A Day in the Life - CM Open House

At the moment, we have a 12-year-old in Year 7, a 10-year-old in Year 4, an 8-year-old in Year 2, a 6-year-old in Year 1, a 4-year old and a 1-year old.  I hope this is a helpful peek at how doable this AO homeschooling thing is, even with a wide range of ages.  Disclaimer: The baby was sleeping during the time we took the video, and the preschooler was being more cooperative (and less loud) than usual. Also, my current Year 1 student is a stellar reader, so is probably more independent than your average 6-year-old. 

Obviously, there are many parts of our day that didn’t make it into the video (More narrations! Art! Outside time! Shakespeare and Plutarch! All these were on our schedule and did get done, but not on tape…), but this does give a glimpse into our day with four kids in three different forms. The one other piece that didn’t make it into the video is our “family study” section of day, which happens over lunch. This is when we do Scripture reading, artist and composer study, folk song, hymns, catechism memorization and other assorted riches. I usually eat quickly and then lead those activities while the children are finishing their meal.

The key in our family, as you can probably tell from the video, is to help train the children to be as independent as reasonably possible. It takes some effort at the beginning of each year to tweak the routine so that everyone gets the attention they need in a timely manner and can be working productively while they wait. A master list for each child for each day is helpful. I prepare copy work for one child who already knows how to write well for the whole week at once (or let them choose a passage of appropriate length).  A child can do review sections from their math page by herself until I have a moment to explain the new skills. Instrument practice and recitation can fit in while a child is waiting to narrate a reading, but I am helping someone else. I can listen to a narration or two while throwing in a load of laundry or changing the baby.  I’ve let the kids know how many kids can reasonably be helped with math at one time: Two, no more! Any other child wanting to do math has to wait. I’ve combined books between two children in adjacent years to cut down on reading-aloud time.  At our house right now, Y1 is listening to Y2’s Burgess Animal Book, and will do the Bird Book next year. I’ve also combined the Shakespeare retellings in a Form I rotation, since those are not tied specifically to the history timeline. Other readings I prefer to keep in their specific year because they fit well (Little Duke) or are more age appropriate there in terms of reading level.

Once the kids know what they can (and should) do independently and how to choose a varied sequence of activities, it’s a matter of keeping the more easily distracted children moving on to the next thing, and making sure everything did, in fact, get done by the end of the school day. (Inspect what you expect – at least look at the copywork page to ensure quality, glance over the list of readings to make sure everything got narrated, etc). 

Longer term, we schedule six weeks on and then take one week off. During that week, we try to finish up the bits and pieces that got overlooked (one more chapter from this book, may finish that art project) and spend a lot of time outside (hiking and snowshoeing, mostly) as well as give the house a deeper cleaning than usual. We usually schedule those breaks one week off from the public schools around the area, so that we in effect end up with two lighter weeks (one week in which we school, but don’t have extracurricular activities due to public school vacation, and one in which we are off, but the activities occur).