A Day in the Life of....

...a Homeschool Family with Pre-Schoolers

...an Elementary Level Homeschool Family

...a Homeschool Family with Pre-schoolers

No two school days are exactly alike in our house. With a 7 year old in first grade, a 5 year old in K4 and 3 and 18 month olds underfoot, we adapt each day as needed to get in what we need to while having ample fun and play time. We love field trips and hands-on activities, like trips to the zoo or museum and lots of crafts and art projects, but we also make sure we cover the basics - reading, writing, math, science, history, Bible, Latin. We participate in group educational experiences in programs like Classical Conversations and Monday's Artists. We take dance, violin and piano lessons. And we do school year-round which means the summer months (when classes are out) look very different from the "school year" months.

On a day where we have no classes outside of the home (a true "home school" day), we get started around 6 AM with morning wake-up snuggles and breakfast. The children play and watch a couple of their favorite shows while everyone is getting going (and mommy is having her coffee). By 9 AM we head down to the classroom and start the little ones playing while my 7 year old starts her workbooks (Explode the Code for language arts and Singapore Math). I help my 5 year old with his reading lessons and answer any questions my 7 year old has afterward, while my 5 year old reads his Bob books to his younger siblings (who are still playing in the floor).

Once my oldest has finished her workbooks, we move onto our Bible story time which I read aloud and we discuss as a group. The younger two often play more than pay attention but that is OK. We work on our Bible memory work - books of the Bible and some verses - before we break for snack time around 10 AM. While the younger 3 children finish their snack and play, my oldest child works on a writing assignment - copy work and writing a friendly letter to a girlfriend which we will mail later. Then as a group we go over our history sentence memory work and timeline cards and I read aloud a story to them that goes along with the lesson. The youngest one usually is still playing. We break for some outside playtime while I make lunch.

After lunch we'll play a little more and then around 1 PM the little one goes down for her nap. My 3 year old colors or plays quietly while I do science - a lesson and possibly experiment - with the older two and finish up anything we missed in the morning (math for the little one, Latin maybe) but we don't do every subject everyday either. Then we do an art or craft project where all 3 children can have some fun. I try to tie it into history or science when possible but sometimes we just do whatever they ask for. After art we snuggle up for some read-aloud time - sometimes it is related to something we are studying and sometimes it's just for fun.

When the baby gets up we all head back outside for playtime for the rest of the day until dad gets home. At dinner the kids recount to dad what we did during the day (which lets me know what really sunk in and what didn't). My husband says he is getting smarter just by what the kids are teaching him. We enjoy family time and and before bedtime I or my husband reads aloud to our 5 and 3 year olds, and my 7 year old reads aloud to us (or sometimes we read to her). In general I'd say we read a lot, we play a lot and we laugh and snuggle a whole lot. That's what makes it all worth doing!

...an Elementary Level Homeschool Family

Just as with life, each day of homeschooling at our house is unique. There is no “typical looking” day and as soon as I think I have a pattern going, God changes things up on me. As a mom of elementary aged children, my goal is to fill the day with learning activities focusing on the importance of basic skills and yet still enjoy the vast exciting subjects out there for study such as foreign language, music, art, or science. This may translate into learning activities at home, activities with other homeschooling families, or outings with just my children and me.

An ideal day in our house consists of beginning with our daily devotion and moving into a meaningful learning activity for each subject area we are studying. The “list checker” in me is satisfied when each area can be successfully checked off, however, the reality is that often the best laid plans . . . get interrupted, adapted, cut short, or aren’t as engaging as one hopes. As frustrating as this can be --- take if from a former public school educator, there isn’t an educational scenario in which all plans and ideas are implemented as perfectly as they appear in our minds or on paper. A good day is when we engage with our children and a little bit is learned. All of the little bits soon add up to larger pieces which add up to mastered skills, and we see our children progress over time.

The beauty of the academic side of homeschooling is that I can help my children soar in their areas of strength while building up their areas of weakness. All of this can be done more efficiently than it would be done in a classroom of 20+ children and there is much time and opportunity for focus on additional “life skills” outside of “academics”.

