Showing posts with label a day in the life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a day in the life. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

A Day in the Life: Video

**This post contains affiliate links.**

Today I thought I would do a trial run at a video, and I think it actually turned out pretty well!  So I thought I would go ahead and share it.

I realized a few things while doing this video log of our day:

Number 1: I can't do two things at once!  (Just take a look at the calendar time section of this video!)
Number 2: I totally forgot our Bible time which we would normally have after calendar time.

I really hope you enjoy seeing what our day looks like at this point in the school year.





In the video I mentioned our new CD that we were listening to, it is called Kids in Action by Greg & Steve (I think in the video I said that it was Kids in Motion).  We have loved it so far!  A great way to get the kids involved in movement and exercise first thing in the morning.

Our calendar notebooks are from Homeschool Creations.



Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Our Homeschool Daily Schedule for 2015-16

Schedules!  Yes I love schedules!  I know most people are not that way, but for me I function so much better when I have something written down to tell me what I need to do and when.

In our homeschool we thrive with schedules!  Although I am not a strict, down to the minute scheduler, we do follow an outline for our days.  You will notice the color codes for each child, we use this for most everything in our home.  From notebooks to cups to pencil boxes, I try to stick to their colors.  Plus it just makes the schedule look so pretty!



Here is a basic run down of what a day in our life looks like:

8:00     Breakfast/ Daily Chore
8:30     Exercise/Large Motor
8:45     Calendar
9:00     Bible
9:20     Preschool with Zach, Elijah Reading, Noah Handwriting/Typing or Coding
9:45     Science (M,T,TH), Art/Experiments (F)
10:10   Snack
10:20   Math
10:45   Language Arts with Elijah, Free Time for the other two boys
11:15   Spanish
11:45   Lunch
12:30   Reading time with Zach, Quiet Time for the other two boys
12:45   Reading/Spelling with Noah, Elijah Typing/Coding
1:15    History
1:45    Read Aloud
2:15    Quiet Time for Mom, the boys do quiet activities
3:00    Snack/Outside Time

Although the times are pretty specific, it just gives me a basic guide to follow.  I print this off and post it in our school room, along with one for each specific child.  There might be some adjusting once we actually start our school year.  Since we have not done our History program before I am not sure exactly how long it will take so I might need to add a bit more time to it.  Wednesday is our Co-Op day, so I do not have any school work assigned for that day, we are going to try to get our things done the other days.  If I need to we will throw a few things in before we have to be at Co-Op in the mornings, I am hoping to not have to do this, but we will see.

For Elijah this year I am going to allow him to work through his subjects in any order as long as he completes the assignments. The exception being for Bible, Science, and History as those are our all together subjects, he will need to wait for the rest of us.  My goal for him this year is to become more independent and learn some time management skills.


Thursday, July 30, 2015

Through the Eyes of the Student

I have been following the ihomeschool network's *Not* Back to School link ups, and this week is Through the Eyes of the Student.  I really didn't know how to come at this post.  I saw some really creative choices, and I decided to give my 10 year old the camera for the day to take pictures of what he was doing.  That did not go well, he did not get any usable photos!  So on to another idea that I came up with and I did video interviews with each of my 3 kids.

I asked them each four questions and video taped their answers.  I hope you enjoy them and get a good laugh out of them, because they are raw and un cut!



My one disclaimer is that with Elijah at the end his answer to what his day looks like is that its friendless.  I was curious about that answer so I asked him about it and he just meant that he is just with his brothers all day and not his friends.  That made me feel better!  I was a little concerned with that answer at first, he does have friends but, yes, unlike traditional school he is not surrounded by them all day long.

I hope you enjoyed my kiddos views of what it looks like to be homeschooled.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

A Day In the Life

Every year I like to explore my day a bit deeper.  For me, that is doing A Day in the Life post.  It's so fun to go back and take a peek at how my life has changed.  Like last year I had a 9 year old, 6 year old and 2 year old.  My day looks totally different now than it did then!  I tried to get at detailed as possible with out being too boring, I hope you enjoy this little glance into what my day is like.

This was a Tuesday, and this was a pretty typical day for us.

7:15  Kids woke up, and kinda wandered around for a bit before they got dressed and had breakfast
7:20  I actually got out of bed and began my getting ready process
7:45  Zach is crying, so I go to find out why, and it turned out that Noah told him it wasn't time to get up yet and so they were in their room.  I proceeded to tell him he could get up and then he of course wanted me to help him get dressed.  Once that was done, I got him his breakfast and he began to eat.
7:54  On my way back to my bedroom to finish getting ready, I poke my head in and tell Elijah to get up, this is very unusual for him because he is usually up and dressed by this point, but oh well! We are getting to those pre-teen sleeping in days.
8:05 I sit down to begin my morning devotions, get interrupted a few times before I take my self in to our bathroom and turn the fan on to drown out the children being crazy!  Once again not very typical, they usually leave me alone, but since I had been out of the room already that tends to stir the pot!

