A Day In The Life

We have a schedule... sort of.

If the kids aren’t already up by 7:45, I get them up because they absolutely must file through our single bathroom one-by-one before breakfast, which is at (or near) 8:00. Breakfast is usually just cereal. I’ve tried other things, but 8:00 am is not a good time for me to hear “I don’t like it” after I’ve just made applesauce pancakes, so I stick with what’s safe.

I try to have the dogs fed by 10:00 because I have to have lunch ready by 11:00. A result of feeding them cereal for breakfast: they’re hungry for lunch. The twins usually finish their lunch in 30 minutes or less, while the youngest sometimes takes over an hour. My favorite thing to make for lunch is turkey and cheese wrapped in crescent roll dough. They love it, and it’s fun. And I try to always offer a side of fruit. Of course, they also like corn dogs, mac and cheese, and pizza, but those things make me feel guilty, so I try to limit them.

Nap time is from 1:00 to 3:00, with some flexibility. It is required that they clean their room before they nap, so I assess the damage at around 12:00 to determine if the clean up will be a half or whole hour-long project. I also generally have to spend most of clean-up time in their room with them, keeping them on track and reminding the two-year-old where things go. But I don’t physically help.

The twins will soon be ditching naps, except on days when they've exhausted themselves in the morning. So, we'll probably utilize that time for more lessons.

Between 3:00 and 4:00, I take my dog out.

Lately, my partner has been on the “late” shift. He works for the school district, though, so that amounts to 8:00am to 4:00pm. The office is downtown, so he gets home between 4:30 and 4:45.

Dinner is as close to 6:00 as possible, and limited to 45 minutes. Our current favorite dinner food is tortilla soup.

After dinner, we fit in a bath, a second clean-up session, brushing teeth, and a story.

Bedtime is at 9:00.

It looks like this:

Click image to see larger version

I’m so glad that it counts as education when my kids ask me questions over dinner, or when they ask me to explain what something is during story time. Additionally, we manage to fit in math practice after dinner, to earn gummy bears or jelly beans for dessert. Still, sometimes I have to interrupt their play time to work with them on something. Otherwise, I’m not sure how I’d fit the required 4 hours (on average) into each day.

This post linked to iHomeschool's  *Not* back to homeschool blog hop

Planners

I mentioned in my previous blog that I printed a planner. I spent one whole day on the process, which involved finding forms that worked for me, printing, copying, and filling out the pages, and putting the planner together. Granted, this would not have have taken nearly so long if I didn’t have many other obligations, but we’re working with whatever free time we can find, here.

To me, it’s a masterpiece. To anyone else, it’s a pinkish-purple binder full of paper. And, really, who uses binders? But I keep looking at it and thumbing through it with pride.

You can buy lesson planners. Book stores have them, or you can buy them online. There are lots of options on Amazon. That might work for you if you are a flexible person who doesn’t mind having to bend a bit to conform to the styling set out in a pre-printed book. Also, if you can make the time to review a few different versions and find the right one for you. I make that sound bad, but that’s only because I’m not that person.

If you’re not at all flexible, you can make your own. If you know how to use Excel (or something similar) or tables in Word, or any of a number of Adobe programs (I bet InDesign would be fun for this), you could organize and style your own planners from scratch. That, though, requires some time.

For those of us in between, there are great resources online. I want to be able to pick what kind of pages I include in my planner, how many, and how I organize them in my binder. I have most of a design degree, so I do know how to do this on my own, but I don’t really have time. So I’ll sacrifice a little personalization for the sake of being able to put it together in one day and no longer having to think about it.

I got my planner pages at http://donnayoung.org/forms/. This site has a short list of different sets available. Then, if you click on a set you like, then click “homeschool”, you can see the different pages available for that set. For instance, in the set I chose (Colonial, because I’m a sucker for script), you can choose from 9 different layouts for your planner, depending on what works for you.

My planner includes an attendance calendar, two sets of lesson plan pages (one for each kid, since one will have speech therapy and the other will not), and two reading lists. This year, it’s fairly simple. We’re not grading because I don’t have to report grades to the district yet. However, when that changes, there are grading tables available, too. And if I need more copies of, for instance, the reading list, I can just copy a blank page and not have to fill it out again. This works for me.

I’m pretty sure I’m not being biased at all when I say the planner I created is concise and easy to use. I have a dream in which I imagine family members being able to substitute teach and fill out the planner for me while the kids are on vacation with them. For some, though, that might be unrealistic.

As mentioned in the previous post, I’m currently compiling a list of resources I use for our lessons, as well as free/cheap field trip (or just for fun) destinations for families in Denver. If you have any suggestions for either list, let me know. I can always use more information.