A Day in the Life: The Matheny Family

Our first A Day in the Life post of the 2020/2021 school year is here! These posts are a favorite at Down Home. If you are new to SLOCA and/or unfamiliar with our A Day in the Life series, let us give you a brief introduction.

A few times a trimester we invite a SLOCA family to document and share with us one of their home days. We acknowledge that there are a variety of ways to approach the homeschooling portion of our unique hybrid school. However, our intention is that by showcasing one family’s particular approach, you will come away feeling inspired and encouraged, with some new ideas and an overwhelming sense of community as we can all related to the triumphs and trials of this beautiful educational journey we are on.

So without further ado, today SLOCA parent, Timshel Matheny, shares with us A Day in the Life of the Matheny family. Enjoy!

Hello, we are The Matheny Family and we have 5 boys — Iggy (age 3, Little Wonders), Cosmas (age 5, Kinder), Laz (age 10, 4th grade), Ambrose (age 13, 8th grade), and Jude (age 15, Sophomore). We pretty much span the entire SLOCA age range and so, needless to say, there is A LOT going on in any single day of our family and school life :). In this unique year, so far we have the three younger kids on campus for Mon/Wed and my big kids work (mostly independently) at home with me on those days. But Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday are pretty much what we like to call “organized chaos”. It’s rarely quiet and even more rarely is it calm but it is definitely full of life, surprises, and a good dose of hilarity. Welcome!

6:00 a.m. – Iggy, our 3-year-old, comes to the side of our bed and wakes me up by asking to build puzzles. The two of us find our way to the kitchen where I switch on the espresso machine and Iggy immediately begins pulling boxes of puzzles onto the living room floor. Usually, my husband has been up for an hour or two at this point taking Zoom calls from the dining room table (one of his main clients is EST and another is international so his calls begin early). He waves “good morning” to both of us and we try to spare his colleagues any views of our bedraggled, pajama-selves. On more than one occasion a streaking toddler has made an appearance.

6:30-7:00 a.m. – Slowly all of my kids start to trickle into the kitchen, usually youngest to oldest. Cosmas joins in the puzzle making and Laz, Ambrose, and Jude head into the kitchen to make their own breakfast. I’ve printed up the grids for my youngest three and have them paper clipped together in a stack at the table. Usually, I’ve read through them the night before and try to anticipate what things will — 1) need to be saved for Iggy’s nap time 2) can be done independently for my 3rd grader 3) definitely will need extra prep-time on my end (math, an art project, having supplies at hand). We’ve been homeschooling now for 10 years and I think the easiest thing to throw everybody off in a day is having to hunt down some needed book or supply in the middle of FINALLY getting everybody seated and ready to work. For the past several years we’ve kept everything in separate bins for each student (with lids). We have one bin in the middle of the table with general supplies (rulers, pencils, scissors, glue) but everything else comes out of and goes back into their personal bins.

7:00-7:45 a.m. – I eat some breakfast while usually moving around grabbing math books and pencils to put beside Cos and Laz’s seats. The 3 smaller kids come to the table and eat. This is usually when I ask my Middle and High Schooler what is on their “docket” for the day. I have read through my 8th grader’s grid and know what he needs to do but he mostly works independently. My High Schooler is the same. They each tell me what they are working on, what is coming up for the week, and what Zoom classes they have that day. This has been a cool evolution of working towards independence and organization on their parts. We check back in throughout the day and week but the idea is that they are sharing/showing me how they manage their time and work. They really like this ownership (and so do I!). They show me their schedules and tell me their due dates and goals for the day while they clean up their breakfasts and then they are off to the races until lunchtime.

8:00 a.m. – Laz, Cos, and Iggy have disappeared out to the garden and are discovering all of the newly-ripened fruit they can pick off of our trees. I can hear them talking about alligators and sea turtle eggs through our open kitchen window and so I use the five minutes to clear the extra dishes off the kitchen table and bring our bins out. Usually, we start with math and I cross my fingers and hope that Iggy will stay distracted with a puzzle so I can get his brothers to focus. But if they are deep in play I usually try and be a bit more flexible. Cosmas’s Kinder grid specifically states “one hour of free play” in the morning and, believe or not, this is usually something I have to remind myself of too as I can get a little anxious trying to get all of our work in during the day. But listening to all of my kids, at so many different ages, getting caught up in some imaginative adventure is worth whatever extra minutes we have to slide in later in the day. Plus it is building friendship and family culture which is top of my list as far as homeschool priorities. Deep breath out and ten minutes extra to drink my coffee.

Cosmas comes in to show me a strawberry he found. He mentions the apple tree and then begins to tell me all about the book he read yesterday in class, Harold and the Purple Crayon. For his grid, I need to ask him some questions about this story and so we talk for a few more minutes before he grabs a top hat from the dress-up bin and runs back outside.

8:30 a.m. – I call Laz inside and we go over some math facts. He’s a little rusty on his multiplication tables and so we’ve been doing drills. He works better if he’s moving and so he tells me his 3, 6, and 7 facts while making himself a cup of tea. Once he is finished we practice his recitation. It’s due in class tomorrow and he’s almost got it.