8:17 Finish devotions and head to the kitchen for my breakfast.
8:30  Finish breakfast and look at my menu to see what is scheduled for dinner, its spaghetti so that's good to know that I don't have to do any prep ahead of time for that.
8:45 we get ready to take Zach to preschool, he begins his day there at 9.


9:10 Back home and we begin our school day.
9:15 Science, we talked about Estuaries.
9:30  Help Elijah with his English.  During this time Noah is playing in the other room


9:45   I begin Math with both of them.


10:15  I do History and Reading with Noah, he is learning to write his own summary sentences, which he did very well on for the first try!  Elijah is off playing in the other room at this point because he finished his math.


10:45  Spelling, Elijah was having a really bad attitude so this lesson was cut short and he ended up just writing his words.
10:50 until 11:15  I take some time to chill out before heading to get Zach, the boys are just playing at this point.  We are in the process of cleaning out some toys, books, and such so I took this time to get those listed in our local Facebook group.
11:17  Head out the door to get Zach from preschool, it ends at 11:30.
11:45  We eat lunch, Elijah usually takes care of his own, he prefers eating leftovers over sandwiches, the other two prefer peanut butter and jelly.  So after getting them all settled I prepare my lunch which today was leftovers from last nights dinner.  Usually I will make a smoothie or not eat anything.  I know very bad!!
12:10  I begin trying to wrangle Zach to finish his lunch so we can get on with his nap time routine.
12:15  Success!!  He is getting settled down for his story time and cuddle time.
12:25  Zach is in his room now until about 3:30 or so.  He can rest or play as long as he stays in his room.
12:30 I begin geography with the older boys, we are learning about Japan so we learned a few new phrases in Japanese.
12:45  Now its time for our Read Aloud, I read two picture books to Noah, and then we continue in Gladys Alward.
1:05  Finally its my quiet afternoon time, the older boys play quietly in the basement while I do my Bible reading, blogging, and whatever else I need to get done.

The rest of our afternoon will proceed like this:
3:00 They get a snack and are allowed to watch an hour of TV
4:00  My hubby usually gets home about this time and we try to have some quiet time to talk together while the kiddos play.
5:00  I begin making dinner and we are usually eating about 5:30
6:00  Is bath time for the boys
7:30  Bed time for all of the boys, Elijah is allowed to stay up until about 8:30 or 9 reading.

That is a pretty typical day!   If you can call any day in the life of a family typical!  I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse!

Monday, August 26, 2013

A Day in the Life....

I am currently homeschooling a 3rd grader (8 years old), a Kindergartener (5.5 years old), and I also have a 2 year old tag along.  So here is a little glimpse into what a day is like at my house!

I posted our schedule a few weeks ago, and in that post I mentioned how its just a basic guideline to how I would like our day to go.  So that is always my starting point, and then whenever I feel like I have gotten off track I always turn back to the schedule to see what I should be doing.  

I am recording what today was like, Monday August 26.

6:30 am- I get up to have some quiet time
7:00 am- I shower and get ready for the day
7:35 am- Time to get the kiddos up, which by the way they are ALWAYS up, never have I had to wake them up!  (We recently instated the rule that they are to stay in their beds until I come to get them, with the exception of using the bathroom!)  As soon as they get up, they make their beds and get dressed, while I work on getting the two year old dressed.
8:00 am- Breakfast, this morning it was an English muffin for Elijah, Toast with peanut butter and jelly for Noah, and pancakes from the freezer for Zach.
8:15 am- clean up breakfast and then time to begin chores, chores are finished before we begin school (I will be sharing about how our chore system works later this week!)
8:45 am- I sit down to play rice with Zach while the other two are playing quietly.  We are easing into our school schedule, so we were beginning our day with some quiet play.
9:00 am- Elijah begins school with 15 minutes of reading from his Book Basket, he chose to read Pedro's Journal, a diary about Christopher Columbus.  Noah plays with the play dough for a while and Zach soon joins him.
9:30 am- Elijah and I sit down to go over his Bible lesson, while the other two were playing quietly (ok, so maybe not really quietly, but they were playing)
9:45 am- Time for our first Math U See lesson!  It make me laugh but all three of them love watching the videos!  Maybe because the TV is on!
10:15 am- Snack and Outside time!  Today I decide that its such a beautiful morning (and its supposed to be SUPER hot this afternoon!), that we would play outside until lunch.
11:30 am- Lunch time!!  During lunch I read a bit from our History lesson for the day, we are talking about Christopher Columbus this week.  That is met with, a 2 year old being done with lunch and ready to get down, followed shortly by him peeing his pants.  After that I look at the clock and decide its close enough to nap time, so we got through our hug and kiss ritual (he thinks he can't sleep with out hugs and kisses from both boys first, its really pretty cute!).  With him down for a nap we finish the history reading.
12:10 pm- Start our calendar time, I prefer doing this in the morning but neither boy was into to it today so I put it off until later.
12:20 pm- Time for Noah to do his Kindergarten work, and Elijah begins working on his Handwriting.
12:45 pm- Finished with school for the day!

