A Day in the Life: The Hellar Family

Yes, you read that right! We have A Day in the Life post for you today. Track B mom, Erin Hellar, recounts for us what a day at home looks like for her family as they are figuring out all the nuances of this new learning arrangement. So, settle in, glean some ideas, and relate. (Oh, can we all relate!) 

Hi! We are in our second year at SLOCA and have a LMS, an Intermediate, and a Pre Kinder student. We have always homeschooled in some way and were homeschooling full time for two years before making the switch to SLOCA. These shelter in place days feel reminiscent of our old homeschool days when we decided to just stay home, day after day, after day, after day. I know you all get the point. Some of the ways we ran our days are moot right now. The big kids were both in multiple after-school activities before COVID-19. With all the scheduled activities disappearing our lives have really opened up while simultaneously closing in to make a sort of cocoon around our family. A feeling I bet a lot of you are experiencing. This “day in the life” reflects the current state of our world.

NIGHT BEFORE:

I definitely like to start the week by preparing the night before. I don’t always prep as the week goes on. Especially once I have an idea of what bigger projects we will be working on, or books we will be reading, but I always try to read through the grids on Sunday nights to have a good grasp on what this week will hold. 

I used to print all the grids out, one for each kid, but now there are so many links that this seems wasteful. Instead, I keep them open in tabs on my browser. I write little checklists of tasks on post-it notes and then refer back to the grids for the details if I don’t remember the specifics — page numbers or lesson number for example. I make a copy of each grid in Google Docs so I can personalize them for each kid. I will remove assignments for the other grade we don’t need, or add tasks like piano practice. The kids enjoy deleting the assignments and writing in “DONE” when they finish something, especially Desmond who likes to change the font and color.  

This is a new prep step for me: charge all the devices so we have enough for three kids to work at once.

MONDAY:

8:15 a.m. — I am no early bird. I get up, the kids are already awake in their rooms. The boys got my phone off the charger in the living room and Aubrey has the iPad, they are all listening to audiobooks. I take this time to make some coffee in the french press and get breakfast going. We will come to the table to eat and start school around 9:00. I have been on an oatmeal kick because I can make one pot and serve everyone at the same time. One of the kids complained about the monotony of this and I said: “if you can come up with a healthy breakfast, that I can make all at one time (i.e. no standing there flipping pancakes for ½ hour), and is healthy, I am happy to switch it up!”

9:00 a.m. — We eat breakfast and watch two short funny videos to get the day started in a good mood. My friend had sent me a video someone made about how an extrovert is handling shelter in place and we all enjoy watching it and laughing.

Mondays’ are a lighter day for us. Before COVID-19 we would push to finish by 12:30 so that we could spend the afternoon with our homeschooling nature group. Even though it is a lighter day, this is the first day back after Spring Break and it is difficult coming back to all this after a week away. It feels like a serious juggle right now trying to get three people settled in and supported. 

Wesley, my PreKinder, starts out watching a video of his story and now wants to do a drawing video. We might be single-handedly keeping Art Hub for Kids bankrolled. If you haven’t checked them out on Youtube you absolutely should. 

Aubrey’s day is fairly light since she was able to finish some bigger work the Friday before spring break. She started with sorting her school basket which has filled with papers and is now working on her poetry assignment. Aubrey and Desmond each have a basket for their school books and supplies. I rotate out our current literature and history reads from a bin under my bed. Homeschooling took over the nooks and crannies of the house long ago. But hey, they say it’s a way of life! 🙂

Des chooses to start with grammar. This is always a quick lesson and we move on to practicing his recitation since the poem is in the same book. Smooth transition there! We decide to go to Desmond’s bed so we won’t disturb the other two who are working at the big table we have set up in our entry/living room. The big table used to be our dining room table, but since we don’t have friends over for dinner right now we moved it into this space where there are bigger windows and where we can see into the backyard. It feels fun and fresh to be in this space. 

