Becky and Ric’s Day

My name is Becky, my husband is Ric. We are an Eastern Orthodox homeschooling family living in Indiana. We have four children; Jonah (7 and doing 1st grade work), Zachary (5 and doing preschool), Martha (3) and Audrey (9 months). We homeschool year round, taking breaks when needed. Here’s a recent day at our house.

5:10am I wake up and nurse Audrey. She drifts off and I put her back in her bed, turning off my alarm before it rings. I put on my robe, go downstairs, say morning prayers, fix my coffee. I flip through “More Mudpies to Magnets” for an easy plant experiment to do this week. I have flower beds in front of our home and we’re watching and charting their progress as well.

5:45 Jonah comes downstairs. I tell him it’s too early for him to be up, go back upstairs and put on a book on tape or CD, and do not appear again before 6:30. He mumbles that he’ll listen to Lord of the Rings and goes back up. I eat a bowl of cereal then go out front to putter around in my flower beds and deadhead petunias.

7:10 Both boys come downstairs with Ric and he kisses us goodbye and leaves for work. Audrey wakes up, I change her and bring her downstairs to nurse on the couch. The boys sit on either side of me and we look at the book “Incredible Plants” that we have on loan from the library. We see a picture of a Bristlecone Pine and when I tell Jonah that it was alive when the Pyramids were being built, he’s most impressed. “That is one OLLLLLLD tree, mom!” We flip through the rest of the book looking at pictures and talk and play with Audrey for awhile.

7:50 Martha comes down (she’s always the last one to wake up) and announces that she’s hungry, her usual morning greeting. I fix peanut butter toast and applesauce for the older kids, oatmeal with pears mixed in for Audrey, and put her in her exersaucer and feed her while I check my email and write some letters.

8:00 Jonah finishes his breakfast and I tell him to go ahead and get his math book out and start working. He is working through Rod & Staff’s first grade arithmetic book for review and handwriting practice; he’s a workbook-type kid and loves it. Two minutes later he yells “Mom, I can’t do this here, Zach and Martha are chewing too loudly. I need to do it at the kitchen table.” I tell him the kitchen table is covered with newspapers and clean kitchen linens (mom hasn’t gotten to clearing it yet), just wait until they’re finished eating and I’ll send them upstairs.

8:10 Zach and Martha finish, as does Audrey. Jonah comes back to the dining room table with his math workbook and asks if he can do 3 lessons today; I say fine. I send Zach up to dress, then go up with Martha and dress her and fix her hair while Audrey plays with toys on the floor of her room.

8:40 Jonah finishes his math and brings it to me to check. I put it in his math folder and tell him to go upstairs and get the Alpha Phonics book. We’re going back and reviewing what we did a few weeks ago because we’re all just getting over some terrible cold/flu/bug and had pretty much ditched schoolwork for the last 10 days. Zach goes to the dining room table to do some pages in his Rod & Staff preschool workbook. Audrey is playing quietly on the floor with toys (miraculously) and Martha is sitting in the computer chair looking at a library book. Jonah and I read through several lessons, with enthusiastic interruptions from Zach (he does everything in life with much enthusiasm). “Mom, look, I colored the carrot orange!” “Great Zach, please show me the work when you’re done.” Two minutes pass. “Mom, which pictures do I cut and which do I glue?” I read him the instructions again. Two more minutes. “Mom, are ALL potatoes brown?” “No Zach, but that one is.” A few more minutes. “Look mom, I’m almost done!” “Great, Zach.” Etc.

9:30 Zach finishes his workbook and I send he and Martha upstairs so that Jonah and I can do 2 lessons in Spelling Workout A. Audrey is looking like she’s winding down for her morning nap so I take her upstairs and put her in bed with some toys and board books.

