A Day in the Life - Part 1

Here is a day in the life of our homeschooling. (I'll post pictures soon!)

4 kids - 7 (2nd), 5 (K), 3, 1 (13 months)

WEDNESDAY - a few weeks ago 

Breakfast - Read from the Preschool Devotional Book - it is simple but the kids get it. At about 8:00

Chores - Kids put dishes away, get dressed, put pjs away, make bed, sweep, brush teeth and hair 

Madeline down for nap - at about 9:00

Circle Time (20 minutes) 

Prayer

Pledge

Songs - Jesus Loves Me, Down by the Station, BINGO, Hickory Dickory Dock (I used the Wee 

Sing Children’s Songs and Finger Plays - not the CD, we just sang from the book)

Poetry Reading - From Child’s Book of Poems by Gyo Fugikawa

Bible Verse - Gen 1:1

Calendar Time - sang the days of the week song, found today’s date, circled the kind of clouds outside (My Calendar activity book from Rod and Staff (Milestone Books)

Math time with Wes - (30 minutes) used craft sticks  of 2 different colors to talk about different ways to make 7 and 8 (review), played a game kind of like go fish where you make pairs for 7 or 8, or whatever # you choose from 5-10. We played for 7 twice and 8 once. 

  - While we did this, David played with Legos in the same room

- Catherine, of her own accord took the colored craft sticks and organized them by color. Then she took the cards we weren't using and laid them out in rows. She also colored.

Break/Exercise 20 minutes- Boys played legos a bit and I cleaned up some and regrouped myself. Since it was raining outside we did some stretches inside like arm circles and knee lifts, etc and jumping jacks and push ups. Then we lined up pillows with space in between and hopped over them. Then we had races doing this.

Snack/Bird Study  - yogurt, oranges or pistachios. 

- while eating we reviewed the different ways birds use feathers. The we discussed reasons that birds fly and why they land. Then I read some from a portion of a book about this topic. Then I had them draw a picture of a few ways birds fly and land. (Madeline woke up from her nap and I put her in her chair where she ate a snack).

Wes had independent learning time - he did Handwriting Without Tears, a phonics cut and paste activity I came up with and a portion of a math sheet practicing addition facts to 7.

David did some phonics with me for about 10 minutes max.

Activity Time (Music) - The kids then played with some cuisenaire rods for a few minutes while I cleaned up a bit. Then we read from An Introduction to Classical Music about  dancing being a way that we use music. We listened to a track that played the Can-Can and tried to do it. That was fun! 

School time was officially over at about 11:40 or so. I cleaned up a bit, while the kids played with the cuisenaire rods some more. Then Wes decided to make lunch - one eyed monsters! Eggs with a chocolate almond in the middle as the eye, strawberries for ears, carrots for hair, and toast for a phone(?) While he did that I played with the cuisenaire rods some and looked up a recipe for peach cobbler, then I had David help me set the table. 

Lunch - I read a story from History Stories for Children.

Clean up - We all worked to clean up the mess from school and lunch - toys from Madeline, Wes cleaned the bathroom sink and counter, the kids put their laundry away, they put the pillows away from our hopping races, etc. 

1:30 is tv time - sometimes. If they are playing outside, i don’t call them in to watch tv unless they ask for it. They watched Peg + Cat on PBS. While they did this I read two books to Madeline and put her to bed. Catherine was with me. Then I cleaned up more, swept and then counted all the numbers in one of the books I read to Madeline (123 to the Zoo by Eric Carle) by Catherine’s request. 

2:00 - Read Aloud time - we read a book written for the music The Carnival of Animals and a book about germs. 

2:15 - Game time. I also did a few stickers with Catherine in her Winnie the Pooh Sticker Book, then she went upstairs for a nap/rest time. She took a book about teeth with her to look at. 

2:45 - the boys have play alone time/rest time. David played with Legos in our “school room” and Wes played in his room - until 3:45 or 4:00, then snack and free time for all until dinner, around 6:00. Madeline goes to bed around 7:15 or 7:30, the rest at 8:00 after we read a chapter book and bible story to them. 

A Day in the Life - Our Homeschool Days Series

I realize it has been almost a year since I've written anything. I guess, again, that I've been a little busy. Trying to homeschool with 4 small children is a bit time consuming. I read these other blogs by women who have kids galore, they have a blog business and they homeschool. I don't know how they do it!

So, what inspired me to write this time? I love schedules and seeing how other people do their homeschooling. They give me ideas. So I thought I would share what our days look like so others might find something useful or might be an encouragement to someone who has never homeschooled to see what it can be like. I also wanted to add the less glamorous aspect of being at home all day with your kids. I do love it but it is hard and real life happens and tempers flare and kids have bad attitudes. I feel like in a lot of blogs I read, this is missing. It makes it seem like life is as if in a hazy photograph with the sun shining in brightly on cheery faces, with no messes or bad attitudes, following a perfect schedule, all sitting quietly around a table. Well, that is just not the way it is here. It is beautiful and when it is all said and done, I love it, but it is messy!

So here is a little about how I'm doing things this year. Last year I used mostly a  Charlotte Mason philosophy. However, over this last year I have been greatly inspired and influenced by several other types of educational philosophies, all of which have some things in common. Those are the book Teaching From Rest, the philosophy of Raymond and Dorothy Moore  (and this) and schools in Finland (yes, that one is a bit odd, but after reading about their philosophy and the great success they've had, it seems to fit well with the other philosophies I like and greatly influenced how I'm conducting our homeschool this year), and, most recently, minimalism. This works out so that we have a morning circle time which includes prayer, singing, poetry, scripture memory and calendar review (including graphing weather at the end of the month and singing songs, coloring sheets and reading books and poetry about the seasons, months and days) unit studies (which brings in the history and science), phonics, math, copywork/handwriting, narration (tied to unit studies). We also try to do some picture study, music, drawing occasionally, art, handiwork, cooking and geography. We don't get it all in each week, but we get most of it. The ones that get neglected the most are handiwork and geography. I started out trying to do French too, but I ditched it for now. Just too much. We will listen to French songs from time to time though.

The way we homeschool is very much a work in progress and honestly, after each day I ponder how I could tweak this or that to make it work better. I try to schedule things too much I think and get frustrated almost everyday when things don't go according to the schedule. Today, I realized that a great deal of learning is happening anyway and that I need to not be quite so regimented about the schedule. And I also reminded myself that whatever schedule I have needs to have a great deal of margin in it to account for the barely-toddler girl in our midst who crawls through the middle of our phonics lesson and then climbs on a kids chair and falls on her head! :(

The demographic of our homeschool is one bouncy, silly boy - 7.5, one quiet detail-oriented, pattern loving boy - 5.5, one butterfly of a girl who flits and twirls and sings through life - 3.5 and one squishy, marshmallowy girl 13 months who loves to examine things and crawl all over everything.

I've taken notes of several of the days that we've homeschooled. So I've posted the first one here in the next post.