A Day in the Life of our Homeschool (with an 8 year old, a 6 year old, a 4 year old and a 1 year old)

Welcome to our homeschool day in the life of a mom (me) and an 8 year old, 6 year old, 4 year old and 1 year old.  You might call me a half way homeschooler.  I do homeschool my 8 year old but I partially homeschool my 4 and 6 year old.  They spend their afternoons at a Montessori school that is about 5 miles from our home.

Since my 8 year old is dyslexic my husband and I thought it best that we have more one on one time with him this year.  He had been in school until last year at this time.  He went to a Christian brick and mortar school and then spent a year and a half at a hybrid public school where I homeschooled him three days a week using their curriculum and he went to a brick and mortar school two days a week.  Now we do a mix of classical, regular and a little Montessori thrown in. 
  
There is a little background now come take a peak into our day.  

This post is real.  It is what happened.  My husband switches shifts every 28 days so we try to follow his schedule which means I keep the kids up later so we can all sleep later when he works nights.  My husband and I are up until 1am when he is on this shift so we can see each other a little more.

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8:30 - I roll out of bed.  I've been awake for a little bit but I just decided to get up.  The three oldest are up and have gotten themselves breakfast - hallelujah!  I get my coffee going and make my own breakfast and check Facebook.  Then I drink more coffee and wonder around the house assessing the situation and picking up things here and there.  The kids watch cartoons because I am not a morning person.  This morning I broke my own rule and let the boys play a video game before school.  I shouldn't have done this and you will see why later. 

9:00 - I have the kids do "the top 3".  The top 3 is - brushing teeth, getting dressed and making their bed. The boys finish playing their video game.  My daughter plays on her own and follows me around.  I make the bed.  I switch laundry from dryer to my bed and then from washer to the dryer and then put more dirty laundry in the washer.  I get the baby up.  She's been staying up late and getting up late this week.  I feed her breakfast.

10:00 - I give the boys a 5 minute warning.  My daughter tells me she is making a doggie bed to see where to put it if we should ever get a dog.  I gather our devotion book and our current read aloud.

10:04 - I sweep the kitchen floor.

10:05 - I sit down in the kids' room and let them play "quietly" while I read out of our devotion book.  Then I start our read aloud.

10:14 - My husband has a "come to Jesus meeting" with our 8 and 4 year old.  Attitudes have been poor the last couple of days.  Once that is over both boys join us for the rest of the read aloud and they are attentive and ask questions.

10:35 - We watch a Wild Kratts about the earthworm - we are studying worms and decomposers for science this week.

11:00 - My 8 year old does part of his worm lapbook, geography lapbook (we are studying Russia this week) and we do a bit more geography.  My 6 year old joins in.  My 4 year old goes to play in his room but I ask him to tell me what they learned about the Wild Kratts video and I write it down for the worm lapbook.

11:21 - We take a break.  Kids play together in their room.

11:28 - I make smoothies for me and the kids.  I do a smoothie that has my daily allottment of veggies and fruit for lunch. 

11:30 - I let them have a picnic on the floor and watch a show while I make lunch.  Then my 1 year old spills my 4 year old's smoothie and I clean that up.

11:57 - We get shoes and socks on, I ask everyone to finish their smoothies because 2 out of the 4 don't love them.

12:05 - I do some quick online banking and a quick check of Facebook.

12:17 - We leave to take the middle two to school.  My 4 year old falls asleep.  He's new to this school thing - we only started him last week.

12:45 - We get back home and I lay the 1 year old down for her nap.  I take a shower while my 8 year old puts away the dishes again.

1:15 - I prep things for supper while my 8 year old goes on PBS Kids (our computer is in our dining room attached to our kitchen) to show me about the gila monster.  Then we grab the Living World Encyclopedia and look it up in there to study it further.  This is when we do the bulk of his school, the things he needs quiet for - math, writing, grammer, reading, history.  I'm doing a light day for him with just math drills instead of math because we are struggling with place value.  Otherwise math would take us a while.  My brother calls and asks if my nephew can come play. 

2:00 - My nephew arrives - he is also 8.  The boys talk and play and look up things on the IPad.  My brother looks in my fridge and finds things to eat.  Then he goes back to see if the 1 year old is awake - she wasn't until he took a picture of her!  Now she's up early and I was trying to get the supper prep finished.  Oh well.

2:45 - Shoes and socks on!  We leave to pick the middle two up from school.

3:15 - Back home and I finish up dinner and my nephew tells my 4 year old he will play Lego Marvels with him.  The kids play and I finish dinner.  I'm making it for my friend's family tonight too.   We do that every week.  One night she makes mine and one night I make her's. 

3:45 - I set up the "matress slide" in the boys room so the kids can be rowdy and play in there.

4:10 - My nephew goes home.  I clean up the kitchen, put dinner in the oven to warm.

Before clean up

School work clean up

4:30 - My friend and her kids come over so that she and I can run (or jog or shuffle whatever).  The kids play while we run.  She has older kids.

5:19 - We are back and she leaves with her dinner.

5:30 - I eat dinner by myself at the table because I just want to eat now while its hot and the kids aren't interested in eating right now.  I do hold my 1 year old and feed her from my plate.  I check Facebook again and upload a cute video of my 1 year old.

5:54 - I get things out to make Valentine's Day cookies because my friend and her kids are coming over to help.


6:15 - They arrive and the kids scatter to play.  Her oldest daugher rolls out the dough and cuts out all of the cookies for me!  Isn't that great?  We all visit and hang out.  We bake lots of cookies and I make rice crispy treats for tomorrow.  Our friends leave.

7:52 - Finally I get to sit down with my babies and we cuddle and do our nightly routine of Full House and Popcorn - only tonight I didn't do the popcorn because I'd already been in the kitchen all day. 

8:30 - Our 4 year old falls asleep on his own on the couch so I move him to his bed.  I try to put the 1 year old down but she has none of it.  My oldest is watching YouTube videos about Minecraft (it is on safe mode).

9:00 - I try to put the 1 year old down again and she is not having it so I get the Legos and let her play on the floor while we watch another episode of Full House and then my 6 year old falls asleep on my shoulder so I put her to bed too. 

10:00 - My 8 year old puts away the dishes and then I finish the final clean up of the kitchen.  I try one last time to put my 1 year old to bed and she is ready this time!  Then I tuck my 8 year old in.

Mommy rests!

Daddy gets home!

This was not a typical day but no day is typical is it?  We had done well this week with a new evening routine I put in place but we couldn't do that tonight since we had friends over.  It was worth it.  There are days that are much more structured.  Generally I have a rule that we don't do TV or video games until after 3pm but I obviously won't be breaking that rule again.  But today - it was real and you got a little peak into it.