Happy Wednesday and happy fall! We have our first Day in the Life post of the year today! Since, I (Sharon), took over as the Down Home blog curator, there has been a common theme that I have heard from Down Home readers and that is the popularity of our Day in the Life posts. I have to agree, they have always been one of my favorites as well.
For those new to SLOCA or new to Down Home, you may be wondering, “What is A Day in the Life?” A few times a trimester we ask a family to give us a glimpse into one of their homeschool days. These posts are intended to be a fun way to see how other SLOCA families approach our unique but sometimes challenging hybrid model. We hope that these posts will be a valuable resource to you as you figure out what works best for your family.
Since our family, the Cumberlands, has yet to do a Day in the Life, I thought we would start the year off. Keep in mind that this is the beginning of the year, our grids have been fairly light and we are still finding our groove in this new year. A Day in the Life for us come March may look completely different and that’s okay. Glean from this post some ideas, tips, and hopefully encouragement that none of us are perfect but we are all in this together.
As a quick intro, this is our 5th year at SLOCA. Dave and I have two kids, Ian is in 5th grade and Ainsley is in Kindergarten. Both kids are on Track A and I am the main home educator. I chose to document a Tuesday since those are usually our fullest homeschool days as the assignments due Wednesday can not be postponed to the next homeschool day.
Without further ado–A Day in the Life: The Cumberland Family
7:00 pm Monday night: I usually print out the kids’ grids on Sunday and briefly glance over them before attaching them and any other printouts that may be needed for the week to a clipboard. Then on the night before a homeschool day, I spend more in-depth time preparing. I sit down with Ian, my 5th grader, and we look at his grid and discuss what subjects he can do independently and what will require my involvement. This year we are really encouraging more independence in regards to certain home subjects and personal responsibility for his assignments etc. We highlight pink for “mom” and green for “Ian”. I then spend some time looking over both kids’ grids and collecting all the needed materials. For my kindergartener, Ainsley, I put together all the books and materials I will need to homeschool her and place them in a basket. This makes it easy to take to any location in the house since she currently doesn’t have her own homeschool space that has a tall enough chair for me to sit in comfortably.
3:00 am Tuesday (Yes you read that correctly.) I wake up and despite my best efforts can’t fall back asleep. It could be a rough day. Might have to add, “take a nap” to the do-list running through my head keeping me awake!
4:10 am I finally resign to the fact that I am not going to be sleeping anymore and decide to get some blog work done.
5:15 am Leave for the gym. Tuesday mornings are my early day to get in a workout. The rest of the week my husband takes the 5:30 am workout slot and I squeeze in my workouts later in the day.
6:35 am I return home from the gym feeling a little more energized and glad I went. My husband Dave and I high-five as he leaves for his workout. I find myself cleaning up cat throw-up for the 5th time in 24 hours and hoping that I don’t have a trip to the vet in my near future.
6:40 am Go get myself ready for the day before the kids wake up.
6:55 am Move laundry from the washer to the dryer. This is the load I ran last night (oops). Consider what other laundry I might get done today. (Laundry is one of few chores I attempt to accomplish on home days and I use the term “accomplish” loosely.)
7:00 am Ian’s alarm goes off. I have told him that he can sleep in on homeschool days but yet he still sets it. I guess it’s a good habit and means we will hopefully get an early start on the day. Maybe I will have time for a nap after all.
7:05 am I check emails to see if there is anything pressing that I will need to make time for. Ainsley’s teacher has sent a printout we will need. While printing it, I hear my 5-year-old get up. I had to wake her up at 7:30 yesterday to go to school and promised I’d let her sleep in today, but she apparently isn’t taking me up on it.
7:15 am I sit down with Ainsley on the couch and read her book of the week, Harold and The Purple Crayon. I like to read with her first thing in the morning before her brother comes out. It gives us some quality one-on-one time. After we read and briefly discuss the story I send her off to do her morning chores. (Morning chores consist of things like: make your bed, feed the cats, brush your teeth, etc.) Ian has yet to emerge from his room.
7:30 am I check on Ian, he is reading in bed. I encourage him to get moving so we can have breakfast and start the day. I add his dirty laundry to my basket and get a load going.
