A typical day . . .

I thought maybe you would be interested in seeing what a "normal" day looks like for us. We definitely don't get started at the crack of dawn! We usually get up around 8:00, except for Caleb (almost 3), who sleeps until 9:00. We usually start school between 9:30 and 10:00, so we have quite a leisurely morning! The first thing we do is read the Bible. We've been reading a chapter of Proverbs a day for the past few months, since I've noticed a need for some practical wisdom around here, but today we've started back to our Vos's Childrens' Bible. Then we read from a book about different character qualities (self-control, this week), and we usually pray for a different country each day, a la Operation World. The past few weeks, however, we have focused on praying for our country and the election. All this is done on our couch in the family room, and we stay there for English (using First Language Lessons) and Mental Math. Then we move to the kitchen table, where the boys do their copywork, grammer work, and handwriting. I do math with them one at a time during this time, while the other boy works on his other things. Nathan (7) is doing Saxon 3, and Luke (5) is over halfway through Saxon 1. Caleb usually does some preschool worksheets during this time, since he definitely wants to be included. Jonathan (17 mo.) primarily gets into the cereal cabinet and tries to climb onto the table. The boys finish their math pages while I get lunch. We do Latin (using Prima Latina) over lunch. I love this program! It is such a gentle way to start learning a complicated language! They are building up good vocabularies, and they like finding derivatives when we read. After lunch we do science and history. These are favorite subjects, so we have to put them off for motivation. In science, we're studying the human body, and right now we're learning about the nervous system. We use Story of the World II (the Middle Ages) for history, and we're learning about the Celts. We're in the middle of making Celtic warrior helments out of ballons and paper-mache. I don't do tons of fun, messy projects, as a rule, because that is not my personality, but every so often . . . We need to paint them now. I have found that my world history base is very limited, and I have learned so much from the books we've read. We're usually done with everything between 2:00 and 3:00, and they can play or read while Jonathan naps. After dinner, we often read library books, which in our house are usually non-fiction, either science or history, or I read aloud whichever book we're doing currently. Right now we're in the middle of The Dog That Wouldn't Be by Farley Mowat. What a great book! The boys find it hilarious too. Mowat uses more complicated sentence structures and bigger words than a lot of other stuff that's out there, which is good and challenging for them to listen to. We've found a lot of our Latin roots in his words! The boys are usually in bed around 9:00, and thus ends another day--well, not for Bob and me. I guess if we did go to bed then, maybe I'd finally be able to get up and exercise before the boys wake up! But I like my "wind-down" time at the end of the day when everything is quiet, so I doubt things will change anytime soon!

Claire