The heart of homeschooling

Ever wonder what it is like to be in the heart of a homeschooling family? Let me give you a tiny glimpse of our day - this is homeschooling at its best.

Eric and I get up early for some coffee and quiet time, usually before we are even close to quiet time being done, at least one child is up... They just like to hang out with Daddy and Mommy, so they lay on the couch (today it happened to be Gage... and he laid under the rug...)

When Eric heads out to do the morning chores, the kids and I get dressed, open curtains and turn off all the lights. If the day is going really smoothly, I get breakfast started too.

When it's time for Eric to leave, we all go to the porch and wave bye to Daddy... He always honks his "aa-oo-ga" horn as he drives down the road.  The kids and I sing s song about praying, and we do just that... we come inside to pray for Daddy. Then we read out of the bible and talk about what we are reading.

After our 'rug-time' (that's what the kids call it - based on the kid's show, Sid the Science Kid) we get the table set and eat breakfast. After breakfast, we each have a couple of chores that we try to get done, and then school is supposed to start... and here is where the heart of homeschooling really comes in...

Today, our schooling consisted of the kids heading outside to do some 'scientific exploration' under the trampoline... They found an earwig and all ran off shouting "The Ig-weer is going to pinch you!!!" That was the end of science for a little while.

After science, we had a very good discussion about pride... the good kind and the bad kind.  And we practiced our social skills by learning to change our games so that everyone can be included - We learn a lot about tolerance in homeschooling... and about everyone's different abilities.

After science, came shop class, and we headed out to the front yard to begin pulling staples out of the old rabbit hutch... We learned a lot about the different tools, what they are called and how to use them safely... And we practiced with them... after all, what good is knowledge if you never put it to use.

We had a quick break for lunch, and we did a little bit of ethnic study and some hands on geography while we were eating our fried rice... and after that it was time for a quick history lesson during our daily read-a-loud.

After quiet time, we moved on to math... we measured and counted and made sure things were level and in order as we continued working on our rabbit hutch conversion... We also did a couple more science lessons, as we learned about recycling and reusing old materials while we were working, and we practiced a little bit with magnetic polarities and the properties of different magnetic and non-magnetic materials.

After that, we did some life skills practice as each of the kids took part in caring for the animals and helping get everything set up for dinner. And Everest had one more math and science lesson as he recorded the data he collects about the eggs and the day's weather on our chart.

We enjoyed a quick health lesson during dinner, and we finished off the day with one more quick math lesson... a leap frog video that teaches skip counting, patterns, number recognition and one-to-one correspondence.

It was a good day. We learned a lot...

This is the heart of homeschooling...