A Day at the Davis Homeschool Academy

Homeschooling is new to me, so I figure it might be new to some of you as well. I would like to walk you through a day in our family's homeschool schedule.

6:45 (or earlier) is wake-up time. I feed the kids breakfast and eat mine quickly so I can clean out the dishwasher to make room for the dirty dishes. Madalynn and Justis are sent to their rooms to tidy up and pick out clothes for the day while I load the dishwasher. I gave Jillian a bath and then help Madalynn shower while the boys are soaking in the tub, finish the boys up and then take my shower. I make my bed and tie up any loose ends with house work.

At 8:35, I announce that school is starting and all four of the kids pile into the front room to start. The front room, formerly our small former living room that we didn't often use, is now the school room. Pictures were replaced with bulletin boards, number charts, etc. A bookcase holds all of our school materials and books. We are waiting on the desks I've ordered for all of the kids (even Dawson) to arrive. Until they do we are using the kitchen table for doing worksheets.

The character trait we are working on is Attentiveness. We get up and moving by playing our CD with the attentiveness song. The kids and I go through the song three times, at their request, just to make sure we are awake. A game or lesson about attentiveness finishes off our discussion of our character trait.

Prayer is next. The kids and I like to make a list of what we are thankful for, people we ask God to bless, and for our school day. Each child chooses one or two things they want to pray for and we all pray together.

Archie the Apple helps us figure out the month, date and day of the week each day. The kids have to help HIM figure out what day he needs to move to. We then recite the months of the year and the days of the week a couple of times. The kids identify what season we are in and what the weather is like and they turn their weather and season dials to indicate the correct conditions.

Number recitation is next. We use a big number chart that I point to to help us memorize. Justis counts with me by himself from 1-30, then Madalynn joins in to help as we count the rest of the way by 1's to 100. We then count by tens to 100 a couple of times. We say the ABC's and sometimes play ABC bingo before moving in to the kitchen table.

Math is the first subject we do. I sit with both Madalynn, Justis and Dawson and help them with their separate worksheets. Dawson is mastering holding a crayon and is barely learning to color. Justis is working on recognizing and writing his numbers to 30 and counting grouped objects. Madalynn is working on adding single-digit numbers, telling time, doing simple story problems, and identifying and writing numbers to 100. This week has been review for both children. We start the actual math curriculum Monday.

Reading/phonics is next. I have Madalynn do her phonics worksheet(s) while Justis works on identifying and writing his alphabet. I then let Justis go play with Dawson while Madalynn reads to me out of a reader or real book for at least 30 minutes.

Math and reading/phonics are the two subjects that are critical for a good foundation for children Madalynn and Justis's age, so we work hard at them. We usually spend three hours (from 8:30-11:30 a.m.) on the basics.

We break for lunch and eat leftovers or sandwiches while I start or fold laundry.

Five in a Row, our favorite "subject," is saved for last. I usually wait and do this in the afternoon or when I know the kids are rested from their rigorous morning subjects.

Five in a Row is a literature curriculum which uses real children's books to explore social studies, science and the arts. The same book is read five days in a row and we do a different activity after the story is read each day. "The Clown of God" was this week's story. Giovanni, a young orphan who becomes a career juggler, lives in Italy and juggles until he gets so old that people get tired of his act and he finally drops one of his juggling balls. He decides to go back to his hometown of Sorrento, where he juggles his last time while giving his best performance (standing before a statue of Mary and Jesus) to a solemn Jesus before he falls down dead at the foot of the statue! I about died laughing the first time I read the book because to me it was hysterical that a children's book character would fall down dead at the end of the book with the illustration to prove it! The monk who finds Giovanni dead looks up at the statue and is taken aback when he finds Jesus holding Giovanni's favorite juggling ball and his carved frown had turned into a smile. Madalynn summed it up best when she said, "It's kind of sad, but it's kind of happy, too. He went on to grace to be with Jesus and he gave Jesus his best gift." A perfect summation of the story. She got the point.

You may be thinking, "What in the world could a book like that do to teach social studies, science and the arts?" Well, Monday, we talked about new vocabulary. We learned what an eggplant, gondola, duke, troupe, orphan and brother (monk) is. We also talked about the author and illustrator of the book. Tuesday we spent two hours using my architecture art supplies from college and used ink, colored pencil and watercolor to create our own masterpieces on watercolor paper. Wednesday, we got out a world map and learned where Italy is and talked about how it's different from Louisiana. We talked about orphans and the elderly Thursday. Today the kids identified Italy again and we reviewed what we learned. We will find an eggplant when we go to the produce store in a little bit.

Late afternoon or evening are reserved for me to run any errands I have to. Yesterday we went to the library and checked out some books when we were done with school.

Travis comes home to a warm reception from the kids and a meal and we play as a family until the kids go to bed. Sometimes Travis plays with the kids while I run essential errands ALONE! Travis and I enjoy sharing about our days and then turn in early almost every night. We wake up looking forward to starting a new day!