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Monday School

Here's Day One of our Glimpse into a week of Homeschooling:
Today the kids were a bit sluggish getting up. The alarm went off at 8 am but they didn’t tumble down the stairs until 8:15 am. Getting dressed and eating breakfast were just as sluggish. Mr. Conductor fed and watered the cat- under protest after breakfast. I try to get school started by 9 am and we managed to begin around 9:20.
Our devotion book seems to have gotten misplaced so after looking for it for a bit we decided to look more later and after prayer we started with math.
Monday mornings are my busiest day of the week on the computer for youth ministry and so I work on the computer while working with the girls and their schooling. Some days this works well and others it is a disaster. Today it worked.
I checked email while they did math (Horizons Math)- setting the timer for 15 min. intervals so that I would stop and check their progress (otherwise I have a real bad habit of letting time get away from me). Mr. Conductor starts his day on the laptop playing a preschool Jumpstart game.
9:40ish am: After finishing her math, Sassafras did spelling with me (she writes her words on a white board- lots of fun and space to doodle- which she needs) and then read her reading assignment for the day (The Best Trick- a Sonlight book.) While Sass was working on her spelling with me, Maiden accomplished quite a bit- she finished her math quickly (only needing direction on 2 problems & getting a perfect score) did her Wordly Wise (vocabulary) assignment, her handwriting and her science work. (Note: It used to take Maiden over an hour to finish her math, lately she gets it done within 30-45 minutes.)
10 am: Sassafras goes off to work on her handwriting and I do spelling (Sequential Spelling) with Maiden.
10:15 am: Maiden goes off to a reading spot to read her history lesson for the day (Landmark Book of the American People Vol. 2). Sassafras and I work on her language arts exercise together. She has asked me to save her history reading text (Usborne Book of World History) until Daddy gets home so that he can read it to her.
10:30 am: Maiden is back working with me on her language arts exercise. Sassafras puts away her schoolwork and goes off to play play-dough with Mr. Conductor.
10:45ish am: Morning schoolwork is finished and school boxes are put away. I am exstatic- Maiden is rarely done this soon and everyone is in a happy frame of mind. No acting squirrely or complaining today. Thank you Lord. The kids are all now playing play-dough in the kitchen while I work on writing my monthly youth ministry reports.
11:40ish am: The kids are done with play-dough and have begun cleaning up. Sassafras has decided the kitchen chairs all need a good scrub down and begins to give them one with Mr. Conductor’s help. Maiden notices when she goes to throw away the dried out play-dough that the trash is overflowing. She takes it out to the trash hopper. She also notices, when she dumps the trash, that our garbage buckets are also overflowing and takes it upon herself to take them out and dump them in the compost bin. During this time, I am furiously typing away on my reports and deeply involved in the strewn mess of paperwork on my desk and side table. I hear the door and notice Maiden go outside with the trash and garbage. I am thunder struck. This never ever happens here! I quickly make my way into the kitchen to find Sass and Mr. Conductor grinning like fools over all the sparkling cleanliness. There is no mess. I hug and kiss them and just gush over their surprise efforts. Maiden kicks me out of the kitchen so that she and Sass can make our lunch for the day. Mr. Conductor and I clean up his Legos and pick out a short video for lunchtime (I had previously announced that it’s lunch and a movie today).
12:30 pm Lunch and a movie
1:30 pm Lunch dishes are picked up and rinsed. I fail at getting Mr. Conductor to use the potty. The kids play and goof off together while I finish off a round of emails to my teens.
2 pm: I start supper in the crockpot and Maiden patrols for any other clean up. Books are picked out for quiet time and the girls go upstairs (Sass to the girls' room and Maiden to curl up in our room on the big bed). Maiden will spend the first hour of her quiet time reading her 2 readers for the day (she has two chapters to read in Old Yeller and two chapters to read of Caddie Woodlawn.) after that she is free to read anything else she wishes- she often continues reading her readers. Sassafras has taken an armload of library books up with her for quiet time. I spend some time quietly playing with Mr. Conductor.
2:20 pm: Mr. Conductor is ready to nap and hops on the couch. I tuck him in. I then check on Sassafras and read her a short story. She has asked to listen to her brand new Adventures in Odyssey CD for the rest of quiet time- which is fine. Maiden gives me a big grin while under a fuzzy blanket and with a pile of 4 books beside her. By the time I make it back downstairs Mr. Conductor is snoring peacefully- he usually naps until 4-4:30. The girls are asked to keep to quiet time during this time period. They can, if they’ve earned it, play a game (educational) on the computer after 4 pm.
Today has been an extraordinary schooling day. We don’t usually have such peaceful helpful days like this. I won’t continue to question it but will instead enjoy it!

On a side note: Housekeeping while homeschooling:
The first load of laundry went in at 7:40 am but didn’t make it to the dryer until 11:30 am- which is also the time the 2^nd load of laundry made it into the washer. The 2^nd load made it to the dryer at 2:50 pm. The first load is waiting in a laundry basket to be folded later by the girls and I after supper. I will only do 2 loads today.
I put clean dishes away before the kids got up this morning. Breakfast dishes were quickly washed and reused for lunch. Lunch dishes have been rinsed and wait in the dishpan for later after supper.
The kiddos all helped clean up/pick up before quiet time so all is well and mostly finished here today. Ah, how delightful!

WOW!

3:31 PM, 2007-Apr-9 .. Posted by rashel

I am amazed at how smoothly your day went today and how much got accomplished. You must be very good at training your children and you reaped some of the benefits today, congratulations! Great job! I will post our day later, however, today is clean up day after the weekend - we do school 4 days a week.
Rashel