Home Sweet Home

There's No Place Like Home

Thank you all for bearing with me during this 

restructuring of my blogs.  

Thanks for hanging in there with me, folks!

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program....

So, we've been really, REALLY enjoying our homeschooling experience. We spend time every day out in nature, even today (which has had moments of near-blizzard conditions). This is how it tends to go, although there really is no "typically" day/week here in our house:

Some days:  I set out a bunch of work on the kitchen table. My son is a real morning person, and so he loves coming down the stairs to find work ready for him. He'll actually jump right into things before even wanting his breakfast. We like to do math first most mornings. Lately we've been working on money (just coins for now) - identifying them and their value and then adding them together. There is a dice game my son loves to play with his little friend who comes over most week days to play with him. After we work on some math, typically we enjoy breakfast while we discuss the rest of the day. We have calendar time where we also put a tally mark on our weather chart under the appropriate weather category (sunny/rainy/cloudy/snowy/windy).

 He will usually spend a good half hour playing various educational games, and then I shoo the kids outside to play for a while (while I set up the rest of his work, clean up breakfast dishes, etc).  When the kids come back inside, it is usually time for a snack and then get to work on whatever I have then set out for them. I rotate between science, social studies and fine arts typically. In science we've been working on animals in winter (hibernation, animal homes, ways animals adapt to the cold, etc). Social Studies will be about Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month. 

We then break for lunch, and then free play time. The boys are into legos big time right now, but they will also use toys in the play room as well. After free play typically 

comes a story and then a special, like art. 

After specials time, the kids often go back outside for a while before snack time....or they are also apt to bring their snacks outside and eat it in the clubhouse in the yard. When they finally return inside, I like to have quiet time. I often play soothing music while the kids find quiet things to do, such as reading a book, playing with blocks, using play dough, etc. This is the time I tend to work on washing lunch dishes, getting things like laundry done, doing lesson planning, pay bills, start supper, etc. 

Before we know it, it is time for my son's friend to go home. Then the kids will play quietly while listening to a story. We all then get ready for supper. After supper is family time, then it's bath time and then bedtime story time. We discovered some time ago that we love this bonding time. 

Right now, our youngest is using her play food to pretend she is feeding her stuffed animals a gourmet dinner, and I am sitting happily in front of our fireplace, contemplating how wonderful our lives are.  I am still doing work for my home business (tutoring and other services), but my main focus is the homeschooling right now. It seems that life, in all of its twists and turns, has pointed me exactly where I am supposed to be right now, which is happily home with my children.

Yes, we have challenges (like everyone else does). We run into road blocks that allow us to continue to learn and grow on our path forward. If we are able to teach our children nothing else, I hope that we are instilling them with the concept that life is what you make of it. 

 Life is to be lived, and childhood only comes once....but if you do it right, once is enough.