Some of my favorite parts of homeschooling aren’t related to the academic side at all. As a homeschooling family my children are closer and as much opportunity as they have to fight, they play and laugh together even more. Little thought is given to being different ages and I find that their homeschooled peers are more accepting of playing with younger/older siblings than friends that are used to being segregated by age all day in the school system. My family has the privilege of making our own calendar choosing which days will be school days and which will be left for travel and visiting with family. We have the ability to adjust our families pace and when thing are getting a little too harried and busy we can step back a moment and adjust our activities to allow for more margin in our lives. (Yes, this can be a challenge for us as homeschooling provides more opportunities for activity than any one family could possibly need.) Best of all I have the joy of really knowing my children and watching th em grow and learn. How wonderful it is to walk with your 5 year old as he learns to read or be there when the “light bulb finally goes on” for a skill that you 2nd grader has been struggling with!

...an Expecting Homeschool Family

Ah, Baby Season is once again here and we excitedly realize that more blessings are coming. ‘Blessings’, I believe is God’s code for ‘stretching, gaining a foothold and achieving victory’…through blood, sweat and tears. Our energy will be stretched and increased. Our patience will be stretched and increased. Our family will be stretched and increased in so many wonderful and challenging ways. Yet, our family would have it no other way for we desire God in every room of our home and we desire to accept His best plan for us, not our best plan for us.

So, Baby Season is here and yet we must continue with homeschooling the older children. We must continue teaching lessons on a half tank of energy through the Morning-After-Without-The-Night-Before-Green-Days. Forcing myself to teach through hormones that seem to gobble up my desire to sit, explore and teach with patience and understanding. With a foggy, Can’t-Remember-Anything brain but always with the joy of knowing this is but a passing moment in our lives with such an beautiful end that is already in sight as we watch and learn about the ‘science’ swelling and growing before our very eyes.

Ideally I wake between 5 and 5:30am, and it is a struggle, in order to attend to personal business such as e-mails, journals, Mt. Laundry, meal prep, etc. The sense of being one step ahead when our children awake can be likened to the endorphins gained after running a marathon. These days who needs exercise???? I need SLEEP!!! So, we are happy to awaken by 9 am, eat by 10am, begin chores by 10:30 and lessons by 11am. Lunch is a smattering of nutrient dense foods pulled together in a group effort. We do make sure to keep our bodies and brains properly fueled. Due to the late start lessons, we will continue after lunch until I must rest my weary wheels. Dad will quietly and understandingly pick up some of the slack when he comes home.

Have all lessons and chores been completed? Most days the answer is no. Is that alright? For these nine (plus a few post natal) months it will have to be. We focus on math skills and reading comprehension during these times with lots of group work on various other subjects. We also school year-round. Not because we have to catch up but because it allows us to relax into this season. We want our children to know that being curious and learning is a daily source of challenge, understanding and achievement. Not just seasonal as is pregnancy. Have our children fallen behind? Amazingly not, and trust me that we find it truly miraculous because we daily realize and accept the short comings of our home school during this time. I guess having been here several times before we are able to rest in our past experiences and know that it is all blessings, joy and balanced in Gods time.

...a Special Needs Student

Homeschooling a special needs student in many respects is like planning for and participating in a great adventure – and it includes all the typical feelings that accompany any great adventure: excitement, fear, amazement, doubt, joy, concern, thrills, etc…! It certainly has its ups and downs, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else!

Preparing to school a child with special needs involves an enormous amount of thought and preparation. We also homeschool typical children, so while we think through options and prepare extensively for them as well, working with our Little Adventure is in a class all by itself! We can’t simply progress through a particular program, because while she may be able to do one aspect of that program, there will be three others that she can’t do. To finish one or two pages of a workbook may involve weeks of using manipulatives to teach that concept. Sometimes, the concepts are too abstract for her and we need to put that book away for a time and come back to it.

