Our Homeschool Day

I've been wanting to write a post like this for quite some time but keep waiting for life to be "normal". I finally accepted that the ideal time would never come and I needed to accept that this time in life is our new normal.

Although no two days are the same, here's a little glimpse into a typical homeschool day at Foley Academy.

6-8 am  My favorite time of day. I get up earlier than everyone else, drink a cold glass of water, make coffee and sit down for quiet time. During this hour or two I spend time in God's Word, read a bit of something else and go through emails and blogs. I tried squeezing exercise into this time frame, but found I wasn't finishing until 8:30 or 9, thus getting a late start to our day.

8 am  I stop by the girls' room to say hello and warn them that it's time for them to make their beds and get dressed. They wake up around 7 am, but happily play in their rooms until I come to say good morning. I head off to the shower and get ready for the day.

8:30 am breakfast

9-10 am Bible and violin practice ~ Lately we've been reading through a Psalm, discussing it a bit and then praying for our Compassion children.

When we are finished, we head upstairs for some violin time.We have learned that it's best to get violin practice done as early as possible.

10 am - noon  Academic learning time ~ This varies from day to day but includes any of the following: math, reading, writing, language lessons, Spanish, history, spelling and science. We do use curriculum, but also go with the flow and allow plenty of room for interest-led learning. The teacher in me likes to have a basic structure that allows me to be creative and come up with my own ideas. My girls are young (5 and 7), so it may seem that we are being very ambitious by covering all of the above. The truth is we like variety and much of the above is covered throughout the day as we do life together. We do try to use Spanish conversationally every day, but we rarely sit down for Spanish lessons. Science is something my girls are naturally drawn to so very little classroom learning is done in this area. Much of our writing is done through letters ~ to grandparents, cousins and children we sponsor through Compassion.

noon  Lunch

1-4 pm Afternoons are reserved for everything else we do. Monday and Wednesday we have swimming lessons. Mondays and Tuesday I teach violin/viola. Once or twice a week we make a trip to the library. Once a week we get groceries and run other errands. Once or twice a week we have quiet time. I try to have at least one or two days a week where we don't leave the house at all (except to maybe go for a walk around the neighborhood).

4 pm Exercise time for me

5 - 5:30 pm Final dinner prep and PEEP patrol

5:30 pm Dinner

6 - 7:30 pm Family time / play time with daddy / family reading time / game time

8 pm Bedtime for girls

It's not exciting and there are many variations on this theme, but that's a general idea of what goes on in our lives Monday through Friday.