This is a day-in-the-life of our homeschool. This is just one day – not every day looks
like this, of course. The beauty of
life. Izzy (7) is a second grader, Addy
(5) is technically a kindergartner, and Paige is almost one!
I eat breakfast before the girls this morning. I’m trying to make this a habit: get up around 6:30 when Jared’s alarm goes
off, dress, brush teeth, wash face, get coffee, get Paige and nurse her because
this is when she’s been getting up lately, put her back down because she’s
still sleepy, read a little, eat breakfast and read a little more, wake the big
girls up around 7:45 if they’re not up already (they haven’t been).
The big girls sit down to breakfast around ten after 8:00,
after they change clothes and make beds, and we pray before they eat. We talk, then I read from The Jesus Storybook Bible. Today’s story is about the Pharisees praying
out loud for everyone to hear, and showing off, when really they are hollow
inside. Then Jesus teaches the people how
to pray, i.e. The Lord’s Prayer. Which
is good because we memorized that last school year and needed to review
it. We then discussed the “forgive us
our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” part and talked a
little about our need for forgiveness every day. And how no one is perfect and we mess up a
lot. And Izzy said, “Like Pinocchio!”
I then read Psalm 150 twice which we are currently
memorizing.
I read a poem by Walter De La Mare, our term’s poet.
The girls were done eating so we cleared the table, they got
coloring books and I read for 10 minutes or so of “King Lear” from Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare. We can never read huge chunks of this – I read
a couple of paragraphs then we rolled the dice to see who would narrate. I was evens, Izzy odds. We rolled an even the first two times, so
after the third reading I told Izzy it was her turn. Incidentally, the beginning of “King Lear” introduces
the king’s two older daughters as shallow and hollow people, but unfortunately
neither of the girls made that connection with our Bible story. I guess I could have asked the question, “How
does this compare with what we read earlier about the Pharisees?” but I just
now thought of that. Poo.
At some point Paige woke up so I brought her into the
kitchen and she had her breakfast and hung out with us in her high chair.
I pulled up our current hymn on youtube, “
Come Thou Fount” (which I loooooove), and we listened/sang/danced to it. The
big girls put their coloring books away and got out materials for writing. Izzy did copywork from the story “The
Minotaur” from
Tanglewood Tales by
Nathaniel Hawthorne: “He put his whole brave heart into the effort.” She completed, as neatly as possible, the
first three words, which took about 10 minutes.
Of course, she had to redo a few letters. Addy wanted me to write “cute bunny” for her
to trace. Then she wanted me to add “lives
by our house.” (We found some baby
bunnies close to our house the other day.)
Addy then left to go brush her teeth and hair and feed the
dogs while Izzy and I did math. I am
really liking Frank Hall’s Arithmetic
Primer so far. Apparently so is
Izzy. When I asked her at lunch today
what she had enjoyed about her day so far, she mentioned math as one of the
things. (Or maybe she’s like her mommy
in that regard :) )
We finished math and Addy finally finished feeding the dogs
after yelling at the squirrels I don’t know how many times for eating from the
bird feeders. I threw dinner in the
crock pot (French dip sandwiches – yum!), Addy helped, Izzy brushed her teeth
and hair (not really her hair, she likes to pretend she tries to brush
it). Paige is down from her high chair
and crawling who knows where. :)
I cut up a cantaloupe and we take the rinds outside, a few
lots down, to the aforesaid baby bunnies.
There are three of them in a hole in the middle of a vacant lot. Izzy and I went to the store the other night
and on the way home I spotted a rabbit in that lot. When we pulled into the driveway, Izzy got
out and walked over towards the rabbit, very slowly, and spotted the
babies. She ran back, we got Addy, they
put on rain boots (because it was a little rainy) and we all trekked back
over. The mama had hopped off a little
ways but kept her eye on us.
The girls drop the cantaloupe rinds all over and stare at
the bunnies and Addy says over and over again that she wants to hold one and we
watch a butterfly land on the stroller and then on Paige’s head twice.
