A Day In The Life...

The first Meme for The Heart of the Matter is a "Day in the Life" of your homeschool. I know that for most homeschooling families, the typical day doesn't really exist, but I think this is particularly the case for the homeschool preschool set!

For us a planned day would entail me waking up by 6:00am, exercising and reading my Bible before getting breakfast on the table for DH and the girls. We would then start a load of laundry, make beds, clean the kitchen and then begin our studies. We would "do school for an hour" and then they would have free play outside before coming in for a snack and a structured activity. The day would flow with ease from there.......

Now for a REAL day! Again, I have preschoolers, so to be honest, I am happy if we get about 3 solid days in of what I had planned! I would LOVE to wake up earlier and do what I mentioned above but that rarely happens. Lately, since the holidays, it is more likely for the girls to wake me up and we get the morning started feeling like we are already behind..... but I am getting things under control and we will get our routine back!

But for today's meme, I think the best thing would be to let you in our Wednesday, which was a pretty good day!

Wednesday
7:30 Woke up (not 6:00 but hey, it was before 8!) and got breakfast on the table for the girls. I brought my breakfast to the kitchen counter where the laptop is and checked email.
8:30ish I picked up breakfast dishes and started to get our materials together for the day. Put on Word World for the girls ( see my post on "I Admit" about my love affair with PBS)
9:00 The girls and I went on a Shape Searcher hunt for squares... in the process, also found a lot of rectangles, circles and hearts. Then we went on a Letter hunt for the letter "A" and "D"....I just started supplementing B4FIAR with the Prep Curriculum at Letter of the Week and although they wanted us to do letter "A" for week 1, we decided to do Week 24's theme, which is dogs, this week so I thought we would also look for "D".
9:30 Sat down and watched United Streaming -- we are studying Angus Lost and Harry the Dirty Dog. They have animated videos of both of these stories!! The girls loved them and while we watched, we followed along in the books!
10:00 Sat down for a fun project, courtesy of Homeschool Share on the letter "D" -- we cut out and pasted a dog, dinosaur, dolls and door behind folded D's for a fun piece for our future lapbook.
10:15 Crawled around and pretended to be dogs. Jordan immediately said she was Harry, so we named Cali Blue (Blues Clues) and I named myself Angus. Did the whole dog bit, tail wagging, panting and barking... I hope none of the neighbors saw in our windows!
10:30 Free play upstairs in the playroom..... well first we had to clean it because it was a disaster zone from Cali being sick for a few days and Mommy letting it get that way due to pure exhaustion, but now it was clean up time... so clean up and then play. Yes, it did get messed up again, but not nearly as bad and they were able to clean up after themselves this time!
11:30 Came down to start lunch
12:00 Ate lunch while I read the stories Angus Lost and Harry the Dirty Dog again. We discuss the steps to take if one of us ever get lost.... (1) Take a deep breath (2) Remember, I am never alone, God is always with me, and (3) Find a neighbor or police man to help, and tell them our address. We are working on identifying police officers and are working on our address, but it is helpful to at least include this part in the process even if they can't totally do it yet!
1:00 Go upstairs for story time before nap. Read from our daily children's devotional and a few other books. Sing "Jesus Loves Me" and naptime it is..... or should be
1:30 - 3:30 Jordan and I battle for a bit on the concept of staying in her room for quiet time -- she has TONS of toys in there, why she can't at least play quietly in there when she isn't tired (in the hopes that she will go to sleep eventually) is beyond me... finally I let her come out of her room, and rest quietly on the couch while I get some housework done.
3:30-5:30 Free play, interrupted by occasional story reading, singing, dancing around, watching more of Harry on United Streaming, Little Einsteins, Super Why, and Between the Lions.
5:30 Clean up, start dinner
6:00-8:00 Family time... eat together, played games, read stories and tickled each other :-)
8:00-8:30 Baths and Bed

That was our Wednesday.. Thursday involved Jordan waking up at 4am after going to the bathroom and not wanting to go back to bed... after both of us crashing around 7 and waking up at 9, the day was spent being very lazy, but I am sure some learning took place, I promise! Today, Friday, we went for a playdate at my new blog friend (and fellow contributor to The Heart of the Matter) Marsha's house... had a BLAST playing with her three sweet boys, pouring over her awesome homeschool books and supplies, and eating a delicious lunch! Then we came home and explored more outside for some playing -- er, nature study :-)

What does a good day look like for you?