A Day In The Life

I’ve written a lot about our homeschooling lately… that’s what’s consuming most of my time lately! But if your sick of hearing about it better stop reading now…

My friend Jennifer issued a “Day in the Life” challenge and I took the bait… so here goes!! (ETA: I should really read BEFORE I write! Heart of the Matter is hosting the blog hop... but I read it on Jen's blog so there you go!!)

I aim for getting out of bed between 7 and 7:30… I’m a night owl forced into an early bird routine and it doesn’t always work out but that’s my goal… get dressed, start breakfast for the kids, get them up if they’re not already. Some time in there I do my morning bible reading… I’m doing a chronological reading plan this year so I’m reading in Jeremiah right now.

After breakfast I usually start a load of laundry, maybe tidy up a bit and then it’s time for school. You’d think all that would go really fast but we never get started before 9…. time flies when there’s a million things to do!

We always start with prayer and Bible… we’re reading through Mark together, I read about half a chapter and then we talk about it. Then we do scripture memory… right now we’re just reviewing passage they’ve learned the last couple of years.

That finished we go to the school room… Mind Benders puzzles and handwriting they usually do together. I help Jacob with phonics while the other two work independently…. of course independently is all relative, we’re usually interrupted about every 30 seconds.

Things begin to go crazy after that… I try to get Jacob’s phonics and math finished and then he’s free until after lunch.

Cade likes to do spelling, science, reading and either math or english before lunch. Spelling he does alone and most of the time math, he reads silently but then we do the comprehension questions aloud, science he reads silently and does the questions himself but we also have oral reviews and experiments at least every other day, english we read and go over together and then he has some work to do on his own.

Travis does spelling, math, science, and english before lunch. Most of his he does alone, except for some oral review in english and discussion and experiments in science.

When they finish their morning work they can fix their own lunch and play for a while. I look over the work they did that morning, setting aside anything we need to go back over, do more laundry, and find myself something to eat. Then I SIT in PEACE AND QUIET…. sometimes I have to hide to do this but it is very important or I will not be a very nice mommy!! This is my time to check e-mails, facebook and all that good stuff.

Around 1:30 I have my sanity back enough for another go-round. We start with history… read aloud, review, narration, timelines… all that good stuff. Travis has some extra non-fiction reading, while he does that I help Cade with whatever he has left. Then Travis writes summaries of what he read. We review whatever they had trouble with that morning. Cade’s usually finished with school by now and Travis just has 30-45 minutes of reading to do. I help Jacob with his reading, check their afternoon work, and… we’re done! Hopefully by 3:00!!

More laundry, tidying up, supper to start… twice a week we have ball practice, Wed night church, library visits, grocery shopping. Boys bedtime is 8 and 8:30 if we’re home then, we hardly ever are, so if not it’s as soon as we get home. And then I crash…. read, computer, TV, whatever… until Brian gets home at 11. Catch up with him for a while, try to get in bed by 1 and start all over the next day!!

***I wish it always went that smoothly!! The phone rings, someone knocks at the door, daddy needs me to help with something, unexpected errands to run, the dog pukes in the floor, the toilet stops up, and any and everything else you can think of knocks us off schedule… but that’s life (and also why I need to SIT in PEACE AND QUIET!!!)***