Aubrey comes in to share her lovely rhythm poem about a blackbird, I am LOVING the poetry unit and so is she. Next, Wesley comes in because he poked himself in the eye with a paper. Interruptions galore! Ah, homeschooling.

10:12 a.m. — Des is about to head outside for a 20-minute break and Aubrey wants to join him. The upside of not seeing other kids for a month is the renewed interest my two older kids have found in each other. This goes in the quarantine “pluses column”. One slight problem this has created, how do I help them get all their work done if they break at the same time? Multi kid dilemma!! I say as much to them and they come up with a solution. Change in plans! Des will get his copy work finished and draw in his BWJ while I read to Aubrey. This way they can have their break together. Sometimes they are pretty cute!!! I read Aubrey A History of US: Making the 13 Colonies chapters ten to eleven. I enjoy this history book a lot and find myself discovering a much more well-rounded portrayal of history than I remember my own textbooks ever giving.

10:37 a.m. — Wes is still doing art. I adore his artistic attention span! I see an opportunity and decide to jump on my stationary bike for 15 minutes. Last week I listened to Brene Brown’s podcast and it deeply resonated with me when she talked about stress being trapped in the body. I am a massage therapist so this rings true. Moving our bodies helps even more in times of stress. I am trying to remember that for myself. Keep moving and let my energy flow. As soon as I get going on the bike Wesley comes in wanting to be with me. Ah, timing! I talk him off of the floor where he has collapsed. Having us all home all the time, I find that the idea of waiting and taking turns is harder for him than it was before this. I convince him to go find his siblings while still biking. A small but mighty accomplishment!

After the bike, I call Des in for spelling while Wesley watches his teacher read a chapter of Mr. Popper’s Penguins. Aubrey was drawing and I have to ask her to stop so she can work on her poetry book. This reminds me of one of the struggles I continually had with full-time homeschooling. It is so easy for the kids to slip into getting productive or occupied with other things and it is hard for me to interrupt them. Their other endeavors have value! I know she and I will both be sad to have schoolwork left at the end of the day, so I persist and bring us back to the task at hand.

12:02 p.m. — We break for lunch. Des works on his Pokemon drawings while Wes plays on the piano. He’s asking which combination of notes Aubrey likes more or less.

This is the part of the day that looks very different since COVID-19. Shaun has been working from home since early March and it is soooo nice. He is really easy to share space with, and we have a back room/carport conversion that is on one end of the house so we are not in each other’s way. The boys especially love having him to play soccer or legos with during his lunch break. I enjoy having an adult around to check in with. I make lunch while Shaun plays with the kids. I like to listen to an audiobook and hopefully get some uninterrupted time. Something that was hard to come by before Shaun was working from home. After lunch, we all play soccer in the yard while Aubrey enjoys some free time. Despite the pleas from all of us to join in, she knows deep down that she dislikes all sports and declines with gusto.

1:32 p.m. — We realize Wesley has cut his own hair. So sad, his goal was to grow it out long enough to brush his shoulders. He is very defeated once he understands it will take a year to grow it back, and that I might have to cut the rest of it off because it is truly awful looking. Poor chap! What are the odds that this would happen the day that I am writing???

Schoolwork waits for no Mama, so back to work we go. I find that Math and Latin are still a challenge for Aubrey. For one, I am less interested in helping now that I am the “only” teacher once again. Haha. A month before shelter in place, we found a math tutor for Aubrey and it was going really well. Now it is back on her and me to get it done. It isn’t the end of the world, but I know having the tutor once a week was a nice uninterrupted support time for her and it undoubtedly lightened my load. 

I am clearly not the only teacher helping these kiddos, but there is more responsibility on my shoulders than when SLOCA days were open. The school closure has actually given me a chance to come back to some of the things I loved about full-time homeschooling, but with the support of amazing, lively teachers who are providing content and doing 80% of the work for me two days a week! I appreciate the videos all the teachers make. It is fun to see the kids’ teachers and get their energy infused into the house since you know we are all getting used to seeing the same faces every day.

Desmond still has his Friday and Monday math since we ran out of steam right before spring break. Thankfully, this doesn’t prove to be a challenge for him and he knocks it out quickly. 