(Of course my camera wouldn’t focus for that picture.)
 |
| The hole is to the right of the big piece of cantaloupe rind. |
 |
| Paige is curious. |
Back at the house, I have Addy pick a book (she picks a
Curious George story) and we three sit on the couch and read. Paige plays in the floor. I then read a few pages of “The Minotaur”
from Tanglewood Tales to Izzy and she
narrates. Addy leaves to go play with
the globe. Halfway through my reading to
Izzy, Paige gets fussy so I nurse her and finish reading. We then move back to the table because Addy
wants to paint. Izzy and I do a reading
lesson, with regular commentary from Addy (she’s good at creating sentences
with the words Izzy is learning to read).
Izzy doesn’t end up actually reading any sentences today because all we
manage to do is learn about eight new words in our allotted time (15-20
minutes). I don’t want to go too long
and risk Izzy becoming bored. Short
lessons = eagerness to learn (hopefully).
So far so good.
We’re I’m hungry by now (it’s around 11:15 or so), so
we break to fix lunch and the girls play.
I eat and start laundry and try to clean up the kitchen some. The girls sit down around noon to eat. I alternate cutting up small pieces of
cantaloupe and smashing them for Paige (as she only has a limited amount of
teeth to work with) and reading The
Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Due to Paige
shoveling down her food and my effort to keep up, general conversation, and
Paige’s loud cries of commentary, i.e. baby shouts, we only manage to get
through half of a chapter.
We clean up the kitchen, I mess with the laundry, and make
Izzy and Addy go outside in the back yard.
They have been resistant to this idea all summer because it’s been so
hot. But the weather is cool this week –
low to mid 80s, and they need it. I
nurse Paige, she goes to sleep, I read a little and pick up a little.
The big girls keep wanting to come in but I tell them a few
more minutes. “But you already said
that.” I know. But because of my insistence that you stay
out, you end up constructing an apparatus to transport toys back and forth to
each other with a bucket. See? It’s good for you.
I finally let them come in around 2:00 and they play for
15 more minutes before we have our daily rest/quiet time. Izzy gets some books to look at, I get a book
(the first book in the Kristin
Lavransdatter trilogy), and Addy has to go lay down with nothing, poor
thing. It would do her good to nap and I’m
trying my best to convince her of this, but she isn’t buying. Izzy lays on my bed and I read a Curious
George story to her because “Addy got to pick one this morning and I didn’t.” Then I lay on the couch and Addy gets up to
tell me something every ten minutes. Addy finally lays on her bed without getting
up for about 15 minutes before Paige is up, and then we’re all up.
It’s time to check on the bunnies again. While we’re watching the bunnies I think of a
podcast I listened to last week about how observation skills need to be taught
and wonder cultivated. So I ask the
girls if they have any questions about the bunnies. Is there anything they’re wondering
about? Addy has lots of questions, but
Izzy not as much. Maybe it’s her age – I
have to really coax her to slow down and think a minute. Or it could be her personality – she’s an
on-the-go person. She finally comes up
with “Do they ever come out of their hole?”
Good question. I wonder why the
mommy didn’t put them in a hole under the big tree 10 feet away with overgrown
bushes all around it, and “Do the babies rotate positions in the hole? Because one has his bottom facing the opening
and I bet it wants to switch places eventually.” Addy comes up with “Why do they have a white
spot on their foreheads?” and “How long are their legs?” and “When will the
mama come back?” and “Where is the mama?” and “Can they hop?” and “When were
they born?” which leads to “I wonder how the babies come out of their mommy’s
belly?” She’s still asking these
questions as we walk back to the house, and saying over and over again how she’s
soooo glad and thankful we have bunnies to watch over. And then she concludes that maybe the mommy will
let us have one of the bunnies, or two of them, or maybe all three because she’ll
just have more anyway. I laugh the whole
time.
When we get back to the house we park in the shade and eat
popsicles. Paige also tries to eat a marigold.
I write down our bunny questions so we don’t forget and the
girls play outside a little before we go back in. And, Paige stands up on her feet for the
first time ever!
That’s pretty much our day.
The rest of it is normal hanging out and playing and doing some chores
and dancing to folk songs and getting dinner ready and Daddy coming home and eating
dinner and checking on the bunnies one more time and getting ready for bed. Oh, and I just want to be clear that there
was some fussing and some “That’s not how we treat other” talks and some “Obedience
means do it right now with a good attitude” sermons as well.
Ahhh, I’m pooped. But
in a good way. And so very thankful to
be able to spend this time nurturing, discipling, teaching, and learning with
these precious kiddos. And thankful for
God’s grace EVERYDAY. He knows I need
it.