7:50 am Dave returns home from the gym and makes himself breakfast while I wash dishes and remind the kids to finish their morning chores.
8:00 am The kids eat breakfast while I finish off the dishes. (I squeeze in my breakfast later in the morning.)
8:30 am Since I let Ian eat breakfast before his chores were done, I now find myself pestering him to get to them so we can start homeschool. However, we end up all getting distracted by the flock of tiny birds in our backyard enjoying the morning bugs.
8:40 am We finally start homeschool. (This was not the early start I had hoped for, this is about the regular time we start.) I give Ian the choice to either begin with an independent task or something he needs me for. Last year, I often dictated what subject we would do when. This year, Ian has been enjoying having more say in our schedule and for the most part, it has improved our home days. He picks spelling which requires my instruction. Ainsley does her own thing. (She’s pretty used to having to entertain herself while I do homeschool with her brother. Sometimes she hangs out nearby unintentionally learning. She already has the definition of a noun memorize, several Latin phrases, and who knows what else.)
Ian has a good attitude as we review phonogram cards, alphabetize, learn new words and practice spelling strategies. Our progress is disrupted and even obstructed a few times by the cats that insist on being a part of homeschool.
9:10 am We finish up spelling and I give Ian the choice of what we do next. He decides he wants to practice his continent mapping but wants me to participate with him. He teaches me how to draw the continent “blobs” on the map. I could use a few more lessons.
9:30 am Ian narrates to me from his IEW KWO (keyword outline) on Leonardo da Vinci. I suggest he gets started on writing the rough draft but he is reluctant to do so. We check to see what else is on the grid and I tell him it is time for me to work with his sister so he needs to pick an independent subject. He decides to tackle his math assessment.
9:35 am I work with Ainsley at the dining room table while Ian works on his math at the homeschool desk. This is why it is helpful that I have all that I need for her together in one bin. Our plan is that Ian will eventually have his own desk in his room, but this works for now.
Ainsley is an eager and willing pupil and we get through her kindergarten grid in an hour. First up is math. We work on subitizing and number recognition. Then some reading and handwriting. She has a creative assignment for literature that I decide to save for later.
10:30 am Ian completes his math assessment and I send both kids outside for a recess. They come back inside about 7 minutes later and are ready for a snack. They get themselves a quick snack and I go move the laundry from the washer to the dryer.
10:40 am As the kids eat snack, I read to them the second half of Diane Stanley’s Leonardo da Vinci. Ian tells me all he remembers learning about why da Vinci’s technique for The Last Supper failed.
11:20 am Ian decides to begin his IEW paragraph on da Vinci. Ainsley and I fold laundry.
11:25 am Ian is struggling with getting started. He really wants to get to his art Open Experimentation because he has discovered we own watercolors similar to the type his art teacher, Mr. Kinnear, has shown them. I remind him that other things are due before that and he needs to prioritize. I suggest that if he can’t focus on his IEW, he should work on something easier like grammar or Latin. He decides to get his grammar out of the way.
11:30 am Ainsley finishes folding the microfiber towels and I prompt her to start on her literature assignment to draw or create a mode of transportation. She has chosen to draw a train.
11:32 am Ainsley is done with her train picture. She will spend much longer on an art project of her choice, but when told to do something specific, she is apt to do the bare minimum. I encourage her to add color and I write out a title for her to copy.
11:33 am She’s done. She’s got a particular toy in mind that she wants to play with, so I get her set up in her room for her hour of independent play. I love that this is on the kindergarten grid! It is great for her and it will give Ian some quiet time to get his work done. As Ainsley cleans her room in preparation to get out “Mommy’s Barbies”, Ian has a question on his grammar. I thought this was an assignment he could do by himself but it looks like he needs some side by side attention. I set down the laundry I was attempting to put away, get Ainsley everything she needs, and go help Ian.
12:00 pm With grammar finished, we talk about what to do next. He still really wants to get to art, but decides to knock out a few sentences for his IEW. I go back to the laundry. The bed I am folding the laundry on is too tempting and because of my early wake-up time, my body is begging me to lie down. I lie on the bed and 40 minutes fly by.
