parts of our day

So we homeschool. I don't like to get too detailed for a lot of reasons.

There are many other people out there who write about their curriculum and experiences in much more depth and detail than I do and they are much better at it. They can give resources and ideas without seeming like complete blowhards, and I'm not here to preach.

Also, as I read some homeschool sites I find myself sinning in two distinctly different ways. One, I read and feel pride and disdain for the poor mother who can't get it together - I'm doing a much better job than she is. Two, I read and feel envy and jealousy over the wonderful beautiful things she accomplishes - without yelling! - and end up discouraged and dejected.

It is so hard not to be judgemental in one way or another when it comes to other people's children. This summer I had the experience of a mother telling me (at the beach) about how her Little Lord Fauntleroy was so incredibly intelligent for a three year old. He's reading The Hobbit! In Latin! Backwards! All this while he throws, and I am not joking, the fourth handful of sand directly into my face. You know, he may be smart, but soon The Faunt is gonna get beat. Sorry, did I say that out loud? It's so easy to judge her by her children's actions - and you know we all do it - but our children are humans too, and sometimes they have their own ideas. In our little family we are doing our best to raise kind, loving, compassionate children who love Christ. That's pretty much it.

So here you go - our version.







We start our day with some type of breakfast - some days it's pancakes, some days cereal, some days left over pozole, but there is always food involved. If I'm feeling ambitious we head to the Y, although they just changed their class schedule and it is messing me up big time. If we don't go to the Y, we start the girls right away on their basic math and writing and workbook type stuff. You'll notice we have trouble with clothing. In this house we always seem to be in various stages of undress. I'm not sure why, and I include myself in this, but clothes are troublesome and uncomfortable, so we try to wear as little as possible at home. Now that you are thoroughly uncomfortable, do you want to come over?

The boys are a little difficult because they have the attention span of gnats. And I am done with messy stuff. I used to paint and make play dough and do all kinds of crafty things with the girls, but the boys. They take it to another level. They are not content to paint their picture or rocks, they want to paint the table and the floor and each other and then I start yelling and then the fun's over! So I'm slowly coming up with small things they can do while I'm needing to work with girls. The boys do spend a lot of time outdoors, which is nice. Oh, and they torture the dog. Always nice.

We also spend a lot, and I mean a lot, of time reading. I grew up in a family of readers and I am so grateful that the kids have inherited that gene. The girls are great readers, you'll find Elia more often than not, curled up with a good book, ignoring her sister's teasing "bookworm" remarks. Because usually those jibes come from the sister on the other couch holding her own book.

We are doing Five in a Row with our co-op and all of us enjoy it. I enjoy children's books and I love the way FIAR is set up. The kids enjoy it too - but more than the learning at co-op it's the seeing of friends! We do love our friends!

We are currently reading "The Sister's Grimm" series and it's exciting enough to keep even Del interested for whole minutes at a time. And I enjoy it, too. Although I can't wait to start on the Tarzan and John Carter of Mars series. We read most of Edgar Rice Boroughs when I was a kid and I love those memories. Tarzan did wonderful things for my vocabulary and reading ability, not to mention imagination. The big books in homeschool circles right now are the LOTR series, but I think they do their children a disservice by leaving out Edgar Rice Boroughs. Read him people! It's good for you!

Usually by mid-afternoon we need to run out and do errands and I have exhausted my reserves of patience and kindness, so we stop with the formal stuff and move on to the stuff of life.

With that said, I have to go. Someone just kicked someone in the face (by accident, of course) and someone is thumping around upstairs, angry because I got after them for something, and someone is pulling the dog's ears while the other someone pulls her tail, and we haven't had breakfast, and someone else is climbing on chairs and counters to reach a puzzle and someone else is having trouble getting out the back door to get on the swing. So! Off to start the day!