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, then
tell 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.
Go back to Home
School Day Index, or to the Well-Trained
Mind home page.