A day in our life!

I have been reading a series of posts entitled "A Day in the Life", by various families that has run on the website Simple Homeschool, this past year.  It has helped me to feel good about what we do each day and more importantly, it has helped me to feel not alone. 

Each time I meet someone who is curious about homeschooling or is interested in perhaps doing it one day, I try to stress that each day looks different to each family and that I suggest taking it one day at a time.  My number one rule for myself is to be flexible and to not let standards and guidelines take the place of learning and growing. 

I don't think we have it figured out.  In fact, I KNOW we don't have it figured out.   I am searching and researching almost daily for the next best thing that is going to help one child or another to master a certain concept.  I'm constantly looking for more information about learning styles.  I think such is the life of a homeschooling family.  When school and life merge so that there is a blurred line and they just flow as one, learning is never really over.

We typically wake up about 6:30 and are eating breakfast by 7 or 7:30.  On Mondays and usually Fridays, one of the kids helps me to make some kind of muffin or pancake that we eat for breakfast  the rest of the week.  Then the kids all play until it's time for the almost 2 year old to go down for a nap.  They play outside most of the time, or they might play in their room or in the school room.  Most importantly, they have to be independently playing...as in WITHOUT me!  I use this time to plan, answer emails, do laundry, more baking, clean up, well you get the picture.  I also find myself sorting out fights and reminding them that Mama's ears do not hear tattling!  Thank goodness for beautiful SC weather and an awesome back yard.  **Edited to add...my 7 year old just came in from outside saying that he invented an outside toilet and his hand smells like pee.  We are going to just leave that one alone for today, but see how much he is learning by just playing outside ;)

When the toddler goes down for a nap, then we get started with our school day.  We usually make PB&J sandwiches and eat them while doing our assignments for the day.  The first grader is working on Easy Peasy All in One Homeschool.  He is doing Reading 1, Language Arts 1 and Math 2.  I supplement with Science and Geography, but this year we are not using a specific curriculum and we don't do either every day.  He spends about 60-90 minutes on school work.  Some days more and some days less.  I am pretty free with his lessons. I plan out 6 weeks in advance and on Monday we write down what he has to accomplish and I let him do it in whatever order he wants to do it.  Some days he does all his math for the week in one day and some days he does 1 lesson from each subject.   

The Kindergartener is working though Alphabet Island.  It is a phonics based curriculum that uses stories and music to teach the letters and sounds.  She will finish up the "Learning the Letters," portion of the curriculum this week and will start the "Learning to Read," portion just after Christmas.  She LOVES it.  There is also a math curriculum that goes with the program that is basically a general Kindergarten math program.  We do a phonics and math lesson every day.  It takes her about 20 minutes total.  She is a really young 5 year old and honestly more then 20-30 minutes a day just doesn't work for her.  She colors, plays a game on her iPad or does another craft while she waits for her bother to finish with his work.

Baby brother is usually waking up within 1.5-2 hours, so we end our day at that time.  In the afternoons we are either running errands, going to the children's museum, playing with friends, going to gymnastics or just hanging out at home.  Our sit down school day is not long.  I have the philosophy that  they are learning a ton by playing and my goals for our year are pretty basic...learn to read and add by the end of Kindergarten, read chapter books and subtract by the end of first grade.  Those sound really, really simplistic but those are my measurable goals at the end of each year.  They will glean so much more during the year that we just can't measure, and honestly if I kept track of each tiny thing, I would probably lose my mind a little more then I already do! 

Some days our day goes smoothly and some days it is chaos upon chaos and by the end I have no idea exactly what just happened.  On those days, the fact that we are alive is enough of an accomplishment!!