Yvonne's home school day with five children, aged 9 months to 9 years.

Up at 6:30 to nurse Mary (9 mo). Wake other children at 7:00. Shower, dress. Oatmeal for breakfast.

Go online to check mail. Only three messages (HSLDA about national census information; 'free' software offer if I buy other software, of course; borders.com tells me that they can't supply all the books I have ordered). Go to Well Trained Mind website. Notice message about Kingfisher titles. Immediately jump to bn.com and order "Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia" and the books borders.com can't supply. Might as well try again somewhere else. Read the rest of the new messages at WTM. Read "A Day at My House" last. Maybe I could write. Didn't get a chance to read about Susan's day. Play SET at www.setgame.com and enter the weekly drawing. We love to play SET. Sarah (9) is getting GOOD. She'll be beating me soon.

Start school work at 9:00. Start Sarah and Rebekah (7) doing their lessons in Spelling Workout B and A. Sarah is a bit behind in language arts. I fell for the "give them time and they'll let you know when they are ready to learn and will learn in no time" trap. We're trying to make up for it.

Thomas (5) and Anna (2) start fussing upstairs, so I call Thomas and put him to work on the computer playing Math Blaster 1st Grade. I am working so hard to bring the girls up to speed that I don't always have time to work directly with Thomas, so I often utilize computer games to teach him. I am amazed at what he has learned. Anna decides she wants to watch Thomas. Sarah finishes her spelling lesson, takes the test, and passes with flying colors. We work in Phonics Pathways for 15 minutes. She reads well as long as the words aren't more than two syllables. I think working quickly through Phonics Pathways will help train her eyes and her brain to track and read better. By the time we get to the multi-syllable word training, she should be better able to read the longer words.

10:00 AM.  Nurse Mary before making a run to the store for fabric to make Bible character costumes for AWANA this Sunday. I just hope I can get three costumes made up in time. Back to work and we only lost an hour. Start Sarah doing her handwriting while Rebekah does Phonics Pathways. Anna wants to play Jump Start Baby. She has figured out how to use the mouse. This is the first time I have seen her actually point to a button with the mouse and click. She decides to change to Jump Start Toddlers after half an hour. She can play it better now that she can use the mouse. Sarah starts her English for a Thoughtful Child lesson and works on it for a bit. I ask her to finish it after lunch so we can work together on her Writing Strands 2 lesson.

12:00 Lunch - one of the kids' favorites: tomato soup with popcorn. The kids love to put the popcorn in the soup and watch it "melt." Nurse Mary and put her to bed for nap. She decides she doesn't want to sleep. Go back in to comfort her and assure her that it really is naptime. She cries herself to sleep. Put Anna down for nap. Prefers to play with Barbies. Two warnings, then a swat on the diaper. Goes to sleep now that she is sure I'm serious. Usually don't have this problem with her. Sleeps two hours until we wake her up. She must have been overtired.

1:00 Sarah finishes WS and ETC lessons. Rebekah does a Subtraction Practice Page, two pages in Miquon Math, and her addition flashcards. Afterwards, we work on her AWANA memory verses. In the meantime, Thomas plays two hours of Reader Rabbit's Interactive Reading Journey. Sarah works on a Multiplication Practice Page and a lesson in Saxon 65. Sarah decides she's starving. I give the kids some tortilla chips. Not a great snack, but we've run out of fruit.

Sarah does her multiplication flashcards. Sarah has to learn the CHUM theme song for AWANA this week, so I put the melody on the computer so we can practice it. She studies her verses while I put the music on the computer using Music Ace. We sing the CHUM theme song again and again and again. She loves it. This morning, we sang the "Thirty Days Hath September" poem to "Have You Ever Seen a Lassie?" She remembers just about anything if it is set to music. Rebekah prefers repetition rather than music. Rebekah asks to play Treasure MathStorm.

4:15 A friend calls. Talk with her for about 20 minutes - a record for the shortest time on the phone with her. We always seem to have so much to say.

4:45 Call husband to see if he has any ideas for dinner. Out of the office. Oh, well. Oops! We've been out of bread for two days. Thomas helps grind grain (electric grinder) and put a loaf of bread in the breadmaker. Hey, we have frozen spaghetti sauce! Takes about half an hour to thaw in the microwave.

Husband calls at 5:15 saying he'll be home in about half an hour. Cook spaghetti. Couple of cans of corn. Call it dinner. Not the most balanced meal, but I need to plan a menu and go grocery shopping. Have Sarah vacuum living room as carpet cleaners will clean one room for free with no obligation. We'll see. Sarah gets the other kids to help by pretending they are all 'painting' the floor. A little Tom Sawyer here. That's one book we haven't read, yet. I start typing this and will add the information about our school work later. Not enough time right now.

Dinner at 6:15.  Husband still not home. Manager out of office Thursday and Friday. Probably has a lot of instructions. Mary tries to climb my leg during dinner. Pick her up and feed bits off my plate. Broke her wee, little heart when I put her down to get second helpings for Anna. Finish dinner. Nurse baby while typing. Have to put baby down and intervene with wild Indians running through the house yelling instead of carrying dirty dishes to kitchen and loading dishwasher.

Husband arrives home at 7:00. The carpet people call to reschedule. I don't think I'll get a chance to work on the kids' costumes tonight, but that's the way it goes. Hey, we did get a lot done today! Did I talk too much? Sorry! :-)

8:00 I finally got a chance to read Susan's day. Thank you for posting it. It seems like people usually write about their best days, or our days must be abnormal. Today went a bit more smoothly than usual, although we didn't get our history or science done because of the shopping trip. I suppose today was a typical day, although no two days are ever alike.

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