Heather Day Gilbert

Author

The Honest Homeschooler–School? At Home?

Becky Doughty, my writer friend extraordinaire, worked up this awesome pictorial blogpost about her typical homeschooling day.

This is Becky’s fourth year using the homeschool curriculum k12. You can find out more here: http://www.k12.com.

Here we go! I know you’re going to enjoy this post as much as I did!

School? At Home?
By: Becky Doughty

Home School.

I admit it. Sam and I goof around all day.

7 am: WAKE UP CALL! (You should see her face at 7:01!)

8 am: After a good breakfast in our own bellies, I start the bread (see lunch time!), and we head down to feed the animals.

Horse, goats, and chickens, oh my!

Dwalin doesn’t realize he’s a goat…

Look under every chicken….

9 am: School officially (kinda, sorta) begins. This is Pillowland, a place where learning is gentle and fluffy and fun. Pillow fights commence often – great stress relief. (You, too, can visit Pillowland. Simply raid all the beds and linen closets in the house, throw all the blankets, pillows, cushions, and dogs into a heap on the living room floor, and pile on. Don’t forget your schoolbooks!)

Sometimes we lose a child…or a dog… Then burrow-searching ensues.

10 am: Outside for Exercise and Sunlight!

Bring in the bounty!

11:00 am: More school – working hard in the jammies.

At noon: The bread is cooling on the racks – time for home-grown tomato and cucumber sandwiches.

1 pm: More School.

2 pm: The Attack of the Home School Chinaliens – they destroy our brains by zapping us with school supplies! (This usually means we’re on the verge of working too hard.)

3 pm: Time for kitchen fun. I mean work.

Canning homemade pickles and tomato sauce – yum!

Shelling peas… eating peas…

4 pm: Outside to do some REAL WORK…

Painting the clubhouse with a neighbor friend.

5 pm: And REAL PLAY!!!!!!!

6 pm: Daddy’s home. Time to do something special (give Mom a break!). Fishing anyone?

Pooped out!

And this is why we Home School – to leave our mark on the life of our child.

Daddy and Sam initialing the gatepost.

Yes, we actually do get several hours of curriculum in our day. In fact, Sam scores above average on all her State-mandated STAR testing!

What does homeschooling look like to you?

What kind of a mark will you leave on the life of your child?

Bio on Becky: Becky Doughty is a self-proclaimed Warrior Princess (think Xena in a tiara, but shorter) and her weapon of choice is her pen. She has a heart for women fighting in today’s battles and writes Christian/Inspirational Fiction.

Becky is married to her God-chasing champion, Kevin, and they have three (plus one by our oldest daughter’s marriage) pulchritudinous children. The older children are adults now, so Sammi is the only victim of Becky’s homeschooling methodology.

The Doughtys share their lives with too many animals, a large vegetable garden, and a very strange underground concrete room that the children have determined was built for dark and sinister purposes….

You can get to know Becky at her website: http://beckydoughty.wordpress.com. She’s currently doing an awesome series on sisters.

Comments

  3. TC Avey says

    Awesome! You're teaching valuable lessons others will never had the opportunity to learn- like canning, growing food and that learning can be fun!

  5. Heather Day Gilbert says

    Thanks for stopping by, TC–nice to see you out and about on blogs! Hope all's well w/you. And Jill, best of wishes w/NaNo! Yes, we're definitely bracing up for the big storm. Hoping to keep power this time (have you read my post on our summer power outage? It's here: http://heatherdaygilbert.blogspot.com/2012/07/derecho-rhymes-with-jericho-living.htmlJust thankful we won't be in the sweltering heat this time. Then again, we'll probably be wishing for it if it gets really cold!

  6. Jill Weatherholt says

    Thanks for the NaNo wishes, Heather! I just read your derecho post ~ wow! All my friends in the DC area had similar experiences with the derecho. I'll be praying that you don't have to go through anything like that with Sandy. Be safe.

  7. Becky Doughty says

    Thanks so much for letting me plaster our faces all over your blog today. It really does look like we're having a grand time, doesn't it? Honestly, not all days are like this one. In fact, most days are just segmented version of this one. Usually with a few more frustrations and tears, but sometimes with a few more laughs and a little less work….I love home schooling, even when I don't like it, and Sam will tell you the same thing. It's worth it if you can do it. Worth it.And for those who don't home school – I didn't with our two older children because I couldn't. It wasn't possible. And guess what. They turned out just lovely, too. And they know who to come to when they have questions about canning, gardening, animal husbandry, and chinaliens. And Pillowland was actually created by them when they were little as part of our Family Night fun.Blessings,Becky

  10. Glenda Mills says

    Oh how precious, to have two sweet sisters share about the joys of homeschooling. I think I shared about my Becky schooling her four! Becky, LOVED your pics… Now I can just so easily See you loving on that daughter and leaving the footprints of Jesus on her heart..so she can touch the lives of others!Heather, thank you for sharing Becky with us today! How about doing a picture post of your kids with their mom soon? Blessings to you both dear friends! Heather did you get lots of snow this week and do you have power? We got about a foot. Still no elec., byt grateful for generator power to warm our bodies and Holy Spirit Power to warm our hearts and souls!

  11. Heather Day Gilbert says

    Thanks for stopping by, Elizabeth! Homeschooling definitely has its ups and downs, as Becky said! But it is a blessing. And Glenda, WOW, a foot! We only got maybe 7" tops (9" in the city near us). So sorry you don't have electric! Praying they'll get it up soon. Fayetteville was out for awhile and just got power back, I think.