A Typical School Day At Our House

From the start I said I wanted to homeschool because little children, especially boys, are not made for school.  I wanted a different approach for my children that allowed them to explore subjects through good books and hands-on projects.  But I still found myself very drawn to the idea of a schedule to be followed and certain subjects to be covered on a daily rotation.  It was the school teacher in me that didn't easily go away.



There are so many things that come into conflict with a schedule on a daily basis:  The baby, a sick friend who needs a meal, an unexpected visitor, and my husband who abhors schedules and loves to play soccer and Legos.   I have long ago thrown away the neat little grid I used to keep posted on the fridge and have learned to take a deep breath when things start unraveling.  It is in those moments I am able to realize that living life is an education for a 6 year old.  First grade isn't all about completing the work book. Building a solid relationship with his father is important too.  Showing kindness to a neighbor in need is a life-long lesson with rewards that go far beyond chapter 10 in the history book.  As the years progress, we will have to continue to step up our school-time requirements, but for now I  have stripped back my expectations to a bare minimum and then allowed myself a measure of delighted surprise when we get through "the basics" and are able to move on to a subject or two that I would not necessarily consider to be essential during the younger years.

Rather than creating a schedule for each day, I have started listing things in order of priority.  It generally goes something like this:

1.  Daily devotions and Bible memory.
2. Daily chores.
3. Loan's first grade lessons:  reading, handwriting, and math.
4. Sierra's kindergarten lessons:  letter for the day, a page in her kindergarten workbook, and math.
5. Group work:  calendar, graphing the weather, number for the day, and First Language Lessons.
6. History on Monday and Tuesday; Science on Thursday.
7. Music on Monday, Art on Tuesday, Spanish on Wednesday, Nature Walk on Thursday.

 If we get through the first four items on the list on a given day, I feel okay about what we have accomplished.  If we get through number five, I feel very good about what we have done.  Numbers 6&7 are frosting on the cake.  The children love these lessons, and putting them at the end of the day doesn't make pushing school into the afternoon feel like drudgery.  And if we don't get to history or science or one of the other subjects during our "school time" I can usually pull a bedtime story or game off the shelf that fits the class description in some form or the other.

Being able to let go of my natural affection for schedules and my desire to finish the WHOLE list has really made our days a lot more pleasant, not to mention a more pleasant relationship with my fun-loving husband.  As I watch him gleefully roll in a pile of leaves with the oldest two, I feel a true joy in knowing that we are blessed to have the best hours of the day to spend not only educating our children, but truly teaching them how to live life to the fullest.