Homeschooling -A Day in the Life…

Prologue: Hi, I’m Kathleen.  I am a homeschooling mother of seven children.  For a long period of my homeschool career, I schooled all seven, but time passes, children grow and go on to college, get married and have families of their own. Currently, I am schooling my two youngest, Ania, a junior in high school, Rafal, an eighth grader and helping son Hunter prepare for his college years.  My daughter Audrey is part of the homeschool blog hop, a new chapter in her life unfolds as she homeschools her children.
I’ll be using a family photo of my children when they were young to signify a flashback as requested by a Blog Buddy.

My Day
I awake in the predawn dark and quietly slip down to the kitchen and push the button on my Kuerig, waiting for the blinking light to come on.  After making coffee,  I go back to my room and have prayer time and Bible study.  (I don’t make a good mom or teacher without this part of my day).

Next, I prepare breakfast- this morning- egg muffins- and wake the kids.  We eat together at the dining table and reach into our ‘lockers’ for Bibles.  We are reading through the book of Nehemiah.  Ezra reads the law to the Jews who have returned to Jerusalem after the seventy years of captivity.  The people weep.  We discuss reasons why they may be weeping and read another chapter.  We finish up with prayer and move on to memory verse.  The kids are memorizing II Timothy 1:7 to combat fear.

We don’t do grammar work because of the lengthy bingo game.  When group subjects are over, we divide for math, science and reading.  This doesn’t mean we don’t stay in the same room, unless someone is being extremely annoying to the other student, it just means these subjects must be done on the student’s level, so they have separate texts. Depending on the time, we break for lunch or get math under our belts first.  Today, we are on track and Rafal and I divide some fractions on the board before his completes a worksheet.   Ania hammers away at Algebra II, asking about three different problems.  I help her and she decides to check my work with the professor on the homework cd (of course I am right, but I like to see how he does the work too).
Lunch break.
We eat sandwiches, yogurt and fruit.  I check laundry.  We talk while we eat.  Rafal can’t get over Haman getting in return what he meant for someone else. I check facebook and email.

After lunch, we move on to science and reading.  Rafal has an experiment to do in his chemistry.  We look for bases in household products.  Ania works in her chemistry book, showing me some of her work on the board.  After science, the kids do their reading and any make-up work they have.

School typically ends about three for us. Youngest son Rafal is special needs and has trouble switching gears.  I have developed some tools for him to stay on task, but they are not always a sure thing.  A school day can stretch out because of these bumps in the road.  

Today, Ania and I take a long 3.5 mile walk after school.  By the time we get home, it is time to make dinner.  She helps me make chicken enchiladas.  We have them ready before Hunter leaves for work.  We sit down to dinner and discuss the day.  Rafal still can’t get over Haman.  

After dinner, we load up the dishwasher and head to swim practice. While the kids swim, I write up a blog post.  When the kids get home from practice it is nearing 8:30.  They eat snacks, goof around and get ready for bed.  I head towards bed and read until I can’t keep my head up or write a bit.  

Flashback:
When I was schooling all seven, my schedule was similar, the difference being-more to manage.  My friend and fellow blogger, Selena Campbell came over a few days a week to listen to beginning readers.  I taught four children how to read in one year!  We did groups subjects together, as we do now, beginning with Bible study.  It was harder to get away to do laundry or load the dishwasher, so I took one or two with me- more about that Thursday when I post about organizing my day!


Note:  My husband works long strange hours.  On the day I chose to write about, he was away for the day.  When he is home, our schedule changes a bit.  I didn’t include times because although I have them on my schedule, with special needs children accomplishing the goal is more important than a time constraint.