[This post is about the nuts and bolts of how we home school right now. I'm also working on a post about our curriculum and resources. If you're just interested in photos and family highlights, you'll just have to be patient!]

The Pattern of Our Days
One of the big perks of home education is being able to adjust our routines as needed according to our lifestyle and stage of life. It's pretty much a constantly evolving process. Now that the big girls are back to learning at home here's what a typical lesson day* looks like:

Morning Time: The first hour of the day is getting out of bed, eating breakfast, and getting ready for the day. In our house this is accompanied by listening to hymns and praise songs (it sets a good foundation for the day, and giving them something to focus on seems to cut down on the sibling bickering).

Science fun with Daddy! They got to dissect a dead computer
and learn about how computers work.

Family Lessons: We gather in the living room to do the things we can do together--Bible study, memory work, map studies, math facts, art appreciation, and a rotation of history, literature, and science (for science we usually move to the kitchen for hands-on activities).

Independent Work: Next we move to the study where the girls grab their binders or computers and work on their independent work for the week--spelling, grammar, writing, math concepts, typing, and music (Lion doesn't do typing but does have a reading comprehension workbook; she recently finished her phonics and handwriting workbooks. Also, she gets daily, rather than weekly, assignments.) Twice a week the morning independent work time is interrupted to go to the local Y for gym class for the girls and yoga class for me.

Writing Workshop: This happens at the beginning of independent work time once every couple of weeks for Monkey and Bug. I introduce their next writing assignment and teach the new skills, then it becomes part of their independent work. (Lion has more frequent but much shorter writing assignments; I just go over those with her during their independent work time.)

Lunch Time: Recently we've started watching 20-30 minute videos together over lunch. Usually they're educational (Magic School Bus, Odd Squad, etc.), but sometimes they're just for fun (Troll Hunter, classic Doctor Who).

Story Time: After lunch is cleaned up, we head upstairs to the reading nook, and the girls pick out a picture book each for me to read aloud to them. Occasionally, they decide to do some reading aloud too.

Quiet Time: This is really for me. I'm extremely introverted, so taking 30 minutes in the middle of the day when no one is allowed to talk to me goes a long way in retaining my sanity. The girls typically read books, color, play quietly, or--very rarely--take naps.

Independent Work: At this point the girls just continue where they left off in the morning until they finish what they need to for the day. Each girl also has a running list of personal interests and projects (really anything they want to learn about or anything they like doing--riding bikes, studying woodland animals, knitting a scarf, painting, playing Nintendo, etc.). "I'm bored" is never an option in this house! They typically have an hour or two to spend however they choose.

Evening Activities: Almost every day of the week we have some outside the house activity that starts at 5 or 5:30 (public schools here don't let out until 4). Right now Monday and Thursday evenings are spent at the martial arts school, Tuesdays at the music school, and Wednesdays at church.

Dinner & Bedtime: After dinner is eaten and cleaned up and the girls have gotten ready for bed, they snuggle up with Daddy for one final read aloud session of the day. He reads one chapter out of whatever novel he's picked for them (they just finished the Harry Potter series).

A Note for Thursdays: On Thursdays, family lessons are shortened to only Bible study, and independent work time is replaced with learning important life skills. We spend the day cleaning house, going grocery shopping, and running any other household errands.

*In our family vocabulary we don't have "school days" at home. School (martial arts, music, academic) is a place not an activity. We happen to do academic lessons at home instead of at an academic school.