homeschool: a day in the life

September is almost over, the leaves are starting to change colors, the air is crisp and sweet with the smells of harvest and school is well under way.

This is our third year using the K12 curriculum for home education and, even though I now teach two of my kids, it is getting easier and running more smoothly each year. Yep, this year Emma started Kindergarten and even though it's not mandatory in the state of Utah we decided to take advantage of the curriculum to let Emma get a feel for it and have fun learning beside her sister, Sarah, who now, by-the-way, is in 4th grade!

Anyway, some of you--my friends and family have been curious as to how home-schooling works, or more specifically, how WE homeschool using K12. So I decided to post about a typical school day, complete with pictures. Throughout the year I hope to post more school days; academic progress, field trips, etc. If any of you have any questions, just ask. Enjoy the pics!

Sarah and Emma on the first day of school--and very excited to use their color coordinated supplies (Sarah wanted blue, Emma wanted purple and Morgan wanted orange).

Our "school room" (slash office slash craft slash sewing room) on the first day of school.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." -Albert Einstein

Our day begins with breakfast & getting dressed, followed by chores. Both Sarah and Emma have time management charts and chore charts to help keep them on track!

This is Emma's chore chart. Sarah's is similar only she empties the dishwasher as her allowance chore. Once we're dressed and the house is clean (around 9:30 am)....

...We meet in the school room and start with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance...

...followed by a scripture story out of the children's Bible or Book of Mormon reader. How cute is Morgan in this pic?

Then we log onto our K12 site, I pull up either Sarah's or Emma's agenda for the week and mark their attendance...

By clicking on a subject we know which books to get, which chapters to read, or tests to take, etc. These are our K12 shelves and all the wonderful curriculum that they send us!

Sarah practicing her spelling (she keeps her "to do" pile on her right--next is math).

Emma matching her uppercase letters to her lowercase letters. Incidentally, she is so far ahead. I was surprised at how rudimentary K started out and she already knew everything so we're doing 2-3 lessons a day and she'll probably be ready for 1st grade this Spring!

This is what we look like for about 3-4 hours each day M-F (only I'm at the computer or folding laundry, on the phone, etc.).

Morgan joins us with her preschool book, stickers and crayons--this way she feels included, though her attention span doesn't last as long as I'd like.

Sometimes Morgan prefers to watch a kid-movie or tv show.

Around 12:30 we have lunch time followed by outside/exercise time in which I give my kids "obstacle course" challenges, such as: jump on the trampoline 50x, run around the tree 3x, climb to the top of the clubhouse and crawl under the patio chairs... They love it! (I'll try to remember to get a pic of them doing it--it's hilarious!)

After lunch we'll have "art" time--j/k! This is what happens when Morgan gets bored or too quiet. Usually after lunch Sarah and Emma play on the computer doing their times tables, history, reading or science. Each Friday we try to do a craft....

...a few times a week we do science experiments, like this one where Sarah was learning the difference between solutions and mixtures, liquids, solids and gases...

...and having fun with vinegar and baking soda, but more often than not Sarah spends the last hour practicing her handwriting (grudgingly) or just finishing up other work. Emma is done with her school in an hour, tops! They sometimes play with their friends in the afternoon and then it's dinner/family time, of course.

--THAT'S a typical day. Not very exciting, I know, but full of peace and love and comfort and fun!!! Sometimes we do "home"school from the back seat of the van as I run errands. And, yes, I do have days where I want to pull my hair out, but those are the days that we just do one thing and call it good.

The wonderful thing about our local chapter of K12 (because K12 is, for the most part, nation wide) is that we get to participate in many field trips (at least a couple each month). For example, this month they had an ice-cream social in which they hired the Mad Scientists to put on a show for the kids and each child got to make their own "slime". And for the month of October we are going to a Kingsbury Hall production of Tap Dogs, then the K12 Hogle Zoo day and then the K12 Cornbelly Maze day! So much fun and TONS of social interacting/meeting friends!!! The girls love homeschool and, well, that's why I do it.