What Does A Typical Day of Homeschool Look Like?

I have to admit - (like one of my friends from church so aptly put it) sometimes I "dream of school buses and daycare". Being a stay-at-home mom and a teacher is work. We don't eat bonbons. TV? What's that? I couldn't tell you much of current events other than those quick snippets I hear in the car on the way to the store or preschool. Downtime is a foreign concept to me. I know this is just a season (or so the wise women tell me), and I know I'm making the best choice for my children and family, but some days it is just nuts around here. I thought I'd give you a small glimpse of our mornings.

This is a picture of my escape - I put my earbuds in and sew (this was a Japanese pattern). Note the time - I start school at 8 most mornings, and I use up every minute up until that moment.

The morning of this picture, Abe was fighting a cold and a massive bout of diarrhea, so he was super fussy. Most mornings he is fussy anyway (who knows why) and this is an accurate photo to document that.

If I'm not holding this kid, here is the face I get.

Breakfast is Jude and Samuel eating between talking about Legos or playing with them. I know, I know. Legos should not be at the table - but it happens and most of the time I don't choose that battle.

Jude started the school day dressed as a cowboy.

This was Jude's reading portion of school. Sissy and Abe are playing with my hair, Jude is reading his book. Good things Jude was good at focusing at the task at hand.

Sometimes Jude is busy doing letters and Samuel is doing his own reading and I read to the youngers. Abe thinks if he sits in my lap like this, reading a book to him will naturally result.

Samuel doing his school reading.

Other school mornings I put Sissy and Abe in the bath together so I can take care of educating the older two. I can hear almost everything through the bathroom wall to the school room, so it works out well. Sissy is also a great babysitter in the bathtub and alerts me to anything.

Sissy is dying to work on Jude's school stuff - she is very good at letters already, with no help from us. We have decided to purchase her kindergarten curriculum for next year.

And other times, Sissy sits and watches Jude do his work.

School is coming to an end after next week for us. We have decided to homeschool the kiddos for another year next year. We all are ready for a nice break filled with lots of sunshine and just a few science experiments and handwriting practice :).

Homeschooling

I have to admit that I have a terrible case of the March blahs (it's still March, right?). I have become insanely irritated with the cold, rainy weather. Various degrees of cabin fever hit me regularly, since Juliet is almost always sick during the winter season - which means we aren't around other kids at all.

Homeschooling has become strictly academic lately -both Samuel and I choosing to forgo the fun stuff (like painting, clay sculptures, etc) in order to get on with our day (me to responsibilities, him to play with Jude and Legos). Do I think it will be like this forever? No. I will probably be cured when I can be around people again, being the extrovert that I tend to be most of the time.

One positive thing: Samuel is reading. We are almost done with a book called "Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons", which has proven to be very effective. Samuel dreads it, but once we are done in a few weeks, I will let him pick out any book he wants each day to read to me. Should be much more fun! Here he is reading yesterday:
We are going to homeschool next year again and I don't anticipate such a rocky road (the first year tends to be the hardest). I think I am also attempting to draw strength from the wrong source (myself) and need to lean more on God, who led me to the decision to homeschool in the first place. Doesn't everything go better when we check in with the Lord frequently?

Homeschool.

Yesterday we officially started homeschooling with Samuel. We have decided to go with "My Father's World" curriculum and I'm really glad that is the one we chose. Today we are studying creation and more specifically the sky and ocean. Samuel is coloring the sky in the photo below:It will be a process of scheduling and cutting stuff out (probably like my internet usage) to fit in Samuel's schooling. So far, we are treating each day like we have to actually go to school - we are up and clothed/fed/teeth brushed before 8:30 to get started on the lesson.

We also did a weather chart and dressed the teddy bear based on today's weather. The cool thing about homeschooling (well, one of the cool things - there are many) is that the younger kiddos get involved and get a head start on letters, reading, etc.
The younger kiddos also get shuffled off to snack time when they start driving me crazy =).