2:32 p.m. — Desmond goes to make a smoothie for everyone. Aubrey hit the proverbial math wall but she takes a small break and is able to go back to her math now that she is in a calmer space.

Wesley has taken to numbers all on his own, so I am doing my own math with him. He has a subtraction sheet and once he finishes he goes outside — the sun finally came out!!!

Des calls me in to blend the smoothie, everyone is afraid of the blender. Ha!

3:00 p.m. — I leave Aubrey to finish her math and head out for my date. I have a phone call with a friend planned for three o’clock. Since shelter in place, I have regularly been walking twice around the Atascadero Lake while I connect with a friend. It is definitely a highlight of my day and reminds me so much of my Junior High self talking to friends every night on the phone.

4:45 p.m. — I get back at 4 and Aubrey has finished her math during my walk. She is now in the backyard (did I mention the sun came out?) making a cardboard house for her mice. Des needs to get out of the house and wants to go down to the creek around the corner from our house. Wesley opts to stay home with her while Desmond and I head to the creek to work on a little fort the kids have been building. He has his hammer, nails, and a board to add to the fort. 

Desmond has given me his word he will finish his last school item when we return from the creek. He has to turn his KWO into a rough draft paragraph in order to complete an assignment from the A Lion to Guard US packet. 

Side note: Welsey’s haircut has reached a new level, I just have to have a little fun with it before I decide what to do about it.

5:45 p.m. — Back from the creek and ready to settle down to finish Desmond’s assignment. We sit in the sun by the back door and he asks for spelling and idea help while I do embroidery.

Shaun starts dinner while Desmond and I work (Did I mention how nice it is having him work from home?!?!). Surprisingly, Aubrey cleans up her house materials outside ;). Wes wants to do some embroidery too now, which suits me just fine.

6:15 p.m. — Des finishes without complaining. Today the creek-first, schoolwork-later plan panned out. It doesn’t always, but I’ll take the win! Des goes to help Shaun with dinner. Aubrey is sewing in her room. Wesley and I are embroidering and our school day is done. 

I can’t tell you what happened after Des went to help Shaun with dinner because that is where my notes ended. I cannot recollect what we did that night or even what we ate. I took notes on Monday of all the parts of our homeschooling day and then made them into full sentences and complete thoughts the following weekend. You couldn’t pay me 100 dollars to get an answer as to what went on the night of April 13th, but that pretty much seems right. For us, this homeschooling thing looks a bit different each day. It’s a rhythm, not a hard schedule. We mostly start at 9:00, but sometimes we break for a while because something catches everyone’s eye and we need to create, or investigate, or do something else, and we don’t hit it hard again until after lunch. Some days we are done by noon and that honestly feels GREAT, but it is often hard to get all the kids on board to accomplish that! All the variations of a SLOCA homeschool day fit together to make the quilt of our lives. It is filled with good books, math problems, snuggles, trampoline, lots of art, discussion and compromise, spelling, erasing, trying again, creating, thinking, and working hard. Each square, each “fabric,” each day looks a little different, but together they form a pattern unique to us and it is a joy to be the ones creating. 

I dearly miss gathering in groups and being out in nature with our friends. Yet I am finding a way to cherish these more leisurely, organic, meandering homeschool days. Days where we don’t have to be done in time for our nature group, piano, soccer, girls scouts, boy scouts, math tutor, or silks. All of those things were fun and enjoyed by my kids. And setting them aside to just “be” with the kiddos has its own beauty. This is an incredible time for so many people, and I make no light of the negatives of the current situation. There are many of them and they are quite serious. And at the same time, I can clearly see the beauty we have found in being able to slow down. It has been fun to reflect on our day in this way. I hope it felt fun to read. Before I go I want to give a shout out to all the support our teachers and staff have given us to make this new norm run smoothly!!! Go SLOCA!

Thank you so much, Erin and family, for being open and vulnerable as you shared your day with us!

No day will be perfect, but each day is precious.