time and we enjoy good breaks in our day. Our first chunk is math, then history and literature, and finally all of the language arts related subjects. When Baby P finishes, I finish doing dishes and remember to defrost some meat for dinner.

8:10 a.m. Everyone gets ready while I finish eating breakfast, have a second cup of tea and pull out all of our grids on their clipboards. Something new this year, every kid has their own basket for supplies and basket with all of their workbooks. We keep it all right in the kitchen so no time (or attention) is lost to finding a supply or workbook. 

8:30 a.m. We ALWAYS begin with math. My fourth and second-graders bring their textbooks and workbooks to the table. I teach my fourth-grader his lesson while my second-grader finishes anything she missed from the day before. He starts on his textbook while I teach my second-grader her math lesson. Today it’s a review for her so we practice with the PVDs (place value discs) and she gets started on her textbook. My fourth-grader works on his workbook while I put Baby P down for her nap. When everyone finishes we play a math game together called Stink Eye, but my second-grader plays the addition version while my fourth-grader plays the multiplication version. For this to work, I play them both at the same time so we can practice different math facts. It works except my fourth-grader rolls too many stink eyes and is disappointed to not get many points. 

We eat a snack and do a little daily devotion. We usually start our day with this but I forgot and the kids reminded me because they enjoy it. 

10:00 a.m. Baby P is awake and I nurse her while the kids play. When I finish nursing her, my fourth-grader holds and plays with her while I finish getting ready for the day.

10:30 a.m. Everyone joins me on the couch as we read all of our Literature and History for the day: Don Quixote (Primary and Intermediate), The Three Bears (Junior K), and Renaissance Artists Who Influenced the World (Intermediate)). 

11:10 a.m. P is ready for another nap so I put her down and start dinner in the crockpot while the kids get out the things they need next. We listen to the assigned chapter of Story of the World while my fourth-grader works on his Don Quixote packet, my second-grader does copywork and my Junior Kinder draws a picture of a way he can show kindness. They all still need my help and attention, so I sit and help each one as needed. We do my second-grader’s narration. My Junior Kinder finds a cool garden spider outside and draws it in his nature journal. He then builds The Three Bears’ house out of blocks and tells me the story using the blocks and some bear figurines while everyone else finishes their work. IEW is on the grid but we finished it last Friday. We usually try to finish IEWs and writing the Friday before. Otherwise, this is the time it would get done.

12:10 p.m. Baby P is awake! We make lunch and I start on some laundry. The boys both help me by emptying the dishwasher and take out the trash and recycle. They all watch another garden spider catch an insect while they eat lunch.

1:00 p.m. Baby P fell asleep while we ate lunch so we work on Awanas because we have that tonight.

1:10 p.m. Baby P needs to nurse again so the kiddos all get to play some more while I take care of her.

1:40 p.m. We’re on the home stretch. I always save our language arts for the last part of the day and I let them choose the order they want to complete their work. While the boys play, I do OPG with my second-grader. She then goes to play the piano while my fourth-grader does grammar and spelling with me. He then goes off to read a chapter from the book he’s reading while I complete grammar and spelling with my second-grader. With these subjects, I tend to need one-on-one time with each kid so we trade-off so they each get individual time with me. My friend drops by for a few minutes before she picks her kids up from school. Then back to work! When we finish, my second-grader is off to read Charlotte’s Web on her own. I’m so thankful we finally have two independent readers. It was a lot of effort for my fourth-grader but came very naturally for my second-grader. 

3:15 p.m. We are done for the day! Baby P is still asleep so I work on the house, laundry, and begin prepping snacks and lunches for tomorrow until she needs to nurse again. 

4:30 p.m. Nurse Baby P.

5:00 p.m. Make dinner while kiddos get ready for Awanas.

6:00 p.m. Our friends, the Cumberlands, take the kids to Awanas for me. Our evening slows down a little while the two oldest are at Awanas. We get to spend some quality time with our Junior Kinder and Baby P. John makes cookies with our Junior Kinder for his work tomorrow. I hold a fussy Baby P and try to clean up and fold laundry.

7:15 p.m. Nurse Baby P. Junior Kinder showers and I read to him and put him to bed.

8:10 p.m. Big kids are home from Awanas. They shower and we hear a little about their night before putting them to bed.

9:00 p.m. John and I both get ready for bed and I work a little.

10:00 p.m. Nurse Baby P and finally go to sleep! 🙂

Hope you enjoyed seeing what our day looks like!

A big “Thank you!” to Stacey and the rest of the Coté family for giving us a glimpse into their homeschooling life. We hope that you have gleaned some helpful ideas as well as some encouragement from reading about their day. 

Happy Homeschooling!