A Day in the Life...

No day here is ever the same, but on a typical day this is what happens:

At 6:30 I wake up and shower, while Elijah is usually awake Noah on the other hand will sometimes sleep until 7 or later.  They are required to stay in bed until 7:30 reading.   At 7:00 I have some quiet time while my hubby is getting ready for work.  Then I begin to prepare breakfast.  At 7:30 they are to get up, potty and dress themselves.  I get the Zach up and dressed.  About 7:45 we are sitting down to breakfast.  After breakfast we do a quick clean up and I begin a few chores, while the older boys go outside and play for a about 15-20 minutes.  Then at 8:30 ish, we begin our school day, which always begins with calendar time.  During our calendar time we do the days of the  week, months of the year, weather, how many days we have been in school and then temperatures (inside and outside).

Calendar Time

After calendar time, Noah gets to play his learning games on the iPad, and Elijah and I begin his school day with math, then phonics or language.  About 9:00 I put Zach down for his morning nap.  After that I spend some time with Noah doing his "school" while Elijah works independently on Spelling, and handwriting.  At 9:30 Elijah does his read aloud to me, and then after that we take a break until about 10:15.  At 10:15 we do either Science or History depending on the day, Noah will usually join us for Science, but not History.  He had the option to either play in his room, or get something out of our closet, which is puzzles, manipulative and that type of thing.

Noah playing his iPad learning games.

Elijah using the Bananagrams do practice his spelling.

Lunch is at 11:15 and after that we have some more clean up time and then some some afternoon chores.

I just had to throw a picture of Zach in here, he is enjoying his lunch!

Elijah doing his chore of unloading the dishwasher.

At 12:00 we either prepare to run errands or if we are going to be home we have some read aloud time.  At 1:00 they each take some quiet time in their respective places (Noah in their room, Elijah in our room, and Zach is usually going down for another nap).  They have quiet time for about an hour, then they can get up and either play outside or do some more "closet activities" until 3:00.  Sometimes in the afternoon I will do a craft or art project with them.  On this day we did a sailboat craft.

  At 3:00 we have a snack and then go outside.  At 4:00 they are allowed to watch TV (PBS) until about 5:00, then its time to get dinner ready.  They usually help by setting the table or playing with Zach.  Depending on the dinner, Elijah will sometimes help with the prep.  At 5:30 my hubby gets home and we sit down to dinner.  After dinner we have our family Bible lesson, and then clean up dinner and get baths.  By 7:00 the boys are playing in their room and bedtime is 8:00.  

That is a typical day in our homeschool!!  I have a schedule that we try to follow and that helps our day run pretty smoothly for the most part.

This post is linking up to the iHomeschool Network Not Back to School Hop!!

The First week of School

This past week was our first "official" week of school.   We had been doing some stuff for about 2 weeks, I decided to ease into in to.  So this past week we did our full on schedule!  My boys did fantastic!  Mommy on the other hand was a little frazzled some days.  I am still trying to work out finding time for my preschooler, Noah.  Elijah who is in second grade is needing a bit more "hand holding" than I was hoping for.  BUT we will once again adjust our schedule and with a little more planning on my part I think this week will go smoother.

My plan for this week is to try schooling them simultaneously at the table.   Not too sure what will happen but I am hoping for good results.  My hope is that I will be able to get them started on a paper or activity and then independently they can complete it.

Here a few photos from our first week, and few from before that as well:

Doing a little play on the table.

Having some iPad learning games time.

Noah doing his school work.

Yup some more curriculum came this week and that meant another box to play with.

Elijah doing his phonics work.

Family Bible lesson time.

Learning about the Days of Creation.

Now for the Back To School pictures:

My big preschooler and 2nd grader!

The best attempt at getting one of all three of them!  :)

The biggest news of the whole week, the tooth finally came out!!  After being loose for a very long time he finally lost it!  He has three more loose teeth so this might be an expensive month for the tooth fairy!

This post is linking up at the iHomeschool Network Not Back to School Blog Hop!!  

Our "School Room"

When we decided to homeschool I had wonderful visions of what I wanted in our school room.  I knew I would not get a room, so then came the thoughts of where could I go.  I had thoughts of using our basement, but its not finished and in order to finish it off it would cost a chunk of money, not to mention there are no windows!  Then I thought about using the babies room and moving him in with his older bothers, but I am just not quite ready for that yet.  So in the mean time I came up with using a corner of our dining room, which was already used for storing their coloring books and homework supplies anyway.  We use the work box system, so both of my boys have their work box carts in the dining room.  In each of the boxes are their work books and on top of their carts they each get a pencil box which holds 3 pencils, an eraser and dry erase markers.  All of their art supplies are in a separate place since I didn't want to buy double of everything.

To the left on the wall is our calendar board.  The carts with the colorful drawers are their workboxes.  Preschool one on the left and 2nd grader on the right.  The middle drawers hold coloring books, highlights magazines, and other miscellaneous items.  The globe I found at a garage sale for $1.50, only to get home and  have my hubby point out that its outdated, it still has East and West Germany!  HA!!  Oh well, it was cheap!

Here is our calendar board, I am thinking its going to need a bit more dressing up!  I am also using the "Day's in School" chart, "Today's Weather Is" chart, and the "Todays Temperature" chart, all from www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com.

Second came the question of where are we going to store the books, and manipulative's that come along with homeschooling?  We have a closet in our hallway that was really not used for much except a place to "hide" things.  So I cleaned that out and it has become our "closet", aka the place where their manipulative's are.  These are games, puzzles, and toys that only come out during what we call "closet time".

Lots of games, puzzles, flashcards, pattern blocks, geo boards....

This is the top shelf of the closet, this is where I keep our art supplies.

 I was able to find an amazing solid wood bookcase at a second hand store for an even more amazing price!  I was super excited!  So that is in our living room and holds our books.  I have our school binders, teacher manuals, story books and reference books all on here.  Also the bottom two shelves are for the babies toys, and books.  Which is why in the picture they are empty!  :)

Yup the baby loves to pull everything off!!  

We also have a computer in the dining room, which is used for school work.  Its a really old eMac that my hubby got on ebay for $35!!  I am really proud of him for finding such an amazing deal, it works great for the kiddos and its allowed us to be able to better control which websites they go to.

That about sums up where we do school, well so far!  We have only been doing school for about a week.  :)

This post is participating in the iHomeschool Networks Not Back to School Blog Hop!!  You can find more great "school rooms" here.