Some days, her brain works better than others and even in one given day, we may see differences. On the good days, she answers my questions, participates fully – even asking for more activities, and eagerly looks forward to whatever we’re doing next. On the rough days, she moans and groans, can’t seem to fully grasp what we’re doing (even if we just did it yesterday!), and would prefer to be curled up in a chair with her favorite books and her favorite music playing. While occasionally, I’ll let her have her way, more often than not, we push past the difficulty and try to do at least a few of the items on her list for that day.

I’ve also realized that by using her favorite books of the moment (lately, that’s been the Franklin and the Henry and Mudge series) I can accomplish goals in a different way. Since she’s always happy to “read” books (and will often grab the hand of any person that comes through our door, lead them over to the couch, thrust a book in their hands, and proclaim, “Read!”), I know that by using those books, we can still get some work in. It might not have been on my list to read fifteen books for her lesson (okay, we don’t read that many), but during that reading, we count things, identify pictures, learn more abstract concepts like the feelings of the characters in the books, learn sentence structure (I’ll have her repeat sentences for me), and sometimes she’ll even sound out a word or two that we’ve worked on before. Yes, we have frustrating days, but when she figures something out that we’ve worked on for a long time, there is incredible joy. Even her siblings, who sometimes help participate in her lea rning, join in on the excitement. Her bright smile and the joy in her face are such sweet treasures to behold when she knows she’s done well!

Speaking of her siblings, I cannot underestimate the learning (both the good and the bad!) she gets from them. I have been constantly amazed at what comes out of her mouth – and we can usually identify exactly who it came from. The other day, she said, “I’m so so hungry!” I had to smile as I pictured my other daughter using those exact words. Recently, the word “like” has become part of my children’s sentence structure (now where did that, like, come from??) and I’m dreading the day when it becomes a part of hers as well. How will I ever correct that? They also help her to learn to take turns and demonstrate how to do various and sundry tasks we assign. We have found that being diligent in correcting and training our other children pays off with her as well. Sometimes from another room, I’ll hear them say, “K, please stop coloring on my paper,” and though she doesn’t always comply, she is learning that when someone asks her kindly to do something, that it is nice to do what they ask if you can. I hear my fair share of screaming too – we are all a work in progress!

While my goal is to teach and train K, I cannot fail to mention all that she teaches us. How many of us like life to be neat and tidy, perfect, organized, fair, etc… Life with K is rarely those things. We have book shelves in just about every room, and one of K’s favorite activities is to pile up pillows (from every room in the house), drag in blankets, snuggle up with some stuffed animals, grab a very large pile of books, and flip through the pages while she “reads” the stories to her stuffed friends. Getting her to put the books back on the shelf is always a monumental task, but for the sake of my own sanity, I try to make her clean up when she’s done. Of course, we repeat the same thing the next day, so occasionally I ask myself why I even bother! She also enjoys dumping out ALL the toys in the bonus room, and I groan as my desires for a neat and clutter free home continue to be sanctified! She can be unkind and selfish, and sometimes we cannot figure out why she does what she does. Discipline can be challenging and while we strive to teach her to obey and discipline her when she has clearly crossed those lines, at other times, it’s not so clear what the best response is. Training and teaching her has had both my husband and me on our knees, begging for wisdom to know how to respond in the most biblical way. We have developed more patience, learned to control our tempers, and are seeing, even more, the importance of showing mercy while also showing tough love.

K also teaches us love and compassion by her example. Recently, an older gentleman got hurt at our house. K went over and put her hands on his leg and started praying. We could understand very little of what she was saying, but we heard, “Dear God” and “please help.” I had tears in my eyes as I watched our little sweetie bless someone else by her prayers. She is the first of our children to show compassion when someone else is hurt, and I hope we will all learn by her example.

While homeschooling our sweet girl can be challenging and frustrating, I thank God for her every day, knowing that He is teaching me something much bigger through this experience. It might be easier to pass off this responsibility to someone else or to have never had it to begin with, but the joy and delight of watching her learn and the sanctification that occurs when we push through a struggle is priceless and something that I don’t wish to lose!