A Day In The Life

7:15 am- Not. a. morning. person.

But our school day goes a lot more smoothly if we get started early, so I'm making myself get up.

In the living room- no one is here except my 5 year old. Am astonished that my super early-rising 8 year old is not yet up. Ds5 and I cuddle on the couch and read a story. Hesitate to wake sleeping children and will give them a bit longer.

8:00- Time for a "first day of school" special breakfast. Breakfast pizza and Pink Flamingos. Yep, it's as junky as it sounds. But the pink flamingos are just pineapple juice, strawberries, and bananas, so maybe that redeems me a little. The kids are excited and have all gotten up except the teenager.

8:30- Kids get dressed, brush teeth, make beds. Argue with dd over her hair- it's always in her eyes and I insist she go get a barette so I can pull it back. Just as I wonder to myself why I'm picking this unimportant battle, Dd impresses me by coming up with a compromise all on her own-she comes out wearing a purple headband that matches her shirt, she says headbands don't hurt her head.

Ds8 comes to find me, he's teary-eyed because he has been up in the schoolroom and I've moved the Lego table. I knew he wouldn't like that but it was way too distracting during school last year. Ever try to tear an 8 year old boy away from the lego spaceship he just built to sit and listen to you read about Ancient Greece?

I start some laundry and then head to the school room.

9:00-First Day of School picture.



Everyone actually sat down and looked at the camera- success! Ds8 happy because his plastic dragonfly is in the picture too. (In his cupped hands).

Ds15 gets out his work and can go do it wherever and in whatever way he wants, as long as it gets done.




9:15- Trying workboxes this year. I show them to the three younger kids and explain the whole procedure, though I call them "mailboxes." Kids love mail- work, not so much.

9:20- Doing RightStart math with ds8. Dd is doing her workboxes- copywork, a geography workbook, and Miquon math. Ds5 loves to draw so he is doing a Draw Write Now page and getting frustrated because his duck doesn't look exactly like the book.



9:40- Still playing RightStart games with ds8, as a review of concepts he's already learned but needs to refresh after our break.

Ds8 wants to know when snack time is.

Dd burned through a lot of workboxes and is now playing with pattern blocks and making an intricate design. Need to tweak what's in there for her a little but she does pretty well at finding things to do when I'm busy.



Dd is now tracing her foot.



(I put little "About Me" worksheets in their workboxes, knowing they would enjoy writing down their favorite things and personal info, and it'll be nice to have to look back on. One worksheet was how big their feet are.)

9:50- Ds5 strongly offended if he feels left out, so it's his turn for RightStart.



We play with fake money and discuss the differences between various coins, which leads to a spur of the moment game. We read the book Follow My Leader about a young boy who becomes blind after an accident when we did Sonlight Core 1, and now ds wants to close his eyes so he can feel the coin and see if he can guess which one it is. Then he wants to close his eyes and guess the total of several coins when I put them in his hand.

10:10- Ds8 was working on his copywork, "About Me" sheets, and geography, interrupting me with questions while I continually repeated my new mantra "Just go on to the next box until I'm not busy." Now I'm helping him with the parts he was stuck on. Dd is reading More Stories from Grandma's Attic under a table. Ds5 is playing with centers.





10:20- Ds5 and Dd have a few geography questions too, so we all discuss. Ds5 actually helps dd with a part she didn't understand, I love it when they work together.

10:30- We're using a modified Winter Promise Animals and their Worlds as science. Dd has requested an animal study many times so we're doing one. I'm adding a little unit about animal classification today. Snack time while we read about classification in the DK Animal Encyclopedia and then we read Benny's Animals and How He Put Them in Order. It's old and out of print but a really great book. Then I tell them to get their stuffed animals and bring them into the schoolroom so we can sort them. Fun times, except I forgot how very, very many stuffed animals they have. Next we start our animal classification lapbook. I have them each pick a mini book they want to work on- dd chooses mammals, ds8 picks arthropods, and ds5 picks reptiles.

11:05- Time for WP Children Around the World. Ds8 says he's been waiting for this! We read Material World, Kingfisher People Around the World, Children from Many Lands, and look at our map. Short today.

11:15- Ds8 wants to know when lunch is.

Ds5 picks a book about cheetahs to read to me. The other kids do centers. Ds8 wants to use the microscope from our science center, and ds15 helps him set it up. He's a good brother.



11:25- Ds8 reads a chapter of Viking Adventure to me, he prefers reading aloud to me.

11:30- Ds5 sits in my lap and does 3 pages of Explode the Code.

11:40- Kids sit on the loveseat with me and we read Leading Little Ones to God.

11:50- Planned a light day so we can ease back into things and we're done. Time for a walk outside in the sunshine, then lunch and quiet time when I'll meet with ds15 for any help or discussion he needs. Then I'll refill workboxes and get things ready for tomorrow.




See other homeschooling days as part of the Not- Back- to- School Blog Hop here.