A Day in the Life ~ Real Life Homeschool {Monday}

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I love Mondays because it usually means I am starting a new school week with a clean house. We clean all Sunday afternoon and I stayed up late to do some extra projects. It felt so good to wake up to a clean house! {Read: I don't always wake up to a clean house.} The library/office has had stacks of books on the floor and papers scattered to and fro for several weeks.

School is my focus on weekdays. We eat breakfast and unless there is another pressing need, we start school. Today, I did preschool with Bo first. (He does preschool about three times a week.)

He found a crayon from his box to match each color on the color wheel for art. 

Then colored a picture of his Playmobil guys and watercolored over it. 

Today's letter is V in All About Reading

Playing a fun game on counting syllables (and a having a banana for a snack).

Storytime

Then I had Bo go play LaLaLogic on the iPad so I could start school with Eliana. I haven't started a formal math program with Bo yet, but LaLaLogic includes math and thinking concepts appropriate for a preschooler. Unless we are rowing a book, preschool is simple, lasts less than 30 minutes, and the rest of the day Bo plays.


Malachi jumped in her spot to get help with his Editor In Chief, so Elli started her handwriting. 


Geared towards 4th and 5th grade, this workbook gets progressively harder, so I am ready to shelve it very soon. I wanted him to get through the first Review for Lessons 1-6 (half way), but he's been dragging his feet and hasn't progressed in this at all over the last few weeks, which means he hasn't been working on it much. He knows what to do, but thinks it is hard so doesn't want to do it on his own. If I sit with him, I end up doing the work for him, so I go over the concepts and send him to go work on it. (He didn't get much done).

I start school with Eliana. We are on Bigger Hearts for His Glory Unit 4. I doubled up on accident by starting on Day 2, and then backed up to do day 1.

She is on Lesson 6, Exercise 1 - Review Story Problems in Math Lessons. (Malachi is doing Teaching Textbooks in the background).

Playing a bartering game with essential oils for a History Activity. The guide has us using food, but I didn't have any snack type foods on hand. (Bo is playing chess on the computer). 

Our character trait this week is Trustworthiness.

We read One Small Square: Seashore and she is learning that the plants and animals that live along the seashore were each created with special adaptations to live on their part of the seashore. She narrates what she learns and adds to her science notebook.

Learning about invertebrates that live on the seashore.

All About Spelling Lesson 15 - spelling with tiles. 

All About Reading Lesson 30 - Warm up sheet

Reading "Ruben and the Secret Gift"

Toys follow the kids around all day.

Reading Activity

Comparing Settings

After school, the kids played, I gave Elli her first Jamicure, and then I had the kids help me tidy up the house before soccer practice.




Malachi and Eliana are playing Y soccer and had practices at 4:45 and 5:30. Eliana went with Malachi to the Y and sat with a friend while Malachi practiced and then they both headed over to their practice field from 5:30-6:30. Nathan and Dylan are playing high school soccer so they got home around the same time.

While they were gone, it was just Bo and I. Bo played an educational fractions game on the iPad, while I did some work online. (I wrote my Bigger post for Unit 3). This week, they both have games so I will go, but it is nice to be able to stay home when they have practices (I enjoy the quiet time).

Then, since we are spring cleaning and deleavening this week, we bagged up at least 7 trash bags filled with toys from the kids' room. I can usually send my kids up to clean their room with one rule: "ONLY pick up and put away the toys you want to keep." Works every time... until this last time! I reminded them and they called my bluff. And Nathan wanted the wifi password and owed me a project to earn it back, so he bagged up all the toys that were on the floor and we put them in the basement. Kids' room is clean now! (Don't worry, I told the kids we could set up a "toy store" in the basement to earn back their toys by taking care of their room and/or trading one basket full of toys for another.) I vaccumed and stripped the beds, but didn't get them made up tonight. So, they are either sleeping on a blanket or sleeping bag tonight. Confession: A week later, I still have not put new sheets on their bed! I think of it every night, but I'm too tired when I think of it!

At 7:45, Nathan said he was hungry, and asked me to cook dinner. With soccer season upon us, dinners are often late around here, and with so many people running in different directions, I usually wait until I'm hungry or someone else is. (I had sugar snap peas and cauliflower dipped in ranch at 5:00, so I wasn't hungry).

