A Sampler - what home education looks like in real life.

Two weeks - one that went pear-shaped and the other ''normal.''

Taking in the Laundry by Grandma Moses, 1951

I originally wrote this for a Charlotte Mason Newsletter I was involved with. A group of us from all around the country took turns sending out a letter by mail where we talked about our families and shared resources we were using. I’ve removed personal details such as names so hopefully it doesn’t sound too clunky.

At the time of writing our children were 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 5 years of age & our youngest was 5 months old.

My Week – A Sampler

We had a late night on the Sunday as my husband and I went to see my brother in hospital. He was only 37 years old and had just had a major heart attack a few days before. We left the 6 older children at a friend's house closer to the hospital as it's about an hour and a half's drive from our place.

By the time we all got back home it was very late so Monday was a very slow day.

On Monday evening our 8 yr. old started vomiting – starting in the hallway and proceeding all the way to the bathroom. We cleaned him up and by about 12.30am he seemed to have settled down and gone to sleep.

We had just finished cleaning up the mess when our 10 yr. old yelled out that his brother had started throwing up again and that he'd done it on his younger brother’s bed, which was the bunk under his. When I got there my husband was trying to clean up the 5 yr. old and I found out that the 8 yr. old was fine and it was the 5 yr. old who had been sick. He was still sound asleep, had thrown up all over his pillow and rolled over face first into it. We had to wake him up to change the bed and get him sorted out. By this stage the two older boys, who slept in the same room, had got their quilts and gone downstairs to sleep in the family room.

On Tuesday morning I had the monumental task of cleaning up after the night-time episodes and the washing machine was going all morning.  All of a sudden, I heard an ominous gurgle and "glug, glug," and the next thing we knew, the drains in the bathroom and laundry were overflowing with sewage.

That got cleaned up and we bumbled through the rest of the day.

On Wednesday morning we found out that our 10 yr. old daughter had been up since the early hours of the morning vomiting. Being a bit older, she had suffered in silence and made it to the bathroom each time. So she spent the day in bed and I kept washing and keeping my eye on the drains.

On Thursday morning my husband rang me from work to let me know his sister had been in a car accident and asked me to ring her and make sure she was ok.

That night we had our Home Ed Mum's night here - our first one since my youngest was born. It was another late night as my sister and I had a long talk after everyone else had gone. I was so tired the next day as the baby picked that night to wake up in the wee small hours of the morning.

Friday, I had a doctor's appointment which dragged out longer than I'd expected, and I ended up being out for the best part of the day. We had lunch at my sister's, and I caught up with my mum whom I hadn't seen for quite a while.

On Saturday some of our family from Brisbane were here for a wedding. Their children hadn’t been invited to the reception and my sister-in-law, who’d been in the accident, was going to babysit, so we all went over to help her look after our two nieces. We left our older children to help out while we made another trek across town to see my brother again.

Sunday morning arrived and we needed to be at church early to set up the sound system. In the afternoon we drove to my sister-in-law’s and our relatives followed us back to our place where we all had lunch. They stayed for the rest of the day and left in the evening to go to the airport.

We slept very well that night.

Well, that was last week....

'Normally' our week goes something like this:

Monday

A stay-at-home day where I have the washing machine on all day and everyone gets stuck into their academics.

The two middle boys do their violin practice and by then I'm usually ready to start Table Time, which sometimes gets done on the lounge. For a while now we've been reading through the book of Proverbs, each person who is able to, reading a verse at a time. Then we discuss some of the verses and each of us usually reads a favourite one aloud again. We do our Scripture memory at this time – I start at the beginning of the Bible and review what we have learnt and we keep going over a period of time until we get to the end of the Bible and then we may add a new section or Psalm and go through the Bible again. We tend to learn chunks or whole Psalms and I often make up a tune to go with them as I find it's a good way for me to memorize.

We have a prayer time and everyone joins in. Then I usually read a poem. We work on one until we know it quite well and then every now and then I review what we've done – much the same way as we do Scripture memory – starting at the beginning of a book of poetry – (we use The Harp and Laurel Wreath by Laura Berquist quite a bit) and going through and reviewing the poems we've done until the end of the book and every now and again adding another to our list.

