Posted in My Homeschool FAQs

Our local homeschooling group has started sending out a weekly email written by a different local homeschool family each week explaining "A Day In The Life of a Homeschool Family."  This week it is my turn tp write it.  I thought I would post what I wrote here too.

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When I was asked me to write a day in the life of our homeschooling family to share with the homeschool group it took me a couple of days to figure out how to do it. I finally realized that I can't do a day in the life, I have to do a week in the life. Here is why...My husband works a very sporadic schedule. 2 or 3 days he works 9-6, 2 days he works 2-11pm, every other week he is one day off during the week. No two weeks are ever the same and I usually don't know what his schedule is for the next day until the night before. Oh, and also he travels occasionally and when he does we frrquently go with him. The only day of the week that is consistent is Sunday, which he always has off. We don't do school when Dad is home. One of the reasons we homeschool is to have more time together as a family. If I required the kids to do book work from 9-3 every day they would never have time with Dad. So, as far as schedule, everyday is different at our house. We also do a 4 day school week. We started this years ago when we started using Sonlight and they offer a 4 days schedule. This has always worked well for us because it leaves one day a week for field trips, classes and Dads day off.

With all of the above caveats in place I will try to explain how we are "doing" school right now. It has changed many times over the years as we have moved around, taken different classes, had more children, etc.

On Friday afternoon I write out the children's lessons for the next week. For my 12 year old I give him his assignments and try to tell him as best I can what activities we have for the week so he can work around them. I usually tell him what day I think it will be best for him to be his off day. (Like the week we go to homeschool skating he takes Friday off, unless it's like last week where we had 2 other field trips that same week! Yikes!) He is really in control of what he does when. He just knows it all has to be done by the end of Friday.

Here is what my oldest son is studying currently for 7th grade:

Bible - He is reading through the Bible in a year

Math - Math-u-See Zeta

History- Sonlight 7 American History (now called core 100)

Poetry - From Sonlight 7 - A Treasury of Poetry for Young People

Geography - Usborne Encyclopedia of Geography

Grammar - Usborne Improve Your Grammar

Science - Usborne Encyclopedia of Science

Art Appreciation - The Usborne Book of Art

Lapbooking - He will be doing several Lapbooks on American History throughout the year.

Japanese - He does this on his own.  He has several computer and audio programs he uses.

Because we use Sonlight (Which is literature-based curriculum) for History we do a lot of reading. He is now at an age that he can do a lot of the reading himself, but because I want to be able to discuss what he is learning I do part of the reading aloud to him. (Plus the books are so good I don't want to miss out! LOL) when we get started on school, (Whether it be in the morning when Dad works early or in the afternoon when he works late.) I usually try to get some of my read aloud time with him done. It usually takes 1 - 2 hours per day for me to read aloud to him. During this time in an ideal world the 5 and 2 year old would be peacefully playing in another room. In reality we usually have to stop many times to put on educational videos, refill juice cups and change diapers! LOL I try to have the younger two doing something educational while I work with my older son. They might watch videos, play with Play-doh, color, build a fort, etc. Everyday it's something different. Once I am done reading to my older son he goes off on his own to do the rest of his schoolwork, which he does pretty much on his own. In case you are wondering we do have a schoolroom. It is used mostly for storing all our school stuff and school seems to take place in every inch of our house. A favorite school location is the stairs. Don't ask me why? I have yet to figure it out, but if they get the schoolwork done I don't care where they do it.

Once my older son goes off to get his work done I get to work with my 5 year old. This year she is doing:

Bible - Awana Sparks

Math - Misc. math games, later in the year she will start Math-U-See

Phonics -Sing, Spell Read and Write

American History - Discover America Series
Science - 10 Terrific Weeks The Human Body

Crafts - Misc.

Cooking - Misc.

Lapbooking - She will be doing a lot of lapbooks on the Discover America Series as well as other topics she chooses.

A lot of what I do with her is very hands on. Because we are playing games, singing songs and drawing a lot of attention to ourselves the 2 year old usually wants to join in. We just include him as much as he wants and pretend he "gets" everything we are doing. It takes twice as long, but there is less crying and fighting so that works for me. Sometimes I can distract him in the other room with blocks or Play-doh. Usually if he is distracted I use that time to read to my 5 year old. This seems to be the activity I most need peace and quiet for.

To be quite honest if someone was peeking through the window of our house they would probably think at best we have a little organized mayhem at our house! LOL The important thing is to me that we get the work done. That is why I write everything out for every week. If I didn't I could never keep everything going.

With all this said I also want to say that when I talk about "school" I am referring to bookwork & deskwork only. The truth is I consider everything we do as part of our kid’s education. Whether we are going to the grocery store and they are using there Math skills, the Park and they are getting excersize, a field trip where they are learning social skills, Church where they are learning about God....It is all part of their education. I am always on the lookout for teachable moments. We listen to educational songs in the car, watch educational movies together as a family, travel on business with Dad as much as we can so the kids can see the world. The world is our oyster! We love learning together as a family.