A Day in the Life of . . . Us

Yesterday someone on the Well-Trained Mind boards asked if anyone had posted a typical day lately. I haven't for awhile, but I always enjoy reading about others' days. When I first started homeschooling, some books I really enjoyed reading were Homeschooling: A Patchwork of Days, and Homeschool Open House both by Nancy Lande. In both books, she has interviews with lots of families, and each family keeps a diary during a normal day. It was so interesting to see how many variations there are for homeschooling, and it gave me a lot of confidence. So I decided to log today and then blog about it. Just for the record, Nathan is 8, Luke is 6, Caleb is almost 4, Jonathan is 2, and I'm 14 weeks pregnant. Here's our day:

8:15 Jonathan wakes up. I get up and get him up and dressed. I put him in Nathan and Luke's room where they are reading. He climbs in bed with Luke, who is reading a book on spiders. Nathan is reading D'Aulaire's Greek Myths, which I just bought used yesterday from a lady at co-op. Nathan is thrilled because we used to get it out of the library in Ohio, but they don't have it at this library. I get in the shower.

8:45 Luke and Jonathan are eating breakfast. I go out to get the paper and discover that it is not there. Hmm, this is a bad omen. I love the Washington Times! Maybe Bob took it. I go back in and eat.

9:00 Nathan finally comes down to eat, and Luke goes up to dress. I check email.

9:30 I call the paper to complain, then get Caleb up, dressed, and eating.

9:35 We start school. First I read a chapter in The Child's Story Bible (Vos), then we read a chapter in Wisdom and the Millers. Then we locate and read about the next country in Operation World. Today our country is Finland. We pray for Finland, for our country, and for our day. While we are doing all this, Jonathan looks at some books on his own for awhile, but then he and Caleb start wrestling, causing no end of distractions. I banish them to the playroom, which is really our formal living room. Since we have no formal furniture, it houses an impressive collection of Little People, Duplos, dress-up stuff, and other miscellaneous toys.

10:00 We start our regular subjects on the couch together, and the order depends on what strikes my fancy. Today we start with spelling by reviewing orally the words. This year both Nathan and Luke are doing Bob Jones Spelling 2, since Nathan is a weak speller, and Luke is a stronger one. Hey, another subject to combine! It's worked well for us. While Nathan does a spelling page, I do First Language Lessons with Luke. Then he does spelling while I do Rod and Staff English 3 with Nathan orally, but I assign him some sentences to do later. Then we do Latin all together. We're almost done with Minimus, which was our fun summer break. In a few weeks, we'll start into Latin Christiana 1. The boys have really enjoyed Minimus, although I don't think they are getting all that much grammer out of it. Amazingly, Caleb and Jonathan are still playing happily in the playroom. Do they know that today I am writing this all down? LOL!

10:45 I take a break to deal with a poopy diaper.

10:50 We finish Latin, then do some Mental Math and flashcards.

11:00 We move into our study, where the boys each have a little desk. They do handwriting, Explode the Code, and grammer sentences (Nathan) and copywork (Luke) by themselves. I go over each boy's math lesson with them during this time. Nathan is almost done with Saxon 3, and Luke is halfway through Saxon 2. Caleb and Jonathan want to "do math" too, so I give them some worksheets to do. Caleb likes to trace, practice his numbers, color, etc. Jonathan scribbles diligently (with his left hand, woo-hoo!). I help where needed and also go online to check the WTM message boards and read blogs.

12:15 I start lunch. Today I decide we will have turkey hot dogs in crescent rolls. This is a special treat, so the announcement is greeted with much excitement. Luke has finished his work, so he is playing with Caleb and Jonathan, while Nathan keeps on. Math is what takes Nathan a long time, and it is simply because he dawdles.

12:45 We eat lunch--hot dogs, carrot sticks, and pears. Nathan has a "100 sheet" of math facts to complete still. This is when I usually read the paper, so I am missing that. Instead I use my time wisely and organize my commissary list for tomorrow so that hopefully I won't forget anything and we will be in and out in a resonable amount of time! We listen to Classical 103.5 , our classical music station over lunch. Hmm, they are playing a familiar piece, but none of us can quite place it. I guess a Beethoven symphony. We also have a long conversation about gambling, of all things, specifically betting on horse races, but it leads to discussion of casinos as well.

1:30 We're finished with lunch (finally!). Nathan does his 100 sheet, while I look up the playlist for the radio station--yes, Beethoven's 7th Symphony! I was right!

1:45 We work on making a paragraph out of facts we have collected on box turtles. We saw one in our yard a few weeks ago, so we got some books out of the library to do some research.

2:10 We read Story of the World 2 about Good Queen Bess. We are almost done with this book, and then we'll start volume 3. We don't do a narration or mapwork today, although the boys do answer the review questions. When I last went to the library, I got out some books on her, so the boys were already pretty familiar with her story.

3:00 I put Jonathan down and collapse on the couch for a nap myself. The boys play Parcheesi on the the computer. A year ago, I found a "board games" CD at TJMaxx for $2.00, and it's been a big hit. It has games like chess, checkers, backgammon, Connect 4, Pente, and Dominoes, and it's nice for them to be able to play the computer when they can't find anyone else to compete with!

4:00 I wake up and start thinking about dinner. Jonathan doesn't usually wake up until 5:00, so I have time to play with Caleb, and often I read to the boys too, or they go outside to play. Bob usually gets home around 5:30, we eat dinner, and then after dinner we like to play games as a family or read or just play. Wednesdays are our longest day of school--usually we are done by lunchtime, unless someone hasn't finished their work. Monday afternoons the boys have art class, Tuesdays we have co-op until 12:30 and we don't do any school after we get back. Thursdays after lunch we usually run errands (tomorrow we're going to the commissary), and we try not to plan stuff for Friday afternoon either. We're in a good routine now, but I wonder what will happen when I have the baby, and also next year when I need to do more with Caleb! Also, writing everything seems much "quieter" than our actual day. In reality, there are lots of interruptions as well as some squabbles that break out. There can be whining as well, although today was a good day. Monday, however, was not!

Thanks for visiting us! Tomorrow will be more of the same, I'm sure. I love seeing the boys learn, and even though it can be tiring, I wouldn't change things. I feel very blessed that I am able to spend all this time with the boys, working on their characters as well as developing their minds.