Hey all you eclectic home learners!

[WCM]

What does your day look like? I'm asking for school-aged kids please. We think of ourselves as unschoolers, in educational philosophy, but I also waffle between feeling we *should* do a few things whether they're child-led or not.


It has always felt like there are those who are school-at-homers, who have a daily schedule (math 9:30, writing etc) and then the rest of us. my eldest are 7 and almost 10, and I'd love to hear what others days/lives of learning look like.

We take classes the kids want (aikido, music, swimming, groovy dance, all family-style classes we can do together with other homelearners) plus we all play sports on diff nights a week. The rest of the time? Pretend play, baking, watching dvds from the library, kite flying, reading . . . is this your life too?

[AAK]

I am very eclectic. I love the idea of unschooling, but I just can't do it all that way. Also, I find that MY children really do better with some sort of routine. That being said, most of our science, social studies/history, and spin offs are child led. But I LOOK for those bits of child interest and help a lot to bring opportunities to them.

Our routine (more consistent on MWF when our 4 yr old is at prek--give me time to explain a lesson or concept without interruption):
**All kids need to be ready for the day by 8:45 (breakfast and dressed). They usually get up around 7 or 7:30 on their own so this isn't difficult.
**8:45-9:30ish -- I have some 'fun' activities like word searches, logic problems, hidden pictures, etc available for each child. While one is practicing piano, the other is doing the fun pack and sometimes they write in a journal. This is the only scheduled subject. If we don't practice piano first thing, it doesn't happen.

9:30-11:30 -- "School" time. Subject vary by day and interest. We consistently work on math and have time for reading daily. We work on spelling 3 days a week. We often do sewing projects/shop/household tasks that provide learning opportunities at this time too because of the one on one necessity. On Fridays, we do a lesson from Meet the masters. I do the online part w/o 4 yr old. I will do the project after she comes home.

Afternoons--expanded opportunities. We end up doing most science/history at this time simply because I don't want it thought of as "school".

My girls take piano and dance. Kayla is currently on a soccer team and Anna frequently is involved with community theater. We also try to provide other activities intermittently based on interest. We do a mother/daughter book club once a month. We are going to try a homeschool group at a local museum that meets once a week.

Amy

[newcastlemama]

Hahhaa..I am like you OP..I am not sure what I am (I take approaches from Charlotte Mason, unschooling and whatever seems to work for us). Anyway we just started up this week because my pregnancy nausea is letting up. My son does better with having me give him a set of activities. I will probably start doing this routine between 9:30-10:00 in the morning when I get it together and we be a lot like AAK's schedule.

I have a 6 yo (and 2.5yo).
Everyday we do Reading, writing, and math basics: It takes less than 1 hour:
-Teach your Child to Read lesson (10 minutes)
-Read some of a progressive phonics book (10+ minutes..whenever ds seems to be wearing down, I quit)
-At least one page of handwritng practice in A Reason for Handwriting and/or Do it Carefully (10 minutes)
-Signapore Math workbook 2A (as much as ds wants..he loves this)

Other stuff that happens frequently: Reading stories, soocer practice/games, doing sceince experiments, art, educational dvds from the library, Bible stories, parks, nature journal (he draws stuff he finds outside and then we write I little story under it together), Starfall phonics online game, and Little House books for bedtime reaing. We will start up studying cultures around the world when my energy comes back (food, music ect) and joining a local Discovery kids museum. And, of course, LOTS of playing

[yllek]

Eclectic here too. Ds (6 yo) has some learning disabilities so some structure really benefits him, even though it is my nature to be more go-with-the-flow.

He's usually up by 7:30, and he does his morning routine and breakfast and plays until about 9. We do some of our home therapy programs, then do math, writing, spelling and reading until about 11-ish. We take lots of breaks, so I'm guessing that we get this part of our day done in about 60 minutes? We'll be adding grammar and a bit more writing soon, so maybe we'll spend 1.5 hours on "skill" work for first grade.

Then the rest of the day is science and history (these subjects are totally considered play at this house), art projects, more reading, going to therapy appointments, aikido, swimming lessons, tree climbing, gardening, tending chickens, bike riding, videos (we lean toward documentaries and Discovery Education Streaming stuff). Once a week we meet up with other homeschoolers to go on a local field trip. We also go to Lego club every other week.

It's fun to see how other eclectic folks are filling their days.

[phathui5]

Yesterday:

I left around 8:30am for a work meeting. One babysitter came to the house to watch the kids and then another one drove 5yo ds to speech (30 min) at the school. My 10 year old ds did a few pages in a workbook called Sentences to Paragraphs while I was gone.

I got home from the meeting around 11:30am. Hung out, fed the kids lunch. We all cleaned up a little bit before the cleaning lady came over. The older two kids (9 and 7) read some of their library books.

At 2pm, I took the kids to a homeschool PE class at the YMCA. 9yo, 7yo and 5yo went to the class (kickball and basecall) for an hour while I chatted with the other moms and we watched the younger kids in the gym. When the class was over, the moms all took our kids to the playground at the Y.

On the way home, we stopped at the library for about 45 minutes. My 5yo and 7yo both played Jumpstart on the computer. All of the kids picked out books to take home.

We got home right before 5pm. The neighbor kids came over to play and I got ready for another meeting. Dh got home around 5:30. I talked with him about his day and then I went to a meeting with our doula networking group from 6:30pm to midnight.

[raelize]

we are definatly eclectic who lean heavily charlotte mason. dds are almost 5 and 2. today we woke up, breakfasted, dressed, did "letters" (ordinary parents guide to reading- about 10 minutes) went for a 1.5 mile walk on a wooded path near our house, ending at a playground, played for about 1/2 an hour, walked back home (this is great cause we identify trees, collect leaves and acorns and nuts, discuss the %of trees that are changing color, what holidays are coming up, identify birds, look for turtles and fish, say hello to adults out for walks, talk about direction- i consider our outdoor hiking/walking time essential education) ate lunch, i worked on some last minute prep work for a class i teach thursday nights whle the girls sorted beads for necklaces, then did some math (cuisinare rod activities to start miqoun math next week), my mom is coming to watch them for an hour before dh gets home- they will read some books, play outside and eat ice cream. dh will feed them, read books, then they will be able to watch a little tv (some PBS shows he DVR'd for tonight) then i will be home, we'll read books, discuss what we each did while we were apart (dh's day at work, our day at home, my class) then read books and go to bed.