A Real Homeschooling Day/Kotikoulupäivä

First confession of this blog post: Despite having a lot that needed to be done today, we had a late start. Our master bathroom shower is (still) out of commission, so my mornings start with a bath. I {heart} my bathtub. It is impossible so hard to take a quick bath in the morning. (And no, I didn't see a need to go use a different shower.)

Once I was out (no, there's no need to know what time that was), morning chores done, kids up and their morning chores done (oops, Mr. A above is still in jammies), I started to tackle the mountain of book keeping. While working I kept hearing little sounds from the Lego-room.

Second confession of this blog post: We don't have a formal dining room. We have a Lego-room. When we moved into this house we soon realized (while painfully stepping on Legos everywhere) with three boys, a Lego-room was much more important than a dining room. About seven years later, with our 12-year old boys, we still agree.

But anyway, I was trying to write something about those sounds coming from the Lego-room.

Mr. A apparently was multi-tasking: doing school AND playing organizing his Legos.



So I decided to do my rounds with the camera to show the different styles of school at our house.

Missy was found in bed, but at least she was doing school. We used to do homeschooling in pajamas all the time (less laundry for mom), but this year have tried to get in the habit of getting dressed in the morning, with an occasional pajama day thrown in. This morning I decided to let Missy finish school in her bed, as she came down with a migraine last night.



Mr. D has had a rough time staying motivated and getting through his work independently this year. Every lesson is taking a looooooong time to finish. Even getting started is painful. He finally opened up his computer and AOP Monarch lessons at 10:30 am. He wanted to go do school on his bed, or at least the couch, but mean mom wouldn't let him.

This is the same kid who last year would tell me at breakfast he had gotten up at 6 am and was already done with school. I suggested today he might want to set his alarm tomorrow morning to see if those early morning hours are his best time to do school. Let's see how tomorrow morning goes!!



Mr. D and I worked together all day. He was able to finish Language Arts and Math on his own, as long as I kept reminding him to stay focused. During these two lessons I furiously worked on bookkeeping. When Mr. D was ready for History & Geography and Science, I set my work aside and we learned about Southern African countries and taste buds, dominant and recessive genes together.

Third confession of this blog post: I enjoyed it. He enjoyed it. We are planning to learn together tomorrow too. See, I am not really a homeschool mom by heart. We are homeschooling because it fits our current nomadic lifestyle. Enjoying doing lessons together was a big surprise. I just wish there were more hours in the day, as I can't always set my work aside to help Mr. D.



Yet more homeschooling differences: Mr. T chooses to do his schoolwork The Night Before. Yup! First thing for me in the mornings is to check his schoolwork from the night before. Every night as I kiss the kids good night and we say our prayers, Mr. T is working on his school work. Then he enjoys sleeping in a bit longer in the mornings, although mean mom strikes again, and wakes him up at 9-something.

While the rest of us do school, Mr. T completes his morning chores and his house chores. After that he gets 'free' computer time for 1.5 hrs. And when that is done (and he's been outside for awhile), he often asks me for extra chores to earn more computer minutes. Today he spent maybe 45 minutes with Little Miss, working on preschool books. Little Miss has been under the weather and stayed home today from preschool.

Now today was a really good day. Everyone did a full day of school, everyone got their chores done, and everyone spent a while outside too. I got the bookkeeping done, which was huge. But even on a good day, something gets neglected.




Fourth confession of this blog post: We had waffles for dinner. By the time I got my work done it was late, and I was tired. Missy asked for waffles, and so ended up having Chocolate Chip Waffles for dinner. As the Captain was enjoying his, and thanking me for making them, I decided to stop the guilty sounds of *No Vegetables!?* and *Chocolate For Dinner!?* coming from my head, and just enjoy our waffle dinner.

Fifth confession of this blog post: The laundry. In a family of seven, skipping a day in the laundry room is a bad idea. Skipping two days, and there may be dire consequences (or no clean underwear). Well, this was Day Two Of No Laundry Done. Let's not go into details on that one.

As I write this, the washing machine is finally on. I think there will be clean clothes for tomorrow's wellness check-ups. Whew.

Sixth confession of this blog post: In order to write this blog post, we are skipping Little Miss' bath. Again. Let's move on.



So, even though we didn't get everything done today, we had a good day. I'm happy with it.

I'm ending this blog post with this cute pic: all three boys playing together. Mr. T rarely joins his brothers in Lego playing (he's our sports dude), so when he does, Lego time turns into extra special fun for all of them. And the boys are awesome at tolerating including Little Miss in their activities.

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Ei kertakaikkiaan. Aivot eivät kykene kääntämään enää. Tässä postaus ihan oikeasta kotikoulupäivästä. Onnistuneesta sellaisesta (sain kirjanpitotyöt tehtyä myös), vaikkei ihan kaikkea saatukaan tehtyä. Päivälliseksi söimme vohveleita, unohdettu pyykki alkoi juuri vasta pyörimään. Mutta hyvä päivä silti. Yksi pojista teki koulutehtävät jo edellisenä iltana, toinen aamulla Lego-leikkiensä ohella. Yksi kanssani kirjanpitotöiden ohella, tytär sängyssään.