A Day in the Life of New Homeschoolers

Just for the heck of it, I wanted to document today--a typical day--in our homeschool.  I am loving it.  All of my fears about not having time for myself were completely unwarranted.  (Case in point--I am blogging at 1:30 in the afternoon.  Our school has been over for a half hour.)  I am enjoying teaching the kids, watching them grow and learning along with them.  I do still worry about making sure they get all they need in terms of education, but I just go one day at a time.  Today:

5:00 am--I wake up and go work out until 6:30.  (So I've had to make a few adjustments to get in my "me" time, but it's worth it!)

6:30 am--Wake up Isaac and Ryan and get started on breakfast--this morning I also got dinner thrown in the crock pot.

7:00 am--Wake up the girls (Lincoln just gets up whenever--usually after me and before anyone else)

7:15 am--Isaac leaves, the girls eat breakfast and we do "Fill in the Gap" time.  I made up that title.  I have a book called "What your Third Grader Needs to Know" filled with all kinds of stuff that they should know--everything from math to literature to music to science, you name it.  Everyday I just read them a section of that book.  We have learned some common phrases, all about the scientist Jane Goodall and the story of William Tell to name a few.  Today we read an excerpt from "Pollyanna."  I have ordered this entire series of books so that we can make sure we all know what we need to!!

7:30ish am--The girls run go brush their teeth, straighten up their rooms while I quickly clean up breakfast and get a load of laundry started.

7:45 am--We start school (15 minutes late, but oh well.)  We start our day with Daily Learning Notebooks, where we discuss the date, the weather and things like that.  The girls also write in their journals or write a letter.  We then do scripture study.  We are currently studying Proverbs 3:5-6.  We talk about what it means, where it is from (Old Testament) and work on memorizing it.

Lincoln's Learning Notebook

8:00 am (or so)--Math--we do a lesson all together and then they all work on their math packets independently.  (Lincoln is currently doing the early grade 2 lessons by himself!)

8:45 am (ideally)--The girls work on their spelling books while I do reading with Lincoln.  I read him a story, then he dictates a summary back to me and illustrates it.

9:05 am--History!!  We read the lesson, then do some sort of coloring, map or art project to go with it.  Last week the girls made their own code of laws in the spirit of the Code of Hammurabi.  Today they drew pictures of Enkidu.  What, you mean you don't know who Enkidu was?  Ask my kids!  :)

9:30--Reading/Penmanship  One of the girls works on cursive while the other reads aloud to me, then writes a complete summary of what she read.  Then they switch.  I have already seen Chloe's handwriting and ideas improve.  Audrey tends to want to rush, rush, rush.  We'll get there!  At this point I switch the laundry and start folding a batch downstairs in between helping/teaching.

10:15 am--Either Science, Art or Music (we rotate depending on the day.)  I have not liked the science curriculum I got, so I have ordered a new one that should be coming soon.  Today for art we studied a painting by a Dutch artist and learned how artists use pictures to communicate.  Then they made their own communicative pictures.  Tomorrow for music we are going to start our series on the World's Greatest Composers.  I should say that we have classical music playing in the background the entire time we do school.  It makes us seem very refined.  ;)

10:45 am--Writing and Grammar--Lincoln is just focusing on actually writing--as in forming his letters.  The girls have been doing different writing projects.  Today they wrote their conclusions to their descriptive essays about the Justin Bieber concert (which I will get around to blogging about BELIEVE ME!  I'm just waiting to get pictures from the friend I went with.)  We do a short grammar lesson as well, which often includes copy work.  Today we reviewed comma placement.  Woo hoo!

11:05--Latin.  Our Latin is very simple and basic--it only takes a few minutes but we already have a pretty impressive list of vocabulary we have learned!  I love being able to point our Latin roots in words to the girls all the time.  (I'm not sure if they love that as much as I do.)

11:15--Memorization/Critical Thinking.  Again, we rotate depending on the day.  Today we started memorizing a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson.  For Critical Thinking we do a mind bender puzzle together.  (I am horrible at those, so maybe it's a good thing I'm doing this too!)

11:20 am--Typing/Free Read--I just added in typing after a friend suggested it as a means of getting the girls to work by themselves.  So one will play a typing game on the computer for 15 minutes while the other does her free read (whatever book she wants), then they switch.  This is so that I have time to make lunch as well.

11:55 am (if all is going exactly according to schedule/plan, which so far it never has)--LUNCH break!!  After lunch I let them play a little while I clean up.

12:30 pm  Unit Study.  We have just started doing a unit on Mr. Popper's Penguins, in which we will not only read some classic children's literature, but do an in-depth study of penguins as well.  Today we read the first chapter and started making little Penguin lap books.

After school I spend about a half hour cleaning, straightening and making sure everything is ready for the next school day.  Then I'm free to clean the house, make dinner or after-school snack, work out or hmmm....blog for a few hours until Isaac comes home!  The kids use those hours to just play happily with their little brains bursting with knowledge.  I love it!  And I no longer have to spend the time after school trying to balance helping three cranky kids with homework, entertaining the preschooler and making dinner.  I can focus on what I need to!

And that's it!!

I have gleaned so much wisdom, knowledge and ideas from other people--some that I know and some that I don't.  (Thank goodness for homeschoolers that blog!)  I am grateful I have people to question!  One of my favorite things that I got off someone's blog is the idea of these workboxes:

Each child has their own and each drawer is labeled with a subject.  When they are done with that subject, they get to move the label up to their chart and move on.  They get a sense of accomplishment and they can tell how much more they have to do.  Every afternoon  I refill their workboxes--with their math packets, history maps, spelling workbooks with the pages marked or whatever they need. I also like to hide a special little snack or treat in their boxes.  It makes them so excited!!

The girls have a habit of starting to hyperventilate when they see these 100 problem math facts sheets in their math packets, so I got them a little 100 grand treat to enjoy when they finished.  They've never done them so fast!

These boxes have been really great with Lincoln, although he tends to blow right through his.  I just put little activities that are at his level in his--puzzles, educational games, worksheets etc.    He only does a full day of school with us on Wednesdays and Fridays, and he was a challenge at first, but I realized it was because I wasn't planning stuff for him to do, too.  He LOVES doing everything right along with us, so it works well for me to have a nice big bunch of stuff for him to do.

I spend a few hours on Saturday or Friday afternoon planning and preparing for the coming week.  I have these schedules that a friend sent me that I modified for my kids--it's so helpful!  And you know, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Eventually I want to get the kids into music lessons--we are trying to figure out viola, violin and cello lessons right now (SOOOO pricey!!!!! $$$$$), and then I will have to add in music practice time.  But since we are typically done by 1:00, I think we can manage!

So every day is not perfect (AT ALL.)  Today in fact we may have had someone throwing some chairs around the school room because she didn't want to do subtraction.  (No, it wasn't me, but I wouldn't put that past me...)  But in the end, the subtraction got done and everyone was happy.

Whew!