Ahhh.. The Life of a Home Schooled Kid!!

Well now that the holidays and birthdays of the last month are done we've started school again. Full time.. which means every day except the ones Papa has off, unless he does science with them on his off days, and only a part day on Wednesday as that is AWANA. Doing a full day of school and AWANA is a bit much together. Which means we do a half day of school on Wednesdays and a full day Thursdays, Friday and Saturday :) A full day runs between 2 and 3 hours of actual school work plus some reading time. Actually they all read every day, whether Papa is working or home, some days they do Raz Kids online and other days they just read books on the couch :)  Actual school work these days is me circling page numbers and the kids working independently at the table, coming to ask me if they need help, while I mark finished PACES or blog :) or feed the baby or whatever.

You might be wondering what else we do during the day?? Well we do chores; animal and household. Animal includes chicken chores which the kids are in charge of this winter.. meaning they do all the feeding, watering, egg collecting, and egg washing. Papa is doing the rest of the animal chores this winter which is wonderful!! No running the pig gauntlet for me!! Household chores include kitchen chores like the dishwasher loading and unloading, wiping things down, baking, large dish washing, and cooking. Household chores also includes bathrooms, floors, dusting, laundry, general cleanup and toys swaps. Chores during the day takes about 2 hours TOTAL. Not two hours in a row, though normally we do about an hour in the morning and then just little bits through the day. SO school and chores take up between 4 and 5 hours of our day... Kids get up at 9:30am and go to bed at 9pm. That means of the 11.5 hours left we spend max 5 on housework and school.

Which leaves us with 6.5 hours in which to do other things. Meals take up about an hour or an hour and a half. That leaves us with 5 hours!! What do we do?? Well it depends :) Play is high on the list. Inside or out. Often both. Watching movies (They really love Answers In Genesis movies on creation or dinosaurs so even that we can count as school :) is on that list. They watch quite a few movies with Papa working evenings as by about 7 I'm about done in for the day and need a reading/internet break and Baby G needs more of my attention then as cranky time has hit her. Though more and more I'm keeping larger amounts of energy and Baby G is getting more involved in 'Kid watching'. Puzzles and games (Computer games, battleship, chess. Etc, etc) Crafts and Reading. Visiting. Company.  More playing. Ahhh.. the life of a home schooled kid!!