Monday, February 23, 2009

A Day in Our Homeschool Life

I thought I would share a typical (or not so) day in our homeschool with you.

I woke up at 5 this morning and made a pot of coffee, unfortunately 5am is all too typical. Cool and I then watched Fox News while drinking a couple cups of coffee together. Cool brought me a cup of coffee and accidently put creamer in it. YUCK! While Cool showered and got ready for work I went out and started his car, got his lunch ready, made another pot of coffee and saw him off. It was 6:00.

I sat down to the computer to check my email and found the internet was down so decided to take a shower. After brushing my teeth, I woke the picklets up. They were very happy to be up so early...NOT! I sent Dill and Sweet up to shovel the library sidewalk while Chip took a shower. Dill and Sweet are still working off their fines. I called Chrissy and made apple cinnamon bread.

After Dill and Sweet got back we sat down on the couch and watched Stick It! It was a movie about gymnastics and all three loved it. I believe it showed the picklets perseverance and how good they could be if they work really hard at it. During the movie we ate our sweet bread and drank chocolate milk. I have found starting the day with a movie once or twice a week really helps start the day off with a bang. We all enjoy the relaxation. Plus with the Netflix membership Cool got us we always have something to watch.


When the movie was finished I started reading Lincoln and His Boys by Rosemary Wells. It is a very easy read and the picklets seemed to enjoy it.

After I finished the first third of the book the picklets went their separate ways for individual study. Chip started with math review. Dill worked on spelling and then math. Sweet worked in her Daily Learning Drills book. I started soaking the dishes and checked my email. I signed up for a free Quizno's sub. I then went and did the dishes. Dill had a question about his spelling words so I helped him with those.

When I finished the dishes I sat down with Dill and corrected his math and spelling. We went over the wrong items. Sweet then asked if lightening bugs are beetles so we looked that up. Yes indeed they are.

I went to the kitchen and started lunch. Sweet is ecstatic because I decided on corn dog casserole. While the onions and hot dogs were browning I helped Sweet with some math problems. Chip came downstairs, put his math book on the counter and continued reading Series of Unfortunate events #13. I finished putting the casserole together, put it in the oven and corrected Chip's math. He continued reading and corrected as I went along.

Since the casserole wasn't quite ready yet I decided to continue reading Lincoln and His Boys. In the book President Lincoln ate chicken fricassee. Dill questioned what is in it so we looked it up and decided to make it sometime this week. After finishing the second third of the book we got our plates of corn dog casserole and carrots and sat down at the computer to watch a PBS documentary of Egypt. It is in three parts. We only watched half of the first part. It is rather, ummmmmm, boring and we will watch it in shifts.

After watching the Egypt video the picklets took the dogs for a walk. The sun is out and shining brightly. Better to take advantage of it rather than ignore. While they were walking the dogs I checked my email, folded a load of laundry, threw in another load, did the dishes from lunch and talked to Chrissy. The kids put their laundry away and did their chores after walking the dog. Chore time is rather a hassle because the boys think they need to be in the same room and they don't work but talk, play, hit each other with boxes and ignore what is being said to them. Still working on this. While the picklets do their chores, I put away mine and Cools clothes, hang up the laundry, make my bed and continue to "direct traffic". Unfortunately my voice is raised more than I like. Still working on this too.



Chores took a bit longer than I had hoped. We won't get to the art and science I had planned for the day. I threw king ranch chicken together and put it in the oven then sat down to read the rest of Lincoln and His Sons aloud. The picklets really liked the book and felt bad about Willie dying of "the fever". I then started reading Socrates Ancient Greek in Search of Truth by Pamela Dell aloud.

This book isn't written in the fun way that most books I read are. I was a bit worried that the kids weren't getting anything from it. So after the 2nd chapter I asked what they learned. Oh wow! "At the age of 70 Socrates was sentenced to death and was sentenced to drink hemlock. When he was young his dad died and he was in charge of his mom. If she wanted to get married she had to get his permission!" I guess they were listening and soaking up what I read.

Cool called right after that and told me he was about a half mile from home, pulled over on the side of the road, watching a bald eagle in a field. He asked if we wanted to come see it but as I said, "Yes!" the eagle flew off.

I had the picklets set the table and finished supper. We sat down and ate supper after Cool got home. The picklets cleared the table as I did the dishes.

Chip is now working on his page for the Sokol Newsletter, Dill is upstairs reading The Virginian and Sweet is reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in her room. Cool and I are watching The History Channel while I work on the blog. They are talking about Dexter, IA and the shoot out that happened between the law and Bonnie and Clyde. I had no idea that happened in IA! Clyde got away but his brother Buck died and Bucks wife Blanche was captured and spent 10 years in jail. Pretty neat.

So, give or take, that was our day. Really, it was pretty typical. I usually try to have game night on Monday nights but since Chip needed to finish the newsletter it wasn't even an option.

To end the evening, I am going to warm up some apple pie in a jar and serve it over ice cream for dessert. That should put a smile on every one's face.

G'night.


copyright 2009 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

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