Read aloud is next and if we've been up at the table we go to the lounge and I get a cup of tea. We've been reading The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter for the last couple of months. It is about 3 inches thick, was first published in 1809 and you need to have a dictionary nearby. I can hardly pronounce some of the words and we've had a few giggles as I've stumbled over some of them...pusillanimity. However it is quite stirring in places, especially if you are a Scot. It was really interesting how we've able to draw on some of the characters and their actions in our discussion of Proverbs.

After this is individual work for each of the children. The older 3 have a schedule of what I want them to cover each day and they get on with that with minimal input from me.

This includes Language Arts (dictation, outline of Sunday's sermon or a written narration from their history books); Geography; Reading for history; Science; Picture Study; Latin and Music practice.

The 10 and 8 yr. olds do their Maths while I do a lesson of Alphaphonics with their younger brother. He may do a page or two of Singapore K maths and write some words in his exercise book.

Copywork or dictation for the 10 & 8 yr. olds and then I read aloud to the three of them. This is interest led rather than well thought out but a few of the books we've covered have led into some memorable learning times so I'm happy to continue that. It's interesting that most of the books we've been reading have centred on a particular country and this has blended well with what I'm trying to do with Geography.

The rest of the day passes quickly. The younger boys love talking to their little sister and take a great deal of delight in her progress and are very helpful generally. They also spend a lot of time with Lego, riding their bikes or playing soccer or football on our cul-de-sac.

The girls 16 & 12, usually go for a walk together in the afternoon and the 14 yr. old likes to have a good ride on his bike.

After dinner each evening Dad reads from the Bible, we pray, clean up and then read or play cards – this is the current fad that even the 5 yr. old can join in and it's fun to see the six of them playing 500 or group patience.

Tuesday

The 12, 10 & 8 yr. olds have violin lessons from 9.30 to 11.30 at our home so we try to have Table Time before they start but we leave our Read Aloud until the afternoon.

The older children do Maths and their other regular subjects – I recently cut back on the amount of Maths I'd required them to do and at the moment they are only doing 2 lessons of Saxon a week and I work with the 5 yr. old and the other boys when they are not doing their violin lesson.

The older girls have Girl's Brigade from 6.30pm to 8.30pm. The eldest is now helping to lead some of the younger girls and has been involved in a number of Leadership Training Camps over the last couple of years as well as doing the Duke of Edinburgh Award.

Wednesday

We have a similar routine to Monday. Dad and the boys are involved in a father and son group which meets two Wednesday evenings a month. The dads take turns doing devotionals and different activities with the boys – orienteering, whittling, nature studies – using whatever skills each of the dads have. Recently they had their first camp together and had a ball chopping wood, 4-wheel driving, orienteering, lighting the fire and camp cooking. There were 6 dads and 14 boys ranging in age from 6yrs to 15yrs. They were filthy when they got home, aching all over, but very happy.

The girls try to go for a walk in the afternoon or sometimes a bike ride with their 14 yr. old brother.

Thursday

We do our Table Time – The eldest two have piano lessons at our house from about 11am to 1pm and their lessons get worked around this.

I do science with the 12, 10 & 8 yr. olds while the others are having their music lessons. Depending on the subject the 5 yr. old sometimes joins in.

Friday

This is our catch-up day. The children make sure their Century Books are in order and their work is up to date. I play catch up correcting maths if necessary and we spend some time cleaning and having a general tidy up. Everyone does their music practice. I also use this day for Science if it doesn't get done on the Thursday for some reason.

So that was a glimpse into two very different weeks. There’s usually always something disruptive going on when you have little children and/or a large family. Having some anchors in the day was helpful for me, especially as our kids got older and more responsible and could get on without me directing them. Putting some structure into your day, laying down some tracks, is one of the best gifts you can give not just your children, but yourself. This doesn’t happen overnight but little by little, habit by habit. The pear-shaped days will come but it’s what you do in the normal, in the ordinary day to day, that really matters.