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mumofsix
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| Posted: May 10 2005 at 6:27am | IP Logged
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I thought it would be fun if we did a 4RealLearning "Patchwork of Days", where we describe a typical "day at our house". I have been meaning to start this thread for a while, but not found the time. Then a friend who is applying to adopt a fourth child and who homeschools asked me to help her win over her sceptical social worker with a description of how we do it all, and I realised that I had written the post, so here it is! 
our social worker might
appreciate a few lines on how practically your daily routine works.
Yes, of-course: the nitty-gritty of the daily reality!
I'll see if I can describe a typical day. We tend to spend four days mostly at home, homeschooling, and three days being more sociable and doing outside activities, seeing other people, etc. I think I've already covered what we do outside the home, so I will concentrate on a day at home.
The day starts early with Ines waking to be fed her bottle, at the not too terrible hour of sevenish, and then our day begins. We get up, have breakfast and tidy up, etc. then make a start at about nine o'clock. Although there is no need to be rigid about timetables at home, I find it does help to have a regular starting time. We begin with our family prayers, which will usually end with a brief bit of catechesis. Damian, by the way, is picked up by his transport at about 8:30 Monday to Friday for Father Hudson's Homes day centre, but he joins in at weekends.
We begin formal work at about 9:20 or 9:30. Orlando is currently attending sixth form college, so I have four at home on school days, two of school age. Maria at age 15 is working towards her seven GCSEs, using correspondence courses for four of them. Maths she studies with her Dad and languages with me. I also give her a lot of help with her correspondence courses, going through the material with her, correcting her first drafts for assignments to go to the tutor and suggesting improvements, suggesting extra reading, etc. These correspondence courses are meant for adults and I think it would be too much to expect her to follow them without support. Having said that, she can and does study independently for much of the day, and I tend to spend most time with her in the evenings after the younger three are in bed.
Jacinta at age 8 is reading well, so can do some of her work independently. She has workbooks for maths, spelling, handwriting, English and R.E. These are things she can work through fairly independently, with perhaps just a brief few minutes initial consultation with me. I start her off on these, and as Ines goes down for a nap by about ten o'clock, this allows me some time with Hugo. We are using a lovely book called "Before Five in a Row" which is a compendium of ideas for learning for two to four year olds based on some of the best picture books available for this age group. A second section in the book covers more general activities for this age range, and I mine it for ideas. Hugo loves being read to and I always spend time reading to him each morning and again at bedtime.
Once Hugo has had a fair amount of my time, he is content to play by himself for a bit, though he always likes to be near us, and his play is often imitative of Jacinta, so he probably does a lot more drawing, pretend writing and painting than the average three year old boy. He demanded his own maths book, so I bought him a thick book of blank pages which he is industriously filling in. It is interesting to see his runes looking more and more like "real" writing, with a few recognisable letters cropping up now, without any formal instruction. His pencil control is excellent for his age and the health visitor was very impressed with it!
By mid-morning I will be able to spend time with Jacinta, looking over the work she has done, hearing her read or reading aloud to her and playing phonics games with her which she loves. For Jacinta, I plan her mornings to be devoted to the "basics" of the 4 Rs (reading, writing, 'rithmetic and religion) and the afternoons to more creative stuff. I might then have time to look at something Maria has been doing, then Ines will wake up. We have lunch at 12, then spend an hour in the garden. Maria likes to play badminton with me, and Jacinta and Hugo like playing tag and having races, as well as riding their bikes, playing football, etc.
We resume "work" at about two o'clock, though it is only really Maria who needs to do much more. With Jacinta, I will do things like helping her write a story or do a science investigation or a practical maths activity or game or some arts and crafts work. (She really loves drawing and painting.) We are currently slowly building a notebook about China so quite a lot of our afternoon activities have a Chinese theme at the moment. Hugo enthusiastically joins in wherever he can. He loved our floating experiment recently and also loves to paint and draw and make things and play games. Ines also has a nap in the afternoon: I would say she sleeps on average 1.5 hours in the morning and again in the afternoon, which enables us to homeschool more intensively at those times. When she is awake, we feed her first and foremost: she still has three or four bottles per day, but is also eating solids at each meal too. Then she has her nappy changed and I play with her for a bit. She has a play-pen in the kitchen where we work and she is happy to spend from 20 to 30 minutes in there at a time, playing by herself. Then she demands some company, but with three children plus myself we can take turns to amuse her without anyone getting off track. She comes out into the garden with us and enjoys watching everyone from her pram or her blanket on the grass.
We have supper at about six o'clock, then I bath the younger three and put them to bed. Hugo and Jacinta have bed-time stories. By eight o'clock they are quiet and I can spend some more extended time with Maria, discussing her work with her. I do also get some time to myself in the evenings! My husband mostly helps Orlando with his college work, and helps Damian practise his piano.
It is certainly hard work homeschooling with a family of six children, but it is very enjoyable and rewarding. The children seem to be doing well too. I hope that gives a bit of a flavour of how we do it all, but please don't hesitate to ask any further questions if you need to. One further point that has just occurred to me: we employ a lady to clean the house for us for four hours on a Friday afternoon. While I do not say that is essential, it is certainly very helpful indeed.
Jane de Villalobos.
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Bridget
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| Posted: May 10 2005 at 8:23am | IP Logged
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I wrote this last year but it's stil pretty typical.
2005-05-10_082208_A_Snapshot_of_Our_Days.doc
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God Bless,
Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
Our Magnum Opus
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Willa
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| Posted: May 15 2005 at 7:24pm | IP Logged
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neat topic, Jane. I LOVED that book and reread it several times before passing it on to a friend. It was really inspiring to see so many ways to live and learn!
I posted my typical day somewhere else on this board but it's loosened up a bit recently. I'd like to keep notes and post a "REAL" day as opposed to the ideal day  but I know it will take some focusing and some transparency  since no day quite measures up to my ideal.
I'm planning to try it next week though!
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AMDG
Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: How we homeschool: a life in the day of
