Wednesday, March 17, 2010

A Day in the Life ~ March Edition

Welcome to the March edition of A Day in the Life of Our Homeschool. I pick these days randomly to get an overall feel of what homeschooling is like for us. This day was a few days ago. I did not get all of the pictures loaded until now.
6:45 am -- I got up and dressed. I helped dh with his breakfast and lunch. 

7:15 - I had tea and breakfast while sorting through the neglected email.

7:45 - Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood got up and got dressed. They then rested on the sofa while they finished waking up.

8:00 - Tom Sawyer arose and all were fed breakfast. After breakfast they did their morning chores and watched one show on PBS. I rotated the dishwasher and laundry. I then finished up the paperwork for Goldilocks' end of year testing to take place later in the morning.

9:00 - We packed to do our schooling in the tester's office and headed off for Goldilocks' end of year testing.

9:30-11:00 - While Goldilocks had her testing, we did school in the waiting room. I had to make school more review today, since Goldilocks was not going to be able to attend lessons. The kids did word searches, addition attack board game, and a tracing exercise. They played Mancala and also a sequencing game where they had to put the pictures in order to tell a story about them ("Tell Me a Story"). 


Mancala is a good counting game that helps children develop basic strategy skills.




My kids are really struggling with narration this year. This was a nice change of pace to help them tell a story based on the pictures.

11:30-12:15 pm - We returned home.  We found Tim working on his outside chores.  I made lunch and the kids played. I ate my food while blogging a bit.

12:15-12:45 - The kids had lunch while I read to them The Apple and the Arrow - The Legend of William Tell

12:45 - 1:00 - Everyone folded and put away five loads of laundry. The laundry was a bit behind again.


1:15-2:35 - We went to one of our favorite libraries that is a fair distance from our home. The kids had a great time as always. This library has huge windows with stunning views of the mountains. It has nice reading nooks, too.


 
They have a really nice chess set at this library. Tom Sawyer knows how to play chess and Goldilocks knows what the pieces are called and which directions they can move in. Tom Sawyer got a compliment from the librarian because he was teaching her to play chess so nicely.

2:40 - It was at this moment that I realized Tom Sawyer was supposed to be at his swimming lesson at 3 pm. I was on a secondary road about 8 miles from the YWCA behind a slow school bus, and we did not have the swimming bag. YIKES! So much for heading home and calling it a perfect day. We had to pass our home on the way, and Tim and I ran into the house trying to gather bathing suit, towel, and goggles. By some miracle, we were back in the car in 2 minutes flat and got to swimming lessons only 6 minutes late. The teacher told us that her 3:30 lesson had canceled so he could have his whole lesson! Don't you just love God's little provisions?

3:10-3:40 - Tom Sawyer had his private swimming lesson. We are giving him private lessons because he has cerebral palsy, which sometimes makes his muscles just give out, and he still needs a teacher near him until he is able to do good survival swimming. 

Learning to dive from the side.


His backstroke is really coming along nicely.

4:15-5:30 - HOME! The kids settled in to watch a movie from the library, and I started uploading pictures for this entry. I made dinner and talked to my Mom on the phone. I rotated the laundry again.

5:30-7:00 - Daddy's home! We had dinner and free play with Daddy.

7:00-8:00 - Bedtime rituals and storytime. Lights out at 8 pm.

Well, Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood got away without reading lessons. It was a nice and productive day, otherwise.

Blessings, Dawn 

8 comments:

  1. I enjoyed having a peek at your day. Thanks for sharing. I'm afraid I'd hate to share some of our days. *blush*


    Thanks for the info you shared on your medical notebooks too. That was really helpful.


    Thanks for your prayers and encouragement too. I'm thankful for you friend!


    Hugs

    Leslie

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  2. We love Mancala!


    I actually found a recipe for a steamed cabbage and it was flavorful with the spices and things. Little boy didn't mind it at all but little girl picked out the "sour" part and didn't like it one bit.


    Have a great week! We'll be trying to get all the usual stuff done and then Friday we'll be getting things ready for our weekend road trip.

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  3. Hi Dawn,


    Found a question you asked on my blog and wasn't sure if I'd answered it. Red journal goes with the red plate. In the journal I wrote who got the plate and the date and the reason that they got the plate. :-) I haven't been so good about using it though.


    Blessings

    Leslie

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  4. I love seeing all that you did throughout the day. That is a great idea. How did you go about doing end of the year testing? This is my first year homeschooling so I'm trying to figure out stuff like that. Blessings.

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  5. Love when you do a school day post!

    I did not know you had one with CP or I had forgotton! Anyway so glad he is getting personal attention with swimming. I have CP and as a child had horriffic experiences with swim lessons and instructors not understanding muscle weakness. Sunk to the bottom many times with no one noticing. No wonder I have fear of not being able to touch bottom.

    So glad to see you get behind on laundry too! ( not wishing it on anyone!) Have a wonderful week!

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  6. Macala is one of the games children can play at the Benjamin Powell house at Colonial Williamsburg! We enjoyed it so much we got one too!

    Blessings,

    Laurie

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  7. Thank you for sharing your day, Dawn! I always find these kinds of posts very interesting. It's kind of like that book, Patchwork of Days, a book compiled of all kinds of different homeschoolers - every chapter is about a different family and how a typical day works for them.


    You sure have a lot going on - you are the ultimate energy bunny :) You must have a double pack of duracel batteries loaded somewhere inside of you. And a head full of creative ideas. I just love those resources - the game called Marcela - I think I'd like to get that one. And that game that teaches them to tell a story based on the pictures - that is really a good idea too.


    Your kids are blessed with a mom that just pours herself into them - all those special classes and opportunities you provide. May God bless you abundantly for all of your self-sacrifice and giving of yourself to your children.

    Antoinette

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  8. What a WONDERFUL day ! [0= Ohhh btw in my family tree I am related to William Tell. My grandmothers maiden name was Tell. [0=


    I wished we had a better library. The book selection isn't that great. ((sniff sniff) Lot of children books that have things that I don't want to fill their minds with. We have to pay for our library passes. I might get one for everyone to share and be very aware.


    That is sooooooooo neat how God just provided in such a sweet way.


    Blessings in Him<><

    -Mary

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