Jonah and I sit at the dining room table and work on spelling. I give him an oral quiz of random words from the first 10 lessons in the book and he does quite well. Zach comes down to share some vital information with me….we have FIVE, count them FIVE books on the shelf upstairs that have dinosaurs in them. He wants to find the iguanodons in each one. I say go for it. Back to spelling with Jonah. There is a picture of a toad in the lesson he’s working on and he starts making up a story about the toad. I tell him he can do that when he finishes the lesson, let’s keep going. He then says “Sorry, toad”, in a perfect British Rattie-voice a la Wind in the Willows, and I crack up. Zach runs downstairs and asks me what’s funny (he must be in on all jokes). I tell him please go back up until we’re finished. Two minutes later Martha comes down with our current chapter book from the library, the original Raggedy Ann Stories, and asks me to read to her. I tell her that’s our bedtime book and we’ll read it tonight. She sighs and says OK, she’ll just go look at the pictures then. Through all of this, our cats are running around at full speed having morning playtime, including jumping on and off of the table where Jonah and I are trying to work, plus construction vehicles are out front clearing a lot directly across the street from us for a new house. And Audrey is upstairs yelling happily, babbling and singing along with the radio. Ah, the peaceful life of a homeschooling family.

10:00 My energy is flagging and I go get a huge glass of ice water and a Genisoy bar. I give the kids some cinnamon graham crackers for a snack, thentell them they can have some time on the computer until 11:00, 30 minutes each for the boys and Martha can watch if she likes. Jonah turns on Magic School Bus “Inside the Earth” and Zach says he’s going to play Blue’s ABC Time when it’s his turn. I go upstairs and check on Audrey; she’s asleep. I jump into the shower, dress, then do some laundry and housecleaning, including putting away the pile of books that Zach and Martha left in the middle of the upstairs hall floor. We are in the planning stage of turning our playroom into a school/family activity room with lots of shelving for books, but for now the majority of the kids’ books are on a bookshelf in the hall and there’s always a few that just don’t make it back onto the shelf. It’s annoying, but a price I’ll gladly pay for having kids that would rather plow through a pile of books than do almost anything else. : )

11:15 I come dowstairs and we settle on the couch to read a book about Cleopatra from the library. It has beautiful illustrations and the kids ask lots of questions. After we read that it was the custom of the Ptolemy family to marry their siblings, Zach asks if you can still do that now, because he’d like to marry Martha. I tell him that’s sweet, but no, you can’t do that now. Martha mock-pushes him away and says “I no want to marry you anyway, silly! I going to marry Daddy!” The book is long and we stop halfway through, I tell them we’ll finish it after lunch. Jonah says he wants to copy the mosaic picture of Cleopatra on the cover of the book with his magnetic mosaic set tomorrow. I tell him to take the book to the table and choose a sentence from the first page of the book for his copywork.

11:45 Audrey wakes up, I go up to change and nurse her and tell the kids to read books until lunch.

12:05 I come downstairs and fix lunch; leftover Mexican casserole from last night, tortilla chips, and fruit. Audrey has applesauce. I get on the computer and check mail and type some of this while the kids finish eating.

12:30-1:00 We finish reading Cleopatra while Audrey plays on the floor. She is just now pulling up and keeps coming to the edge of the couch, grabbing our feet, plopping down on her behind, laughing, and starting all over again. The last line of the book says something about how different the world might be today if Egyptian rule had won out over Greek and/or Roman. Jonah says “The government buildings downtown would look like pyramids and temples. That would be neat.” Zach gets up and says “Maybe we’d all be walking around like this” and does a mock “Walk Like An Egyptian” dance across the floor and we all laugh. Audrey starts giggling at us and we laugh harder at her cute giggling. Zach wants to know if we can watch The Prince of Egypt today since we’re learning about Egypt; I remind him for the 1,324th time that Fridays are movie days and today is Monday. (We do not own a TV, but we watch DVDs on our computer). He asks if we can watch it Friday; I remind him that we’re going to be out of town at grandmom and grandad’s house this coming weekend. He says “Great! When we’re at Grandmom’s, she lets us watch a movie EVERY day!” :::::sigh::::: Jonah asks if he can take his school work and folders along to show them what he’s been doing, I say yes.

