A Typical Day

Are there really any typical days?? Probably not. But I digress. ~~Smile~~

I thought I would post about what a typical day looks like in a homeschooling home. Not to jump on a soap box or anything, but, we homeschooling mama's (and dad's if they are working that stay home dad gig) are not overflowing with free time as most people so quickly assume. This will lay out what a day in the life looks like of schooling for this family.

6:00 a.m. ~ My alarm will sound. I will probably hit snooze once. Maybe twice. Then I am up and running. Theoretically anyway. This time is not highly structured because it's my morning devotion/prep/plan time. This time varies based on how much quiet time I need. We want a happy mama/teacher.

7:45 a.m. ~ Kids are getting up, brushing teeth, washing faces and complaining how early it is and how tired they are.

8:00-8:30 a.m.~ Breakfast

8:30 a.m. ~ Devotion (now you know why I need devotion first) During this time we focus on our scripture of the day, the character trait of the day and we talk about the project of the day.

9:00 a.m. ~ School work begins. While Sam sits in front of the dry erase board and works on letters and spelling words he already knows, I get Makiah started. We pull out her assignment goal folder. I have her start with Word Building. It's easy and it eases her into the work day. She doesn't need a lot of direction with it either. Daniel is at the table with his flash cards working on letter and numbers.

After I get Makiah started I begin working with Sam. He is typically learning a new phonetic sound for three days in a row and then review. So we learn a new letter sound and build new words with that letter and ones previously learned.

10:00 a.m. ~ Sam is now ready for book work and Makiah has moved onto the next subject, usually Bible Reading and for this she doesn't need me. I check in with her, help with any problems and then work with Daniel on spelling his name (this is a current right now thing).

10:15 ~ Break time, better known as "shake out your sillies time". We sing or turn on music and dance, shake out the sillies and basically giggle our way through the next 15 minutes.

10:30 ~ Now that we have shaken out our sillies we are ready for more learning. Sam works more in his Word Building and I usually kick off Math with Makiah right about now. We do drills or flash cards and then work on that days lesson. If it isn't new material I get her into the book right away. If it's a new concept we work together, going over the process and then onto the book. By now Daniel is coloring or cutting and gluing.

11:45 ~ Break for lunch. Right now they will work together on the scripture while I get lunch completely put together.

12:00-12:45 ~ We eat. We chill, it's a relaxing time. After they eat, I read a story to them.

12:45-1:00 ~ Physical Education, we do something physical. Could be calisthenics or dance contest or stretching.

1:00 ~ Daniel goes down for a nap. Sam works on his math and once he is done he is finished for the day. Makiah is ready for her Science lesson or English lesson. More book work.

2:00 ~ Makiah has a Social Studies lesson or Science and book work. Then she works on her Literature and Creative Writing (extra class if she has time).

3:30 ~ School is done. Daniel is awake and it's now free play. They earn computer time, Wii time or Netflix time.

3:30-4:15 ~ Mama scores work again. Puts info into the data sheets online and gets school work set up for the next day.

4:15 ~ Craft/Art time. I start them on a project and then start I cooking supper.

After this, it's just normal family stuff based on the night of the week. The kids bedtime is 8 p.m. and by that time I am more ready for their bedtime than they are! ~Smile~

This schedule is not set in stone. Like I said, it's a typical day, a sample of how the day should, hopefully and probably will go. Some days are better than others. Some days we stop school early because things aren't progressing, we do something else that's learning but we abandon the work books and lesson plans. Some days, we are all super focused and we are done early. Nothing in homeschool is written in concrete and that's the beauty of it all.

Every family has to create their school around their family. You pick the curriculum, you choose the scriptures, Bible stories, values and morals you are teaching. . . shouldn't you also design the schedule to best suit your family? YES!!

New posts coming soon about all sorts of FUN stuff!!

New School Year Begins!!

I know, its been a long time! I promised we did school, I just didn't blog about it. But here I am and ready to make a go at this year on the blogging!!

As every year of homeschooling, this year presents new challenges. Sam is four, he will be five in November. Technically not old enough to start Kindergarten. He is very, very smart but I have been a little concerned about his cooperation with sitting and learning. He proved me wrong today! So here's what we are doing:

Makiah~~She is starting fourth grade (we won't talk about how old that makes me feel) and she is excited to start this year. Her work load today was a lot of review. She has read 30 chapter books this summer (YAY!) and I am very proud of her for that. I'll post more about her work in a future post.

Sam~~We started his full curriculum today. I am using the preschool Brain Quest workbook and Brain Quest game. Today I wanted to really get a good feel for where we stand on number recognition, counting, letter recognition and comprehension of understanding directions. He ROCKED it. He recognized all the letters except he confused small case a, d and b. His number recognition is awesome! He did all of his workbook pages perfectly (even the ones I expected him to get a little confused on). Sam is also amazing at math. He can add and subtract very simple problems.

Daniel played at the table with us coloring, looking at his flash cards and looking at books. We had circle time that included a silly dance contest, we had morning devotions and we had a very successful first day!

School Is In Session and My Blog is Suffering

~Laughing~

I am excited about the second quarter of school. I have a lot of activities planned that I think the kids will really enjoy. Next Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. day and we are going to do a lapbook this year! I am really excited about this project not only because Dr. King is a great man to study about, but because Makiah will get to make something that she can look back at later. I think it will be a nice change from a normal school day. We will study about him and then take the rest of the day off.

Makiah is doing really well in school, except for Math. It's not that she doesn't know the work, she doesn't like it. So we drag through Math, everyday. UGH! I am still trying to think up a fun way of doing math, but so far I haven't been successful.

Every two weeks we have a Bible passage that Makiah has to memorize. We are also working on a poem for memory, about penguins. Her favorite!

Well, for now that catches us up. I'll be back next week to post about MLK Day and pics of our projects!

Here's a Peek Into Our Day

So we are officially rolling in this school year! Makiah started her new 3rd grade PACES yesterday and Sam loves doing worksheets! I am so proud of both of them and like I said in the previous post, I am excited for what this year holds.


Reading her Social Studies book.


A numbers worksheet. (Sorry for it's poor quality, its a phone pic, I lost our camera)


Check out those A's, he rocks!!

And once you have put in all that hard work and making A's and B's is hard work, you can always just go build an airplane out of the boxes mom emptied. Check out my engineer:


He built the plane, which also doubled as his car and fire truck. I see big things ahead for him.

All in all it was a good day.

You really should check out Owlhaven and Fiddledeedee's posts today (in the side bar). Owlhaven gives some great ideas for preschoolers and homeschooling and Fiddledeedee is looking for good reads and offers up a few laughs too.

Now we are heading outside before it gets too hot and to let them run some energy off!!