My 1-1 days are shortly coming to an end with my oldest who decided to have more time with me and her youngest sibling this past year & I'll forever be grateful for that. I'm never ready for them to grow up and give most their time & attention to everyone else.
Again, we are excited for another phase & this time she gets to be the big kid coming back with more rest & confidence to wrap up her middle school years going part-time for 8th grade. Will busy work burn out still be a concern? Will "learning" in a noisy & crude environment still be a concern? Will losing more of her childhood still be a concern? Yes, yes and yes. However, she knows how to choose good friends, she knows how to work hard, and she knows she enjoys structure & peer competition coming from outside the home. I don't know if she'll push herself to participate more in sports, or find new opportunities elsewhere, but that's the blessings of this life - there are always opportunities & if you're praying for them, you'll notice them. We are hopeful part-time will bring a great balance.
I wanted to write out a week in my life from this past year. Each semester is different & even month to month can be different for us, but I want to remember even the little things that took time because I know I will wonder, if not Mr. Smith, where the time went. Typically, we had mornings for individual schoolwork with busier T & Th afternoons. Fridays were the co-op day that ended early this semester. Here is an example week:
Magical Monday
I'm usually staying up late on Sundays to plan out my Mondays. A friend has stuck with us through both semesters going through various topics & books. We switched from 10-2 to 12-2 because L still needed the time to get other work done. The AM was more rushed because it happened to be pancakes with parents day, so we had breakfast at school, if we're calling it that. I come home to shower while L gets into her online math program & LA books. She knows to then practice her piano & violin. Sometimes she is wrapping up history homework from the prior week before her friend arrives.
I used 2 activities from Core Knowledge to discuss the beginnings of the American Revolution. To review what we read from our book the prior week, I printed out several events that they had to summarize, but they made me read them while they worked on stiching leather pouches for their air dry coins. They would add a penny to our cup connected to some bound pieces of dry spaghetti after each summary. We tried to see which event would "break the camels back" sort of speak (they ended up adding a lot more than we read). I was really surprised neither had heard that expression before. Their homework was to take one of the events & write the summary down along with its significance (one was apparently their max) & complete the battles quiz via book reference only. I saved the blackout poem on excerpts from the Declaration of Independence for the following week, since they just wanted to work on granny squares. We also chatted about their ideas for building their own country & identifying the various aspects of a country.
I pick up the other kids on their walk home from school & the older 2 get dressed for karate 3-4 PM (the prior semester L went to a free middle school art group instead). We come home & I linger in the car a little before they start to come looking for me. Dinner planning meets hungry kids who get sent outside, but not before Dallin declares it's his screen day of choice and he has "earned" it. From 4-5 he is doing something with Kirby. Dad comes home & everyone is thrilled. I declare taco night because I have frozen rotisserie chicken & burritos sound manageable. Dallin clearly ignored the screen time timer. They come inside to eat & then back outside to play with the neighbor kids. One comes in crying. It lasts a minute & then they're back out again. I ask them to get the chicken eggs. Chickens escape. They run after chickens. I'm pretty sure it's bedtime & we must convince them to brush their teeth as if they've never heard about it before. They're fighting over who touched their toothpaste. M wants to cuddle. Yotos are playing. They want water. Good night.
Caption: For most of the school year we had a friend join us for activities, readings & videos that go along with Molly & Addy American Girl time periods. We started with the Great Depression but didn't know about Kit at the time. We are focusing more on government / civics the last couple months, but that involves a little bit of Ancient Greece & Rome, American Revolution & a "create their own country" project per the advice of her uncle.
Time Travel Tuesday
Since history & geography got moved to Mondays, Tuesdays end up being more for art & science or read alouds & piano lessons, but the title stays.
I check my calendar first thing in the morning to make sure I'm mentally prepared. It's a first Tuesday so we trade piano lessons for art & science with homeschool friends (piano will be on Friday instead). I push my luck rolling out of bed, but everyone is up and B has already cut up apples for everyone's lunch. It's a good thing they don't mind peanut butter and honey sandwiches, but I need to remember more bread at the bread store on my way home later. I could take a shower after drop-off, but I decide to manage the dishes overflow from the night before. We aren't bringing a lot of art supplies this time, so we leave the house on time. We pick-up Kara, the art teacher, and get to the facility with 5 minutes to spare. I then run to grab groceries with the toddler, including the chicken wings & hearts for that days science lesson. We head back for the end of the 2-hr class, grab bread at the bread store, drop Kara off & bring the three girls home for lunch. They prefer cup of noodles and sliced apples.
