A Day in the Life of a Homeschooler
Good morning! Maybe it’s 7:30am – 8:00am – 9:30am, but my kids are up. Underpant-clad they make their way to the kitchen at varying times to fix their own breakfast. Maybe one of them isn’t hungry yet. That’s okay, you just woke up. Do your thing, Kid.
30 minutes, maybe an hour goes by while we settle into the day together. Now, it is definitely time to put on pants. We all know they don’t focus as well if they’re not wearing at least something. Yes, you may wear your cape. Yes, you may put on face paint. Yes, you may wear my shoes.
Time for school. We’ll open with a nature walk. Maybe we’ll journal about what we observe after. Maybe we’ll do a scavenger hunt. Maybe we’ll take a magnifying glass and inspect ant hills. Maybe we’ll just walk and talk. Too rainy for a nature walk? We open with reading books – cooking breakfast together – delivering Meals on Wheels for our weekly volunteer service – playing a board game together.
School is in session! Consult the white board, Everyone. Today we’re doing one lesson from our math curriculum, corresponding workbook pages, and a board game on the same topic. For language arts we will be reviewing a book we outlined earlier in the week, writing a book report, editing to add more verbs (part of speech of the week!), and doing a spelling lesson. In between lessons – or heck, smack in the middle of a lesson if it’s dragging on – go outside and play. We aren’t at our best when we’re frustrated. Have a snack, swing on the swing, come back in 20.
Today, we had to cram all of our lessons into the morning, so we could make it to our field trip this afternoon! After packing enough snacks to last through the month, out the door at 11am and off to the local grocery store – children’s museum – historical house – botanical garden – science lab – ice cream shop – county building. We meet with 10-50 of our closest friends and learn all about what goes on in our community! We listen, ask questions, do an activity, and afterwards, there’s time for play! Maybe everyone packed a lunch to take to the playground. Maybe we planned to do Spanish Club – Book Club – Minecrafter Club at the park that afternoon. By 4:00pm, we all head home though. As homeschoolers, we have no interest in trapping ourselves in SWFL commuter traffic!
Back at home, maybe we’ll cook dinner together. Maybe we didn’t get through all of our lessons and we have some catch up to do – our board game often lands here. Maybe there’s a Magic School Bus episode that matches the science lesson we’ll be doing tomorrow. Maybe not-at-home parent spends some time with the kids. Maybe tablet time is approved, but ONLY if you’re going to do Freckle – Night Zookeeper – Stack the States – Spelling City.
It was loud. It was hectic. There is food everywhere. It was fun. It was active. There was lots of laughter.
Good day and good night! Time to start over tomorrow, which will look exactly the same and totally different.
