The summer that Kaeden turned 5 I spent a lot of time prepping and planning to homeschool.  We had formally made the decision and I wanted to be ready.  I remember sending out an email to all my friends who were currently homeschooling and I asked them if they had advice or words of wisdom for me before I jumped into the deep end.  The number one piece of advice I received is that “homeschooling does not look like public school.”  To be honest, I didn’t really know what that meant.  I had 8 years of public school teaching under my belt and attended public school for 13 years so I obviously knew what public school looked like.  It really wasn’t until my second or third year homeschooling that I finally understood what my friends meant by that comment.

            So with that said, this is what our homeschool day looks like and they were right.  It doesn’t look anything like public school!

            My three school aged kids are all 2 years a part (exactly).  We are able to cover a lot of subjects together as long as I can differentiate (thanks to my teaching background this is pretty easy for me)!  I gather my kids to our school room (which is our formal dining room…a room that never really got much use but was beautiful to look at)!  We do our memory work, history chapters, science, geography and read aloud together.  My kids typically draw, write, play with play dough, build with blocks or Legos while we listen to our songs and I read to them.  Kaeden, my oldest, has to work on memorizing the name and locations of the countries we are studying, Kai only has to memorize the region, and London is just working on being able to identify the continent.  This is just an example of how we differentiate for Geography.  Another easy example is when we gather to read our history chapters.  After we read together, Kaeden (middle school) is required to write a one-page summary of the chapter, Kai (fourth grade) is required to write one paragraph, and London (second grade) is required to write 1-2 sentences about something she remembers.  It is really no extra work for me and it allows us to do these activities together.  People ask me how we manage to do these subjects together and this is the gist. 

            There are LOTS of breaks and snacks mixed into this time because my children can’t possibly work for more than 25-30 minutes before needing a break and a granola bar.  We are typically able to finish up this portion of our work before lunch.  After lunch is when it gets a little tricky for me.  This is when we cover reading, writing, math, vocabulary, and spelling.  Obviously my second grader, fourth grader, and sixth grader can’t do all these subjects together.  My kids split up and I give them the tasks they can do independently while I work with each of them one on one.  There are lots of “Mommy I need your help!” being shouted from every room.  Lani (my three year old) is wondering around and whining for something.  I say “One minute” about 72 times per minute…which shouldn’t be possible but it is.  But somehow over the course of 2 hours or so (again with lots of breaks and snacks) we somehow manage to finish by 4:00 (that’s because we are finished at 4:00 regardless of what work was or needs to be completed). 

            We have lots of other activities that fill up our school week.  We have piano lessons on Tuesdays, we are always enrolled in some special class through our county’s parks and rec program.  Currently it’s a homeschool nature study class which my boys love!  We see homeschool friends along the way and we always manage to see our public school friends at least one evening during the week.  Our curriculum requires a 4 day plan which always leaves me one day for fun stuff (like art lessons) or to play catch up (if there is a random warm day in February we don’t stay inside and do school work…we plan an impromptu picnic or playground visit)!  We go on 1-2 field trips per month (it could be more if I was better at planning them.  Thankfully I have good friends who are great at this and they invite us a long!)  We take off school the week of Halloween, the week of Thanksgiving, 2-3 weeks at Christmas and the week of “mommy is tired.” 

            So there you have it.  Our homeschool life in a nut shell.  My children have come to love this lifestyle and so have I.  It gives us freedom, flexibility, time together, and I don’t have to leave my house before 9:00 in the freezing cold if I don’t want to…unless I already RSVP’d and paid for the field trip to Baltimore that Megan planned.  My friends were so right.  Homeschooling looks nothing like public school.  But we are okay with that.