8:40 a.m. – Cosmas comes inside and immediately starts asking me what his work is (they always seem extra curious whenever I’m working with someone else:)). He is learning to sort and graph different objects and so I hand him a cloth bag and send him on a hunt around the house for 2 types of 1 toy, 3 types of another, and 4 types of another. Iggy comes inside and wants to gather toys too. He gets a bag and disappears on his own “hunt”.

Laz and I return to his math work on the table. It’s just a large number subtraction and addition review today and we both see he can do it by himself. I grab a whiteboard and draw up a graph for when Cosmas and Iggy return. Soon enough, here they are. Cosmas dumps his pile of dinos, trucks, and puzzle pieces onto the floor. Iggy watches and dumps out all of the tub toys right beside Cosmas’s pile. Cosmas loudly cries out in protest but I am quickly able to separate each “treasure” with my foot and can quickly distract Cosmas back towards classifying his finds. Tantrum averted!

9:00 a.m. – Laz finishes up his math and I check it for any errors. As soon as we finish, he puts the book back in his bag for school tomorrow. This helps SO much— both to keep the table clear as we go and have us ready for the early departure for campus tomorrow.

Next, I set Laz to the task of writing his 3 sentences for I.E.W. He usually makes these sentences up and speaks them out loud to all of us (they are normally of the fantastical, food-fight-at-the-dinner table variety) making his brothers laugh. I only have to edit a few details (we discuss why it might not be the best idea to read out loud in class tomorrow, “I dramatically slam the bowl full of putrid mashed potatoes into the face of my younger brother” despite it being funny to read AND including an LY, Quality Adjective, and Strong Verb). Balancing learning and virtues here is a delicate and lively task!

While Laz is finishing his sentences, Cosmas and I discuss the different types of transportation in Harold and the Purple Crayon. He is supposed to make a craft of some type of transportation and so he heads off to the recycle bin— he has decided on a bird.

9:30-10:30 a.m. – While Cosmas cuts up cardboard and glues it into a bird, Laz and I work on our grammar. I look up and notice Iggy is not building a puzzle or sitting with us in the kitchen. I can hear Jude (my High Schooler) upstairs on a Zoom call for History. I can also hear Iggy making loud animal train sounds from what I know to be the Duplo-Table which is right at Jude’s feet. This is a MAJOR distraction/stressor for my High Schooler and so I crawl up the stairs (stay below the camera view mom!) and whisper/persuade Iggy to follow me with the Duplo back downstairs towards the kitchen. Crisis averted!

Laz and I finish up Grammar (books back in the bin!) and Laz checks it off the grid. It’s a big deal for him to check things off and to know what else we have to do in the day.

10:45 a.m. – Laz grabs his Struggle for the Continents book out of his bin and I spread our large map on the floor of the living room. The book has been a little dense and so getting them to stay attentive has been a struggle. Just putting the map down in a different place like the floor seems to make them more interested. Immediately, Cosmas and Laz are on their bellies pointing out different places they recognize. I notice that this is a map we have had since Jude and Ambrose were little and there are a ton of cities and places we have circled from our travels as a family. At one point Jude wanders in from where he was making a smoothie in the kitchen and looks with them at the circled cities. We spend a couple of minutes sharing memories we have about each place.

Jude returns to his work and I get out the book and read to Laz and Cosmas. The map makes everything come alive. We talk through and play a game where Laz tried to find every new place that is mentioned. Other than the fact that he keeps jumping up and almost ripping the map in half, it seems to keep him interested. When we walk through our comprehension questions he’s got them nailed.

11:45 a.m. – Time to put Iggy to bed and have some lunch. Iggy has a routine of one book and a few songs. Laz crawls in bed with Iggy and reads his book and then sings his songs. As a trade for his help, I tidy up the map and books and make Cosmas and Laz some lunch.

During this time Jude and Ambrose come downstairs from their own work and make lunch. Skip (my husband) breaks and makes “our lunch”. This is a treasure, as usually, I won’t eat if I’m in the business of mid-day, and Skip always has me covered.

Usually, this is a time that Jude and Ambrose tell me about their calls and how their work is going. Today Ambrose has an Algebra question. We have a rule that any child can ask me any question about Algebra but it has to be before 3 pm. This is simply because my brain does not function in the land of Algebra after that hour…exhaustion is real and Algebra is hard. It is a standing rule and one we all know will only lead to disappointment if not respected… realizing my “limits” is sanity:). But it’s 11:45 and so Ambrose and I sit down and talk through slope-intercept while I “stand-eat” and he shows me his homework.

12:45 p.m. – I finish with Ambrose and the big kids head back upstairs to their work while Laz and Cosmas and I sit down to the final subject of the day, Laz’s Literature. We are reading Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin. Laz is going to make a paintbrush for his Benjamin West Packet and so the two of them head outside to look for supplies. I grab a big glass of water and sit down for what feels like the first time all day. Laz has a rock, stick, and several pieces of greenery that he puts on a cookie sheet and sets to work while I read. They love the book but there is a lot of whining and wiggling from Cos who wants to participate but can’t manage to do exactly what Laz is doing. We make it through the chapters and Laz tried to convince me to allow him to bring a 4-foot tree branch into the living room so he can continue to whittle it into a walking stick. That’s a solid “no”.

