Not Back to School Blog-Hop: Day-in-the-Life Week

This week is "A Day in the Life" over at Life With My 3 Boybarians.

Last year was pretty chaotic. My husband was in Iraq (he'll be coming home next month!!) and I was single parenting. We didn't have a lot of structure to our days. It was mostly just working until we got things done (in various different orders) and then driving around to dance and gymnastics and art and other classes.

This year will be a bit different. I have another student (Lexie is now 5 and doing full-time work) and my baby turned into a very active toddler. Andy will be home and we will have more of a "normal" schedule.

We have just finished 3 weeks of school. It has taken me this long to assess what we need to do as far as a schedule.

There are some subjects that we do together (history, art, read-alouds). There are some that the kids do independently (the older two do their math on the computer, Ellie does most of her writing assignments on her own, literature reading to themselves, etc.). And there are some that need to be one-on-one (spelling, language arts, math with Lexie, science with the younger two).

I have also had to figure out about how much time we need to spend on each subject. And what to do with the younger kids during school time.

This is a lot to consider. I think that I have finally come up with our schedule. Nothing is set in stone of course, because we have yet to actually try it out. We'll see if it works out by the end of this week!!!

I have decided to lump the one-on-one mom time into "meetings" with me. Each kid gets one individual meeting with me where I can give their spelling test, discuss things we're studying, give instructions for writing assignments, and help with whatever subject they can't do on their own. I am hoping that this will work out.

Before, I was jumping from kid to kid all at once - different subjects and different levels. It was pretty distracting. Kate has a very hard time concentrating if other people are talking and couldn't handle the noise of other people asking questions and making noise. I am hoping that this helps her out a bit too.

This is what our schedule will look like:


Ok, so I obviously haven't actually come up with a plan to keep Nick and Tori busy yet. :)

I'm hoping to just rotate toys, puzzles, and manipulatives with Nick to keep him actively doing something.

Tori is another story. She wants to move around A LOT now, but she still needs to be watched every second. She is pretty happy to be in the playroom, which adjoins our school area, so she will probably have to play in there for a good part of the morning.

I sure hope this works!!

P.S. The greatest thing that I have done this year is moved all of our extra-curricular activities to the afternoons. No more missing out on dinner at home - together!!