Just for family history's sake, I'm going to document our daily schedule. Of course, it's not strictly adhered too, sometimes we're not finished with everything until 8pm, and sometimes we just ditch the schedule entirely, but for the most part this is what our day is like...5:00am Ryan's up getting ready for seminary and reading his scriptures....and surfing the net, I'm sure :) He gets up entirely on his own. when school is cancelled due to bad weather,he groans in misery, because then seminary is cancelled too, and he loves (!!)attending seminary. Barry loves to tease him about going to "cemetery"...he get quite upset (he's now starting to learn to take it as a joke) but, he doesn't like anyone or thing messing with his seminary time. I love that about him!
6:00am Ryan heads off to seminary. Connor's up and he too, on his own accord reads the scriptures. (how cool is that).
7:00 Ryan comes home and starts practicing the piano, Connor-violin and piano and Cailin the flute. I get up around this time, shower and dress, prepare breakfast and then start getting the younger kids ready for the day.
8:00 It's time to eat...if it's Thursday, then we have already eaten and pile into the van and drive to Christiansburg for a day of study and fun with friends at Classical Conversations.
8:30 Devotional time -- Sometimes it's family scripture time, most times we just sing a song, read a story from the Friend or New Era, have prayer, go over our daily schedule of events and then the older kids are off to their studies.
9:00-11:30--I spend this time with Delaney. She has her math, reading, phonics, writing, journaling and story time with me. Inter mingled in here is changing diapers, feeding, imposing dreaded physical therapy exercises and napping Brianne. I'm also checking with the older kids, to see if they need help staying on their personal schedule or help with a problem. I expect them get their history, math, IEW (Institute for the Excellence in Writing) , spelling, penmanship, presentation prep for CC and mastery sheets for EEL (Essentials of the English Language) done during the morning. Ryan has his own set of school work--Latin, research, (currently he's learning about the different systems of the body), rhetoric, geography, math, IEW writing based off different novels. Every two weeks he's reading a writing about a new novel. (Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, Number the Stars, Amos Fortune, Door in the Wall, The Secret Garden, )
I have buckets of different toys for the kids to play with, blocks, Playdoh, K'nex, marble run, sequencing beads, flannels and a few other fun 'center buckets' for the kids to do while I'm busy with Brianne.
11:30--this is when I try to bring all the kids together and go over all our memory work for the week.
Connor, Cailin, and Delaney (it's fun to hear Liam pick up on the work too) all memorize the Latin conjugation of Amo in different tense (perfect, future, pluperfect etc.), geography-- countries, cities and features (this year it's Europe and Asia), history sentences, (for example "Tell me about how the United Nations was form." "In 1945 after the League of Nations, failed to prevent WWII, British Prime Minister Churchill, American President Roosevelt, USSR President Stalin, began the United Nations).
Brianne having fun-- really she is-- with her geography memory work.English grammar, science grammar--this year is ecology, astronomy, and physical science--for example: What is the 1st law of thermodynamics? Energy cannot be created or destroyed.
Once I figured out that using a song, hymn or making up our own tune helps us memorize them, we started to really remember them. Last semester, we only got the first week to memory, after that, it just didn't happen.
12pm/Noon--Lunch time and break time for the kids.
In the afternoon, it's nap time for Brianne, the younger kids go outside to play or watch a movie while I work with Connor and Cailin on English grammar, parsing and diagramming sentences, trying to figure out the puzzle of this wonderful written language of ours. After that, if there is time, we do a project based on something we have studied for history, science or in a book we've read.
I'll go and check Ryan on what he's doing, here is when I have more time to help him with his writing assignments, and quiz him on his memory work for Latin and geography.
3:00-4:00--Now, I fall down and do nothing--I wish :) --now it's time to clean the house, get kids onto their chores and get ready for dinner. If it's Monday, we have therapy for Brianne at 4,-- leave for Ryan's therapy at RU, at 4:30 to get there by 5pm. We get home by 6:30 and have dinner and FHE.
Tuesday's are now devoted to play practice at the high school. Cailin and Delaney are performing in 'Aristocats'.
Wednesday's full of piano lessons (luckily Ss. VanSice comes here for their lessons), Brianne's speech therapy (just twice a month) and young men's/scouts night for the boys and every other week Cailin has an Achievement girl's activity.
Thursday as we are coming home from CC classes we stop at the library and pick up books for the coming week, we only mean to stay for a few minutes, but we love books and end up staying there longer than intended. The night is my night, right now I'm attending Weight Watchers--I'm struggling to get this baby weight off and I need a night to myself!!
Friday--Depending on which week we're on, we have history group, book group or getting together with other homeschooling families for fun at the park. In the afternoon Connor and Cailin have violin and flute lessons. Once home, we make our traditional pizza dinner watch a family movie or just zone out with video games.
Saturday is catch up on the laundry day, deeper cleaning of the house and van, youth activities, garden and yard work. Sometimes I get grocery shopping done too, sometimes its just fits into a small hole in the weekly schedule.
Whew, I'm exhausted just writing about it....but somehow, it all works together. We fit scripture reading, as a family, into the daily schedule whenever Barry has the time. At the present time he's not only busy with a rotating work schedule and church calling, but, he's a online college student too. Every five weeks he starts a new class, in two years he's finally have his bachelor's degree.
Bath time is Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday's. Then off to bed at 8 pm for Brianne and Liam, 8:30 for Delaney and the rest are in bed by 9-9:30 pm (in bed, not necessarily asleep.) ;) Cailin reads her scriptures at night, she's quite faithful too, she's not about to lose at the family competition for individual scripture reading. Our competition is: Every one must read at least 10 verses every day (Delaney get to read from the children's picture scriptures or help us read too her) if you forget you're out. The last one standing wins a blizzard from Dairy Queen. (I think we gave ourselves three freebies of forgetting, after that, you're out).
This is when I crash, I read in bed or work on the computer to get ready for the next day....and so it goes on.
I have learned that to detailed of a schedule thwarts us....gloomy cold weather thwarts me and homeschooling isn't perfect(we miss some things), neither is public schooling for that matter (they miss somethings too), but we're doing what's best for our family and all in all, I love being with my kids, learning with them and about them. I wouldn't change my busy life at all.
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