Day in the Life

It's the final week of the Heart of the Matter Not Back to School Blog Hop, and we're sharing a sample day from our homeschool lives.  


Here is how a typical day is supposed to go:
6:00 - Mama is up, preparing for the day.
7:30 - Boys up, eat breakfast, get dressed
8:00 - Red Zone (tidy-up, clean-up)
9:00 - Dale: Bible
9:20 - Dale: Phonics / Spelling
9:30 - Dale: Handwriting
9:45 - Dale: Mon/Wed/Fri - Speech, Tue/Thur - Typing
10:00 - Both: Outside playtime
10:30 - Both: Snack
10:45 - Dale: Math
11:00 - Dale: Mon/Tue/Wed : Science, Thur - Other
11:30 - Dale: Put away school stuff, Play with Tyler if he is awake. Alan: Help Mama make lunch
12:00 - Lunch
12:30 - Red zone
1:00 - Social Studies
1:30 - Dale: Finish any leftover schoolwork, read. Alan: Nap
3:00 - Play


(I schedule Alan's activities in different orders, depending on which boy needs the most help from me with any given assignment.)


Here is how our plans played out last week, the first Thursday of our new year:


6:45 - Boys start waking up.  Why?  Why, children?  You are supposed to be sleeping for at least another half hour.  I need to shower before I see your smiling faces.  And pray.  I must pray before I see any not-smiling faces!


7:15 - Off to an early start, we have oatmeal.  Daddy is home - his day is starting unusally late because of a meeting.  He heads out the door right after breakfast.


7:45 - With things moving so quickly, Dale and Alan play outside while I give Tyler a bath.


8:00 - Morning Red Zone.  It's Alan's potty day!  Oh, the joy.  My boys love their turn to clean the potty.


9:00 - In spite of the fact that we just straightened the entire house, Alan's watercolor picture from yesterday is missing.  And I need it for him to glue some cotton balls on.  Now.  I suspect it's either been thrown away or is lost in the growing mound of things that need filing that has accumulated this our first school week.  I finally give up.  I need an attitude adjustment.  I wouldn't allow this from the boys.  Big breath, and we move along with Dale's Bible lesson.  Alan has already begun to amuse himself with other things.  We are now running behind on our schedule.  Somewhere in all this Tyler screams in his bed for several minutes, protesting naptime.  He finally gives up and goes to sleep.


9:25 - Dale begins a phonics worksheet and Alan and I play Boggle Jr.  Dale has been promised he can join us when his worksheet is done.  Worksheet finished in record time, we play Boggle together.  With slight adjustment for age level, this is beneficial to both of them.  Yay!


9:40 - Dale moves on to handwriting copywork: a letter to friends he dictated on Monday and has been copying all week.  Again, I dangle something fun to keep him moving: typing is next, and he can get to it when the letter is finished.  Meanwhile,  Alan and I sing the Months of the Year and Days of the Week songs, sing and clap this week's nursery rhyme, and read today's Bible story.


9:55 - Still running behind schedule, Dale begins typing while Alan and I head outside to gather a few things for our next activity.  1 stick, 2 leaves, and 3 blades of grass later we are inside matching up numbers to growing things.


10:15 - The boys head out for a little fresh air, and hopefully run off some energy while they're out there.  A mama can hope, anyway. ;)


10:30 - Chocolate pudding for a snack, a special treat, thanks to Alan's next activity....


10:45 - I set Alan up to fingerpaint and practice forming the number '3' with .... chocolate pudding.  Dale gets going on Singapore Math.


Tyler wakes up from his nap.


11:00 - We continue our art lesson from yesterday, lines as an element of art.  We read Mirette on the Highwire and The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses and notice all the examples of lines in the artwork.  We then make our own diagonal line pictures.


11:40 - Early lunch. Ravioli for the boys.  Odds and ends for me. 


The boys play for a while, then we do our Afternoon Red Zone.  Time to empty the can again!


1:00 - We settle in to celebrate National Aviation Day.  Dale has been reading about the Wright Brothers, so he tells us a thing or two about them, then we read about another early airplane inventor.  This one in France.  We follow this with a How Airplanes Are Made video. 


1:40 - Tyler is really really needing a nursing and a nap, but I manage to squeeze in one more book about flying before tucking Alan, and then Tyler, into bed for a nap.


1:55 - Sit down, take a big breath.  I check email.  Dale reads.  I do some planning for school.


2:55 - I enlist Dale to help me do a quick pick-up in the living room, and then I take pictures of my living room for the open house post.


4:00 - Blog post is up.  Tyler is up.  Time to wake Alan up and cook up something for supper!  Before I know it, the evening is spent, and we fall into bed for a good night's sleep before it is time to get up and do it all again!