I have had people ask to come over and watch our homeschool in action. I have wondered how that would work. Although we have learning time set aside, we don’t really start or stop learning. I thought sharing one day as it actually happens might give people some idea of what homeschooling is for us. We don’t cover all subjects every day. I am fully aware that this is not the perfect day.
Perhaps this post will explain why . . . oh, and have I mentioned I have 10 children? I do. It’s crazy. I know. Trust me, I know. But it’s our crazy and we chose it very prayerfully.
My children are identified by their age and gender, so My 17 year old daughter is 17dd (dd=dear daughter and ds=dear son) The twins are 8dd A and 8 dd B.
5 AM: husband wakes me up, I nurse the baby and try to escape
5:30: I take 17dd and 16dd to seminary (a scripture study class for high school students).
I read and study the scriptures.
7:20: Come home to discover 8dd A, 3dd, and 1dd have woken up and are at the computer watching Teletubbies.
I nurse 1dd and read a mind-numbing counting book with 3dd. After the fifth or sixth reading, I have it memorized.
16dd starts typing. She is feeling self-induced pressure to finish her NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month) book this week so she has a few months to edit. She is struggling with the ending. As she says it, her imaginary friends aren’t talking to her right now. She normally types 2-3 hours a day, but right now it’s endless.
I start to make waffles. 6dd is cracking the eggs for me while the 3dd follows me around turning pages while I quote the book to her.
8dd B and 10ds are on the couch reading space books and sharing what they are reading. They are currently discussing how the moon came into existence–specifically the great impact theory. Did something small hit the earth? Did two planets collide and shoot the moon into our orbit? 10ds is taking notes.14ds emerges from his room where he has been typing. He’s been working on his own NANOWRIMO book and types every day from 6:30-8. 14ds jumps in with his thoughts on the formation of the moon. 10ds had started this space thing, as he is deep into love of learning and hopping from topic to topic. A few weeks ago in our mentor meeting (a weekly meeting with each child), he asked me to get him space books. He’s been studying space for a few weeks and it’s now starting to come out.
I gather everyone to breakfast shortly after 8am. As I’m handing out waffles, 6dd asks what a quarter is. 10ds takes over a whole waffle and helps her see a quarter and how 4 quarters make a whole. “Just like 4 quarters make a dollar” 6dd says. “Yes, that’s why they are called quarters.” I love teaching when a question is asked. Fractions aren’t scary, they are delicious!
I’m doing dishes and cuttin
g waffles in between cooking. As I’m almost done cooking — they eat as fast as I make the waffles — 17dd asks if I can braid her hair. She tells me all about Emma.
I eat and nurse again briefly. I’m reading a book about Longitude. I share some stories with my kids about boat crashes and crazy scientific competition.
I leave to take 17dd to junior college as 8dd B and 10ds start planning a Pokemon type game with all of the characters named after constellations.
I get home about 10:30 and we have “mommy devotional”. We read one chapter of scripture and sing a song and pray. This is the normal and official start to our school day. Nothing before now “counts” – wink. I share a few stories from the book I’m reading. Simply having a watch that could keep time and wasn’t affected by rust and the tumbling sea would have solved the problems of longitude. We talk about the all wooden clock John Harrison made.
Learning at Home
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We start a new read aloud . . . it’s Gaurdians of Ga’Hoole. As with most new books, some of the younger children balk. This is a book I had read to the older children and they were talking it up. I remind myself to Google the barn owl, Molly, and the hatching of her owlets. The first time we read this book, we watched Molly and waited with her as her owlets hatched. We start to read. 3dd needs me to go to the bathroom with her. 1dd wakes up and needs a diaper change. We struggle through one chapter.
It’s 12:30: lunch
16dd, 12dd, 1dd and I go on errands. I first kiss and hug 3dd and 6dd a couple times. We go to the bank, go to get 16dd some boots and 12dd and 16dd run in and buy groceries while I stay in the car with the sleeping 1dd.
Pick up 17dd by 3pm and talk about her day at school and her friends and who is going to the Steampunk con thing. We come home to 14ds making bread so he can sell it tonight.
We attempt to do laundry, relax a little while getting some dinner made. Husband comes home. As we are attempting to plan, 3dd comes up asking to read the same darn counting book. I recite it as she turns the pages, while still looking at husband. He well knows what this means about how many times I have read this book today, but planning time is precious, so he keeps talking to me about his schedule.
We rush the older children off for Wednesday night church. 17dd and 16dd have a class on genealogy and 12dd has a crafty activity. 14ds has Boy Scouts and 10ds has Cub Scouts. 8dd A and 8dd B have an activity planning some service. I am left home with 3dd and 6dd and 1dd. They play with stuffed animals, lining them up on the couch. Closer to bedtime we read some poems and get them to bed.
The other kids come home, talk my ear off and snack, and husband and I watch TV and snuggle before bed. We get to bed shortly before 11pm.
Britt grew up in a family of six brothers and one sister and gained a bonus sister later. She camped in the High Sierras, canoed down the Colorado, and played volleyball at Brigham Young University. She then served a mission to South Africa.
With all of her time in the gym and the mountains and South Africa, she was totally prepared to become the mother of 2 sons and soon to be 9 daughters. By totally prepared she means willing to love them and muddle through everything else in a partially sleepless state. She is mostly successful at figuring out how to keep the baby clothed, or at least diapered, though her current toddler is challenging this skill.
She feels children naturally love to learn and didn’t want to disrupt childhood curiosity with worksheets and school bells. She loves to play in the dirt, read books, go on adventures, watch her children discover new things, and mentor her children. Her oldest child is currently at a community college and her oldest son is going to high school at a public school. She loves to follow her children in their unique paths and interests.
She loves to write because, unlike the laundry and the dishes, writing stays done. Whenever someone asks her how she does it all she wonders what in the world they think she’s doing.
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I always thought we got the most out of the unofficial learning that went on–and that is something you can do whether you homeschool or not. I still remember the debates about whether or not it would be worth dying to find out what is inside a black hole! You tend to forget the book learning, but the spontaneous because you felt like it learning stays with you forever.