You can also check out what last year was like with a 2nd grader, Pre K'er, and infant here!

So what does your day look like??

I am linking this post up to the 5th Annual NOT Back to School Hop sponsored by the iHomeschool Network!  Be sure to hop over and check out what others are saying about their days!

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

A Day in the Life: Homeschooling Edition

Last year I did " A Day in the Life"  post and found it quite interesting.  That was prior to homeschooling, so now I think its time to do A Day in the Life: Homeschooling edition!   So here it is, this was done on January 22, 2013.  I am homeschooling an 8 year old boy, a 5 year old boy and then we also have a VERY active 17 month old boy.  For this I just recorded our morning routine and our homeschool day, since it can get a little tedious to jot things down through out the day.  I do have to say that it was after breakfast before I remembered that I wanted to record things this day!  YUP!!  That's how it goes, so up until about 8:15 things are just a rough estimate!  With out further ado here is our day:

6:15  Our alarm goes off and hubby get up, I on the other hand get to sleep another half an hour, and by golly I'm gonna take it!
6:45  I get up and get myself showered and together
7:25  This is my quiet time for the day, I do my devotions and have some prayer time.  My children are supposed to be either still sleeping or playing quietly, but I hear that things are getting a bit out of hand.  So I unfortunately cut my prayer time a bit short in order to tame the madness that is sure to ensue shortly!
7:45   Get Zach up, changed and dressed all the while trying to convince the other two to get dressed.  Although I can't really blame them for not wanting to, it is after all a whopping 2 degrees outside!  So I give in and let them stay in their PJ's, after all I am in my comfy clothes too!
8:00  Its breakfast time, and of course every one decides they want something different.  I normally don't allow this but I realized that we had muffins left over from the other day and they need to be eaten, so Elijah has a muffin, Zach and Noah get pancakes (from the freezer), and I settle for a bowl of cereal.
8:15  After a quick clean up, I take a little time with Zach to play and "fill his attention cup" (something new I am trying).  That lasts for about 5 minutes, when Noah comes in asking to play the iPad.  When I tell him he can't play right now but he can play after his school work is done, he promptly asks to begin school.  He leaves the room only to come back a few minutes later with the book that was in his first box.  Meanwhile I have Elijah asking for help with his English assignment.  So much for one on one time with Zach!
8:25  Begin school with Noah
8:45  Elijah and Zach get kicked out of the school room for being crazy, they are sent to play blocks in the living room.  (During my school time with Noah Elijah is  supposed to be entertaining Zach, that doesn't always happen but we are working towards it!)  Their play time only lasted about 10 minutes until they were back to wreak more havoc.
9:00  Finish school with Noah and begin with Elijah, while Zach continues to destroy the school room. Noah is finally getting his iPad time.
9:05  Zach begin his daily crying, yes this is a daily occurrence, the kid doesn't deal well with not having someone to play with.
9:40  Finished up Math and History with Elijah and now he is taking his 15 minutes of silent reading time.  I try to sit down and play with Zach, but am quickly interrupted by Noah asking if its snack time.
9:50  I give in and give snacks, because since the mention of snacks Zach has been following me around crying and saying "Juice", "Cracker".
10:00  I take this time while they are eating snack to get started on our dinner, which is chili tonight.  Upon starting the dinner I wonder why I didn't brown the beef last night while I was making dinner, thinking that would have saved me some time.  Oh well maybe I will remember next time!  (Probably not!)
10:20  Finished making the chili and cleaning up so I sit down to get on Facebook and check some email, while I listen to fighting boys in the other room.
10:45  I realize that I should probably be getting some cleaning done since they are all occupied.  So I get up and start to clean.
11:20  Start preparing lunch, pretty excited that the boys entertained themselves that long so I could get some stuff done.
11:30  Throw in a load of laundry before sitting down to lunch.
11:40  Clean up lunch while the boys continue their game of battle fields or Star Wars, I am never really sure, but they are playing with each other and not fighting!
12:00  Mail arrives with a special package of some new pattern blocks, the boys get pretty excited about helping me open the box.  They thought it was legos, sorry boys!
12:10  Change Zach and put him down for his nap
12:15  Begin Elijah's spelling lesson
12:30  Finish spelling and now Elijah will get some iPad time while Noah plays legos.


There you have it!  That is an average homeschooling day here!  What does a day look like in your homeschool?  Do you start early or late?