12:40 pm Ian knocks on my door to tell me he has completed 3 sentences out of 9 for his IEW. I read them over and give him permission to get out the watercolors and work on his Open Experimentation for art. Ainsley is listening to music and still playing happily in her room. I tell myself I get 20 minutes more to rest before making the kids’ lunch and reading Don Quixote. I would normally use this time for working on the blog or paying bills or something but that’s not happening today.
1:00 pm I rouse myself to contemplate lunch. Apples and peanut butter are on the menu today. It takes some convincing to get Ian to pause on his art and have some lunch. We eat and I read our Don Quixote chapters and discuss ideas for Ian’s Socratic ticket assignment. (If you haven’t noticed, we do almost all our school reading at the dining room table while the kids are eating. To me it feels like multitasking and the kids seem to enjoy it.) Ian is anxious to get back to his art and I am anxious for him to be done with what is actually due tomorrow. We discuss that if he wants my help or input with any of his remaining assignments, he needs to do them now because I am fading fast and I will not be of much use for much longer.
2:10 pm Ian gets to work and I sit down next to him to try and get some blog work out of the way while also trying to be available to him if he needs me. Both kids seem to keep needing my attention, the blog will have to wait.
3:20 pm Ian has finished and we spend some time exploring the Cambridge Latin site as he practices his Latin vocabulary words. I have worked on the same paragraph for the blog the entire time as I was continually interrupted by both kids. Hopefully, I will have more success tonight. I instruct Ian to pack up his stuff for tomorrow and he happily returns to his art.
Ainsley has been flitting about the house giving the cats too much attention and finding ways to pester her brother. I encourage her to spend some time in her room.
3:45 pm Ainsley emerges from her room to watch her brother paint and again I attempt to accomplish something with the blog.
4:30 pm I’ve made some headway with the blog while Ian painted and Ainsley bopped around the house looking at books and using her spirograph. About this point, I’m feeling bad that I have not made more time for her today. (I’d like to say that I set everything aside right then and there and played with her, but alas, I did not. I did make sure to have some extra snuggle time with her at bedtime.)
I encourage Ian to clean up and have some downtime in his room before dinner and AWANA.
4:40 pm Get through a few emails. Normally I would be prepping dinner about now, but thankfully we have some leftovers in the fridge so not much prep is needed.
5:00 pm I go back to blogging while the kids chill in their rooms. We always try to work in what we call “rest time” during the day. Ian and I are both introverts and really need the alone time to recharge our introvert batteries. Ainsley would prefer to hang out with us, but she usually finds great ways to entertain herself.
5:25 pm I prep dinner and feed the kids, Crockpot Santa Fe Chicken–YUM!
5:45 pm Dave is home and I eat some dinner with him.
6:05 pm Dave leaves to take the kids to AWANA and then heads off to his Ultimate Frisbee game. I’m grateful the kids get to go exert some of their energy as I realize they didn’t spend much time outside today. I clean up from dinner, pick up the house and do the miscellaneous chores that I’ve been wanting to get to all while listening to Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens on Audible. (Tip-Audio books make chores so much more enjoyable.)
6:45 pm I sit down and read the most recent Bear Necessities. I take one last look (or so I thought) at Wednesday’s blog post and schedule it to publish.
7:30 pm I finally finish putting the laundry away that was on my bed and then head to pick up the kids.
8:30 pm Get both kids into bed and Dave returns home from Ultimate. I make one final change on the blog and pay a few bills while Dave does some work.
9:30 pm I read in bed till sweet sleep finds me.
6 thoughts on “A Day in the Life: The Cumberland Family”
Thanks for sharing, Sharon! As you mentioned, it’s always so fun to get a peek into another family’s days.
I got as far as the highlighting idea and am already implementing it. Genius!
Awesome! We just started that this year and it has been working well. I hope it helps you!
So fun to read the ins and outs of other’s home days. None of us have it down, and flexibility is key. I love that you can see Ian’s independence growing… I really appreciate the way SLOCA structures the levels so that they gain confidence and momentum at the same time, working their way to independence (for the most part) in HS.
The kitties on the table!! 🤣 Glad to get a peek into your day, I may try having Jacob highlight things he can do on his own. What a great idea!
Catching up on the blog while being away and loved reading this. The cats trying to be in the middle of homeschooling: I can relate. Thank you so much for sharing.