They jump until lunch is ready & eat while watching the latest Generational Genius video. This one was a big lesson on Multicellular Organisms (I decided to make it big per last night's prep inspiration). They take the Kahoot Quiz & then we get into various activities as they wrap up the chicken wing & heart dissections, they move onto other body systems like taking blood pressure for circulatory, weight lifting for muscular, a bone labeling quiz for skeletal. We made a mess with a kidney demonstration & my blood sugar machine decided to stop working. (We did a digestive system demo in our first lesson). They decided to reward themselves with Boomerang Fu on the Switch & more trampoline time.
Siblings walk home and join in. They require snacks & then I take friends home on my way to drop off E for her 8-week dance class. It's the first time she has done a formal activity after her month of Karate. I scroll my phone during most of it, but I also try to make an insurance phone call & book the last of our museums for our upcoming trip. After the hour is up, we come home for a quick bite just after 6, which I did not plan out in advance, and I take D & B to their church activity at 6:30. I hope they snacked enough. They can eat some dinner leftovers if not. Costco fried chicken in a bag saves a lot of dinners thrown together with potatoes and sautéed veggies. It's 7:30 before everyone is home & we try to convince everyone to brush their teeth quickly so I can read a new book we started: Tolliver's Secret. We all gather in the girls room for a chapter after we read our one minute scripture study devotional. I wish we could do this more often, but there is a lot of pausing & exasperation involved even when we do manage it. The evening fun included a little reading, scrolling & organizing some homeschool info to send to a friend.
Work & Wonder Wednesday
Woke up seeing my 3 yo had gotten into 6 yo's markers. Looks like blood all over him & the sheets. I ignored it but told him to try and wash his hands. Wasn't the washable kind. Made lunches while watching World Watch News & got the middles to school right as the bell rang, per the usual. Only a little sass from the 7 yo who didn't know where to put her used tissue. I finally got around to cleaning the bathroom, unfortunately a day after having friends over. 7th grader previously had a 6 week outdoors co-op during this time but is now back to typical work. She was working on math by the time I got back & was ready to cry about it so I also ignored the dishes & we walked through the lesson. I printed one out from a new curriculum since she needs a break from the online one, which didn't cover linear graphing any way. Luckily, we recently watched something on creating neural synapses & math specifically, so she knew she had to tell her brain to quit panicking, learning is just hard. Isolating variables started to click.
I got a break & went to the dentist & didn't have any cavities, but that one molar with a big filling is still sensitive so he ground it down a bit to prevent bite pressure. Came home to 7th grader making her macncheese lunch. She ate the whole box by herself. She ate while watching a virtual fieldtrip to the National Zoo talking about endangered animals. I let the 3 yo watch a show while I was gone because we just take the easy route, but if he watches a slower show like Little Bear, he doesn't fight turning it off later. He said yes to a corndog, but changed his mind so I ate it. Not a healthy day. 7th grader played a game on Chess Kids before doing two lessons in her language curriculum (she is trying to catch up). Then she logged in for her Chess Club all while I was at Costco.
I picked up my 10 yo on the way back & unloaded while they put on their karate outfit. Karate is 50 minutes & the 3 yo struggles, this time falling asleep after a fit. Child #3 & #4 walk home. We were home at 4 & I rested while dad came home at 4:30. We started organizing clothes while dad peeled potatoes and added them to the instant pot. Finally washed the red spotted laundry. 3 yo fell back asleep on me, lots of coughing, but woke up so I could finish dinner thanks to Costco chicken. 12 yo was off to church youth group. Dad added the sheet back to the bed. 3 yo stayed up later. Bedtime felt rushed, but 12 yo was happy cause she hung out with friends. 10 yo was happy cause he got to play a new Pokemon video game. 7 yo was happy cause she got a lot of new outfits from a cousin. 6 yo got a few PBS games on the ipad. 4 days a week - 2 kids get the choice on the 1-hour screentime, others have the choice to watch or do something else. I went to check on the chicken eggs; a hen was in the box & ready to peck my hand off. Loaded the dishwasher. 15 minutes alone time with husband after his show. Lights out before midnight.
Caption - Field School: mapping the area. Each week has a different outdoor location & nature focus. This was Lexi's favorite day - finding patterns & mapping the area. She wanted to push herself to get outdoors even in winter, but the program wasn't the best fit overall, so she didn't want to continue after the 6 winter sessions.
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