1:45 p.m. – We are technically done with school but the house is a mess. When I walk around the corner Ambrose is learning a song on his guitar in the living room. I ask him if he is finished with school and he says, “Almost…just one more subject. I’m just ‘Banana- Peeling’”. We have a made-up term for different ways of cycling through breaks in our day to keep our brains fresh. It’s random, but we call it “banana-peeling’. We made up the term once my big kids were old enough to move through their work pretty independently but still felt they needed to walk outside or play 20 minutes of their instrument or bake something to get to the next stage of their paper or assignment. It’s been a fun way to name the necessity of work, rest, and mental flow for all of us.

2:00 p.m. – Ambrose heads back upstairs to write an IDS for History and Laz and Cosmas and I do a 10 minute tidy-up of our day. All books in bins, all backpacks ready for tomorrow, all flotsam and jetsam put back in some kind of order.

Laz and Cosmas are free to run outside and play football in the yard.

2:30 p.m. – I decide to take this minute to look over the High School Weebly for Jude. He’s been very independent and organized for these first 4 weeks of school but I just want to see what is expected of the week and make sure he’s catching it all. It’s a lot in a lot of places and so I want to stay with him a bit. After checking on each class’s main web page, I catch up with Jude on his next break and we compare notes. He has a Statistics question anyways and so we talk through that and look at his planner. He tells me about a book he needs and we realize he has forgotten a poem he has to memorize by the end of the week. We read through the poem together (it’s an old favorite of mine and secretly I’m thrilled he’ll get to memorize it). He decides to break it up over the next two days and add it to his list.

3:00 p.m. – Usually at this point in the day we walk to the park by our house or, if Skip has finished early, we might even squeeze in a quick hike before dinner. But today is super hot and everybody keeps coming back inside. Cosmas asks to snuggle and so we pick up our night-time read and I read a chapter from Winnie The Pooh. This is my 3rd time through this book with my kids and I love how I can read it to my 10-year-old and my 5-year-old and they each adore it in different ways.

3:30 p.m. – Laz and Cosmas have moved the furniture and are having an impromptu dance party. Iggy joins with headphones and a broken calculator that he claims has his “own songs” on it.

3:45 p.m. – Everybody is done with school and it’s time for chores and free-time. Skip is done with work for the day and so Jude and Ambrose finish their chores and then play outside with the little kids while the two of us take a 45-minute hike up the hill behind our house. Time for catch-up/exercise.

4:45 p.m. – We get back home and the kids all want to talk to Skip (they’ve been chatting my ears off all day!). Laz practices his recitation for each of us while we start to prep for dinner. Skip loves to cook and the big kids often cook dinner with him. Jude and Ambrose chop vegetables or prep while Laz and Cosmas set the table.

5:45 p.m. – Dinner! One perk of a really hot day is that it is still warm enough to eat outside on the back patio.

6:40 p.m. – Jude and Ambrose clear the table and wash dishes while Skip and I split forces between Iggy’s bedtime routine and Laz and Cosmas. Teeth and pajamas.

7:30 p.m. – Stories and songs. Usually, Cosmas and Laz come down and sing to Iggy with whoever is there. He has a medley of favorites and we all know them…Everly Brothers, Rubber Ducky, Moon River, Mary Poppins….

8:00 p.m. – Everybody under 10 years-old is in bed!  Usually, Jude and Ambrose will help me make lunches for Cosmas, Laz, and Iggy’s SLOCA day. I will sit at the table and draw their lunch notes up. This is prized time with our big kids where we are all in the kitchen talking and listening to music for the next hour or so. There may be ping pong or a documentary or old comedy we watch together. It’s really precious time and a totally new season we are loving right now.

9:30 p.m. – The big kids stay up a bit later and hang out with Skip but I head off for a bath or a book. I’m pretty introverted and my day as a Home Teacher leaves pretty little room for quiet. But making time for some re-charge really makes all the difference.

10:00 p.m. – Goodnights, prayers, and hugs to the big boys and off to bed.

And there it is! On Mon/Wed our younger kids get to head to SLOCA to learn from their wonderful teachers and play with their friends and I get a chance to plug in a bit deeper with my older kids and maybe even sit down to paint, work on a song, or read a chapter of a book. And every little bit of it makes this rambunctious ride possible. There are a lot of plates to spin and a lot of unexpected turns in the road every day but, even in the midst of the most chaotic moments, it is a wild (and thrilling!) ride I feel so very grateful to be on.

Wow! Thank you so much, Timshel and the Matheny family for giving us a peek into one of your home days.

We hope our readers have enjoyed today’s A Day in the Life. If you are curious to see what other families’ home days look like, read more A Day in the Life posts HERE.