A Day in the Life....Homeschool Bliss

One of my earliest posts was entitled Homeschool Chaos; today I bring you Homeschool Bliss.

For over two years now, we've done "fire drill school" -- ready to school at the drop of a hat, or nap of a baby/toddler, as the case may be. We've reduced our schedule to the bare minimum, those "3 Rs" of "reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic". None of the great history & literature that distinguishes Sonlight from other curriculums. Just the basics.

No longer. Finally Zachary is able to play independently, we've found activities in the house that occupy him while still keeping him out of trouble, and we've picked up our beloved Sonlight again. I expected a little balking as we resumed daily history, assigned reading, & assigned "read-aloud" time (when I read to the boys), but I was pleasantly surprised. It has been pure bliss.

Today (getting to the "day in the life" portion....) was a great example. We thought we had a lunch date with Quentin, so we got going bright and early, right after breakfast. Zach played in the boys' room, and I handed out math assignments. Caleb had 2 pages, 1 of addition and 1 of subtraction. He did great -- 100%! Way to go, Caleb! From there he moved right into his handwriting, eagerly underlining the words he was to copy and even giving himself extra times to write the word than what I usually give him. Alright!! This is what homeschool should look like.

Timothy had one page, reviewing multiplication facts. He breezed through it, pausing on only 3 problems. I talked him through those (8x6? Well, let's see....what's 8x5? Okay, what's one more 8 added to that? Good!) and he triumphantly moved on. He started his handwriting and I moved into the living room with Caleb for his history reading.

Today Caleb was learning about how clothes have changed in the past century. We've learned about the clothes worn in Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, the French Court, and now, America in the 20th century. Fascinating to see the switch from the long, full dresses of the early 1900's to the mini-skirts of the 1960's. Caleb was curious about why a war affected fashions, so we talked about that for a while (fabric shortage and all....). It was so rewarding to see him asking questions and actually interested in a topic I thought about skipping. Thanks, Sonlight!!

I finished up with Caleb, and he went to play with Zach. I returned to Timmy and we did today's spelling, reviewing the rule about dropping the -e to add -ing. We use a program that groups words by family (all the -ode words, for example) so today covered words from "rode" to "exploding". We finished that and moved on to Timmy's history, a look at King George III as a child. Timothy was fascinated to hear about young George writing notes of frustration on his school papers, much like Timmy does himself. I of course pointed out the lone sentence that mentioned that George mostly did what was asked of him without sulking....we'll see if that sticks or not, LOL! As we finished the day's portion of history, I could see that Timothy was still interested; I debated going on, but remembered something someone told me once -- "Always leave them wanting more." So, we stopped, and he's already asked about tomorrow.

After history, we went to our last together activity of the day, his read-aloud time (or, as he calls it, his "you read to me" book). I picked up our book and opened to the current chapter, a short one. He begged for one more. And then one more. After three chapters, I was ready for lunch and a break, so I made him wait. Besides, Caleb was listening in (on his own volition, he'd stealthily crawled down the hall from his bedroom and was lying in the hallway absorbing every word...) and I knew he wouldn't last much longer with such a long stretch of reading. I could tell he was listening, though, because he asked a few questions about the story along the way! I put the book away until tomorrow, and the boys reluctantly (!!!) went off to play while I fixed lunch.

After lunch (not with Quentin; that's tomorrow) they had to do their independent reading, so Timmy closed himself in his room for a few chapters of a book he'd initially declared "boring" and "sooooo hard" -- I challenged him to give it at least 3 chapters before he declared it unreadable; if, at the end of the 3rd chapter, he still felt that way, I'd allow him to set that book aside. He's now nearing the end, and has decided the book is "okay" and even "kind of interesting".

Caleb took his book into the living room and read, surprising me with how comfortable he is now with reading. In September he was just barely beginning to sound out 3-letter words; today, he read a Disney "Winnie the Pooh" book, with a reading level of approximately 2nd grade or so. He's regularly reading 2nd-grade level readers now, books he chooses himself and finishes quickly.

As the boys read, I tried to get Zach to take a nap....nope, he's having nothing of that. Instead we played with water together and had a snack, then played with his toy animals. He really enjoys bringing me animals and showing me how smart he is by making the appropriate animal sound. He really enjoys when I make the sound in return. Hard to believe that it's just been (this past weekend) two years since he came home from the hospital.....I still can't believe how far we've come.

The rest of the day went smoothly as well; I let the boys watch a movie while I did dishes, cleaned the school room and tossed in a load of laundry. Gave Zach some motrin for a fever trying to creep up (oh, dear...) and snuggled with him on the couch; he watched Pooh and I read my Reader's Digest. The fever crept back down, and I relaxed as another great homeschool day came to a close.