A Day in the Life

If you're feeling stressed out because you're reading all kinds of amazing schedules at the Not-Back-to-School Blog Hop at Heart of the Matter, you've come to the right place. You can relax here or probably feel better about yourself because you'll be thinking, "Wow! Even I have more time slots than this lady does!" I am, in general, a member of the relaxed schooling society. At least for K-8th. And so…

(What you are about to read may or may not have ever happened.)

(Translated: every day is different.)

10 a.m.: Everyone is dressed and breakfasted. Some of us have exercised and had a second breakfast. We (here are my students) leave our house and take two steps out our back door to go into our apartment/schoolroom. (Here is where we do school.)

10-noon: The goal is always to do the harder stuff first thing in the morning, so we try to do math right away. If we don't do math first, we all regret it.
After math, we do grammar, writing, history and/or literature. We've always been avid Sonlight users (and will continue to be after this year), but this year, we're all about Narnia. Or we might do something like make a jelly roll for tea time later (we did that today), or go to my parents' house for a science lesson, like we did yesterday.

(That's my Dad teaching the kids all he knows about how a watch works. Mom had two old wind-up watches that the kids took apart and examined with a magnifying glass.)

noon-1 p.m.: Lunch. Or if I'm really hungry, we'll eat from 11:30-12:30. It's not good to have a grumpy Mom. Kids are allowed to have 30 minutes of tech time during lunch (no TV).

1-2:30 or something like that: we do all our other stuff. This includes anything we didn't finish in the morning, and anything I'm forgetting to mention above, like spelling, science, creative writing, art, etc. We also have "sustained private reading" during this time for about 20 minutes.

So that's a "normal" day, which would include Wednesdays and Fridays. On Mondays we have all-day co-op classes, and on Tuesdays, Laurel has dance and drama classes at another co-op in the afternoon. Duncan has his very own Oma and Opa (grandparents) time on that afternoon. On 2nd and 4th Thursdays, we have American Heritage Girls and Cub Scouts. On the 1st Thursday, we'll be going to the planetarium.

We're flexible and casual, but learning happens all the time around here, whether structured or unstructured. We get all the "biggies" done every day and add in the rest when we can. Or sometimes we ignore all the biggies and just do the rest. Next year I'll start another one in high school and we'll have to move things up a few notches; but for now, we're enjoying the luxury of a relaxed childhood.

Linked up on the Not-Back-to-School Blog Hop at Heart of the Matter