Home Schooling - How Does it Work?

It's been a long while since I've written about home schooling.  This post from a fellow adoptive mom prompted me to give you all an update.  I have a few friends who have strongly considered pulling their kids from public/private school and trying to educate at home.  So, perhaps a glimpse into our daily life will serve those considering a home school program.

Home schooling looks and works differently for every family.  For us, we are using Sonlight Curriculum.  One of my best friends calls it "Home Schooling For Dummies," and as a matter of fact, there's a lot of truth to that.  Sonlight lays out daily activities for all subjects:  Language Arts, History, Science.  We use a separate curriculum for Math and for that we were referred by friends to try Singapore Math.  I also do a cursive handwriting workbook with my oldest son - A Reason for Handwriting that I love!

4th Grade History Binder.
Days of the school week across the top, the rows list the activity to be completed.
Complete it, check it off, you're done!  Move onto the next subject.

Our day starts fairly leisurely, especially since I've learned that I'm just horribly allergic to our new state of Texas and some days I just can't function.  I've never slept well at night since my husband is a snorer (sorry hun, but it's true), but add my allergies to it and I just don't sleep well at all and that leads to late mornings.  We typically start school by 9:30am but sometimes it's as late as 10:00.  We don't outline or plan every second of our day like some families do.  I've tried that since I prefer structure, but my boys like to have their options open.  We go in the order of what we want to do.  Sometimes my boys beg for science so we do that first, with both boys listening to each others lessons.  They LOVE science!  But if I'm feeling lousy and am having trouble getting out of bed, we'll often start snuggling in bed reading before heading downstairs to the dining room table.

There are many things that my 4th grader can do on his own, specifically Language Arts.  He can do his spelling, vocabulary, handwriting, and often a writing/research project all on his own while I work with my kindergartener.

There isn't much my kindergartener can do on his own quite yet.  He can do his handwriting and spelling words and copy work, but other than that, I'm reading the Bible stories, the social studies lesson, the science lesson and I walk him through his math assignments.

We love using the easel in the kitchen!

When my 2 year old gets in the way and needs my attention, my 4th grader has really enjoyed being a student teacher to my kindergartener.  That's a big help, but it does keep my oldest from his work, so I try not to depend on him too much.  For the most part, our Quiet Tiger has learned to play with toys fairly quietly while we are schooling.

All in all, it only takes about 1 - 1.5 hours to get through a day's worth of Kindergarten curriculum.  For my 4th grader, it will take at least 3 - 4 hours.

We take a good hour break for lunch.  We'll eat together for about a half hour or so and then I'll let the boys play with Legos or watch a cartoon on Netflix.  By the time L's nap time comes around at 2:00pm, we're either done with school or just wrapping up school for Super C.  Then it's playtime or I'll take the boys outside to play catch or hit a badminton birdie around in the driveway, or ride scooters out front or they'll shoot hoops on the back patio.

They really do enjoy learning from each other's curriculum!  

Some days we have to flex, like days when we have errands to run like oil changes, grocery shopping, library trips.  Those days we may just stick with reading and math and then catch up on the other subjects later in the week.  I have yet to give my boys any days off of school with the exception of the weekend, of course, two weeks we were moving into the house and unpacking, 2 days at Thanksgiving and 2 weeks at Christmas.  We've done school on President's Day, Martin Luther King Day, Pulaski Day (had to throw that out for my IL friends - haha), etc.  We'll take a week off for Spring Break when my mom and stepdad come see us at Easter in a couple weeks.

I've found a homeschool group at our edge of town that meets for various activities.  We are currently attending their bi-weekly PE sessions at a nearby park.  The boys love it and I'm meeting other moms and L gets to play on the playground.  The group does other activities as well, but most seem to cost money and we're just not spending more than we need to right now, so I'll do the things that are free.

We've enjoyed the last 26 weeks and are excited to have only 10 weeks left.   We haven't made any firm decisions about next year yet.  I'd prefer to keep home schooling through elementary school at the very least but we'll see what happens.   I'm honestly unsure of what the schools are like in our new neighborhood.  We bought the house knowing we were home schooling and didn't put a ton of importance on school quality when choosing our neighborhood.

All in all, if you can follow a checklist, Sonlight is a great place to start for home school.  And while I will say that I'm quite the administrative person, attentive to details, enjoying organization, I really think anyone could handle Sonlight.  I love home schooling so much, much more than I ever thought I would.  The time spent with my kids is truly priceless.

I'm very open to any questions you might have about the topic!