1:15-3:00 The kids play with toys in the playroom while I read, peruse catalogs and do things around the house. I hear snippets of “Marc Antony said this” and “Cleopatra said that” and “Beware the Ides of March!” and peek in to see them reenacting the story with Playmobil castle figures. A beanie baby snake plays the part of the asp and finishes off Cleopatra, then becomes the Roman soldiers’ mascot. The Romans are abandoned as a cement mixer comes down the street to pour the foundation at the lot across the way and the kids watch out the playroom window. Audrey falls asleep for her afternoon nap at about 2:00.

3:05 I was up too late last night and simply cannot hold my eyes open anymore. I send the kids to their rooms for some quiet time with story tapes. Martha chooses Bible stories and ends up falling asleep; the boys listen to Rabbit Ears Radio tapes; Johnny Appleseed and How the Leopard Got His Spots. I lie down and fall asleep instantly.

4:00 I wake up to loud thumping in the boys’ room next door. I go in to tell them to keep it down because Martha is still asleep. Audrey wakes up, I change her and nurse her. Martha wakes up and we all go downstairs. I sit down with Jonah to see if he can read the first of the Pathway 1st grade readers. He begins and does much better than I thought he could; I tell him to keep going. He gets so excited at how well he’s doing that he keeps going, and going, and ends up spending the next hour reading me the entire book! I had no idea he could do this and we all get pretty excited. He infoms me that he’s going to read the next 1st grade reader tomorrow, and the third one the day after that. I tell him that’s a good goal but he doesn’t have to go quite that fast, he’s got the rest of the summer to finish the next two. Martha and Zachary are coloring and looking at books while Jonah does the reading aloud, with Zach running in every few minutes to give Jonah a “High five!” for his success.

5:30 Ric gets home from work. Jonah tells him about his reading accomplishment and Dad asks for a demonstration. Jonah reads him 3-4 pages and Dad is most impressed. Jonah shows him the other work he did today and Zach brings his workbook to show off his cutting and pasting. I suddenly realize I haven’t planned dinner and ask Ric if we can go to the 50’s drive-up for supper. He agrees. : )

6:00 We head to the drive-up and feast on a rather unhealthy but delicious meal of hot dogs, corn dogs, coney dogs, burgers, fries, etc., then drive around the neighborhood for awhile and stop to look at yards with pretty flower gardens.

7:45 We get home, I let the kids have an ice cream sandwich, then they head up to get ready for bed. I put Audrey in bed, turn the radio on and the lights off and she talks to the fish (we have a large tank in our bedroom) while I go to read our chapter in Raggedy Ann Stories to the kids. They brush their teeth then we go downstairs for family prayer at our icon corner before bed. Jonah asks me if Jesus, the Theotokos (Orthodox name for Mary), and his patron saint know that he can read a whole book by himself and I tell him they do, and I’m sure they’re as proud of him as I am.

8:30 Martha goes to bed listening to more Bible stories. Zach wants to listen to Johnny Appleseed again and look at the accompanying book. I tell him OK, but lights off and something else on to listen to for going to sleep as soon as it’s done. Audrey is not sleepy yet and I take her back downstairs to nurse while I get on the computer; Ric is out in the garage finishing a shelf that he’s made as a housewarming gift for my parents, whom we’re going to see Thursday. They just moved into a brand new condo.

8:55 I hear giggling and talking from the boys, look upstairs and see that their light is still on. They hear me coming and scurry to turn it off and get into bed. Jonah turns on Lord of the Rings on CD and is halfway up the ladder of the bunk bed when I get there. I hug and kiss them goodnight again and tell them to please go to sleep now. Martha calls out from her room for me to come flip her tape over.

9:20 Audrey finally falls asleep. I go back downstairs; Ric comes in and shows me the finished shelf. It’s lovely, my mom will be so pleased. He gets on the computer to play Go (Japanese strategy game) online with his dad and I read gardening books until bedtime.

This was a typical day at our house…lots of good books and lots of laughter.

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