Day in the Life of 5th grader, 4th grader, 2nd grader, K and pre-K


It felt like one of those days.

We are in our 6th  year of homeschooling and I want to recap a little about our day.  I know I wont remember it later.
So what in the world is our day like?

I have a list of kitchen chores that I rotate K, R and J through the week.  Each morning I insist that the dishwasher be the #1 priority for whomever is in charge of it.  This rotation of chores comes with a handy chart.  However, this can be either helpful or frustration.  The helpful side is that it is written down, and no one gets bored regarding their chore.  There is no complaining that one chore like dishes is too labor intensive compared to cleaning off the table and setting it.
But the downside is that the dishwasher needs to be emptied every morning and inevitably it is forgotten.


I'm working really hard at getting up before 8:30am, but my body does not like mornings and even 8:30 feels too early.  My thoughts are, "We home-school, we should be able to get up whenever we want to." But this doesn't work.  There just isn't enough time in the day anymore when you have Spanish class to make it to, and piano lessons and a weekly writing class with a assignment each week for two children.

Ideally, I should be up out of bed at 7am. This allows for the every other day shower, time to check email, time to make breakfast, time to get the fire in the wood stove burning.  Just plain and simple it gives me some time. You know it is about 64 degrees in our house every morning.  It just isn't fun to get out of bed when it is that cold.

So children...Luke is three.  He is giving me a run for my money.  This precious boy to me just doesn't want to obey.  He pretty much wants to do everything his own way, and sometimes that isn't possible.  "No you can't wear pj's outside to play in the mud." and "No you can't watch movies all day long" and "No you can't eat gummy vitamin's all day long whenever you wish."  He throws pretty big fits.  Today as we talked after his consequence, he told me he would punch me.  Yep.  He was pretty mad.  He said he would punch Mark too.  Was it just two weeks ago that he said I was his "best, best friend"?  He even says I'm his girlfriend.  He is doing his best to communicate that he is spit fire angry at me. Which is already very apparent.  He also thinks that he is the only one who gets treated so unfairly.  Apparently no one else has it as bad as he did today.  He had a long talk with daddy tonight.  It was interesting that he showed no remorse, but immediately interrupted Mark when he got the gist of the reason for his chat, and declared that he wouldn't throw any more fits.  I've never had one of my kids be so aware of what was expected from them as far as a verbal response.  He said it with such a smile on his face.  He even said he was happy.  Strange.  As I reflect on it, I think he just knows that this is the shortest way out of trouble.  Smart boy, this three year old is.

Karmin and Jesse are struggling.  That is to put it lightly.  She is 11 and he is 8.  He likes to pick and tease. She does too when she feels like she has the upper hand.  She gets very short tempered with him and his quirky things that he does and then she completely over-reacts.  On top of all this she feels very comfortable to boss him around and he hates it.  I am beating endlessly on this mantra, "Do unto others as you would have them do to you".  I am repeatedly having conversations with them individually and as a family regarding relationships with each other.  It seems that boys at this age really like to agitate and pester.  Or most boys aren't like this and he inherits this trait from his father. :)

So what does our day look like?
Monday's we have our co-op with Classical Conversations in Albany where I am a tutor.
Tuesdays is piano lessons in the afternoon, so we have a deadline for school work.
Wednesday's we have Spanish class for the two girls at 11 am.
8:30 breakfast and table discussions, bible memory work and CC memory work we do together.

9:15ish we do chores.  Bring in the wood, clean up after breakfast, take care of the chickens.

9:30 is ideal for beginning schoolwork. Each child has their own checklist of what they need to accomplish in the day. Math is always first.

Jesse can get his work completed in about an hour if he is diligent.  I work mostly with him, occasionally with the girls as they need it, and I try to spend some time working with James who is 5 but isn't enrolled in our charter school since his birthday missed the Sept.1st deadline.  He is doing well, and is on his way to learning to read.  Luke is usually somewhere on my lap during this time.
I try and get laundry started, bedroom picked up, and other misc chores accomplished during this time.
All of James' free time is spent outside.  That boy loves being out there.

12:00 lunch and clean up lunch

1:30 usually I read aloud to the kids and have a coffee break.

2:30ish I work with the two girls on their writing papers for their class.

3:30 sometimes I finish up work with Jesse.

4:00 I prep for dinner, and try to take a walk outside.

5:30 is dinner

Some evenings after dinner we play games together.

8:00 is boys get ready for bed.  I lay down in their room and sing to them.  This is a precious time.

9:00 the girls bedtime.  It stretches later and later these days, as they like to talk more.

10:00 my bed time.




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