I made something quick and easy - spaghetti and a green salad.  Dinner was on paper plates tonight and we scrambled to find a fork for everyone. Luke ate with a serving spork, and Eliana ate her dinner with serving tongs. I'm not sure where all our forks have gone! I'm always finding dirty dishes in the boy's room, so I thought I'd find a few there, but didn't.

Tonight, Bo was upset that we didn't fill his plate FULL of spaghetti. In fact, Luke set his plate down and Bo thought that was his plate and started loading it up with parmesan cheese (which is not Luke's favorite), haha. He said he was sooooo hungry that he could eat ALL that and wanted his plate filled up. I told him there was plenty for seconds if he wanted more, and helped him fill up his plate with a salad. He was still so upset, he excused himself from the table and didn't eat a bite, LOL! He must not have been THAT hungry!

Jordan complained that the spaghetti sauce and the ranch tasted funny, and Dylan went to do homework at a friends house, so he didn't eat with us. Dinner conversation turned to our day, our plans for the coming week, including plans for services at church and soccer games. It was 9pm before we finished.

Luke cleaned up dinner (we are eating on paper plates this week since I am spring cleaning) and ran the dishwasher.

I oiled up the kids and got the diffuser going in the kid's bedroom and then read 3 chapters in Marco Polo for Storytime. Then I sent Eliana back down to brush her teeth since she forgot. I filled the diffuser for the boys' room and said goodnight to everyone at 10pm.

I am typing up everything I can remember about our day and Luke is taking a Spanish test for a college class.

House is not as shiny and clean as it was last night when I went to bed, but I can't stay up late two nights in a row anymore. It's already past my bedtime, so I will edit and add photos to my post tomorrow and go to bed (um, now editing almost a week later, lol).

Real Life Homeschooling confessions for today:

  • I ate a piece of Jordan's leftover birthday cake and it gave me terrible digestive upset. How can something that tastes so good do such bad things to me?! I have been trying to stay off wheat until I can heal my gut, but it is hard!
  • I ate a whole bag of Ghiradelli Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt Carmel chocolate squares (pretty sure that's not healing). If a kid caught me sneaking a chocolate, I shared using the "I cut you pick rule" when I was feeling generous (that was until the bag started dwindling). 
  • I ate pretty much on plan the rest of the day: Triple Zero yogurt for breakfast with a shot of Ningxia Red - FP. Cheesy cauliflower soup for lunch (with a few leftover potatoes thrown in - so Crossover). Brown rice and seed crackers with Light Laughing Cow cheese (E). Sugar Snap peas and cauliflower dipped in ranch (S). Dreamfield's pasta for spaghetti with sauce and salad (Crossover because I had more than 1 tsp Ranch dressing on my salad). 
  • I'm out of Ginger EO and missing my GGMS!
  • I got a call from the school nurse this morning because Nathan was not feeling well (still). I took him a decongestant, Fishemen's Friends cough drops and offered to oil him up. Yeah... no. Soccer is really running my boys ragged and they are not healing, despite my attempts to help them. They need rest. (Nathan is home sick today). 
  • I purposely did not pay off the boys' school lunch account today because the secretary told me that when the bill goes over $15, they can still go through the hot lunch line or get a "grab and go" sack lunch from the cold lunch line, but they cannot buy Propel water or tea (those are $1.50 a pop!). I bought them each a case of Snapple and Vitamin Water for half that price to last them all month. (Because we are keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread this week, I will be packing their lunch all week. Today, Dylan packed an unleavened tortilla and turkey wrap, some organic corn puffs, and a Vitamin Water.)
  • I didn't shower today. (What is it about Mondays?! As soon as I post this, I am going to go take a shower before I start school!) 
  • It's past my bedtime. When I crawled in bed, I wished that I had taken a shower first, but was too tired. 
Thanks for letting me share a peek into my homeschool day! 

Tomorrow I will share more of our life around our homeschool. If you have any questions, please ask and I will answer them in a Q&A on Friday!

4 comments

  1. Love the real! I slipped in paper plates too--can't do it all at this busy time!

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  2. You made me smile - BIG! Thanks for being real! Blessings to your family. Hope everyone is well soon.

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  3. This is is a great post :) I love to see a day in the life. We started flag football, so I feel your pain of later dinners and fewer showers! We were down to only a few forks. They go to the same place as missing socks apparently.

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  4. No wonder you're tired at the end of the day, you're so busy! We finally had to buy new silverware at Costco recently because our spoons had been walking off? It's amazing how they disappear!!

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