As we haven't started our new term yet, I am not able to write a day-in-the-life post. However, I do have some idea of how our day should turn out when we start.
The basic structure of our day goes like this:
Wake up
Breakfast
Morning chores
Morning lessons part 1
Break
Morning lessons part 2
Lunch
Lunchtime chores
Afternoon lessons
However, no two days are the same, as most homeschoolers will tell you.
The timetable above reflects the emphasis that I feel is needed in Tiger's Logic Stage years: English, specifically writing. I have been very gentle with Tiger when it comes to the process of writing in his elementary school years, giving him time to develop his fine motor skills and build up his stamina to write more than one sentence at a time.
This past summer we have done a few dictation sessions and some copywork. The outcomes of those far-and-few sessions show me that Tiger is now ready to write for a longer time than before and is ready for some formal instructions to get him started on the road to writing. While some children are natural writers who can write long compositions with zero or minimal instructions, Tiger is not one of them, and he recognises this in himself. To this end, he feels more comfortable having some kind of structure to guide him along (as do I!) and he sees the value of using a formal writing programme to bridge the (very wide) gap between his reading level and his writing level, so we'll be spending most of our time in the new year to develop his writing ability.
This seems like a U-turn from our more autonomous approach from a year ago. It is in some ways, in that there are certain basic skills that Tiger needs to master before he can confidently progress onto the next level of learning. Acquiring these skills (e.g. writing) isn't always going to be fun or easy, so if I didn't plan them into our week, there is a very high chance that they will get pushed aside and we will not have progressed at all on those specific areas by next summer. The timetable helps us stay focused on our tasks but we are not bound by the clock to move to the next subject if and when a topic really takes our interest. Homeschooling allows us to maintain a high degree of autonomy and flexibility in our learning approach while keeping a focus on achieving the goals that we have set for ourselves.
Having a timetable while maintaining an interest-led approach makes perfect sense to me but perhaps not so much to the reader yet. Afterall, I do have the advantage of having all my plans, schedules, activities and calendar at hand so I have a clear view of what's going to happen. We shall see how the new year pans out. It promises to be a very busy and exciting year of learning.
Each year our approach seems to alter just ever so slightly:
Between 7am and 8am
I was woken up by Tortoise kissing me goodbye to go to work. I put my arm out of the duvet and felt the chilly air so I decided to stay in the warm bed a little longer. Then, I remembered that I was going to write a post about our homeschool day so I jumped out of bed, in order to be able to say to everyone that I got up at good time instead of lazing in bed until ten o'clock.
By the time I freshened up, got dressed, made the bed, got to the kitchen, and grabbed my camera, it was about 7:17am.
I put the kettle on to make myself a cup of coffee and to boil an egg. My breakfast these days is one humble boiled duck egg, with an occasional cup of coffee.
I'm supposed to have stopped drinking coffee but I make an exception on days when I'm really woozy, and this morning was one of those moments. While the egg was being cooked I switched my laptop on to answer emails and catch up on news.
Between 8am and 9am
By the time I was done with the first round of matters-of-urgency on the laptop, my egg was well cooked and the coffee was cold.
I added more hot water to the coffee and finished the egg. Then back to the laptop to read more news, catch up on others' blogs, and start drafting this post.
Usually by now Tiger would have gotten himself up, but he didn't have a very good night last night (cold and cough) so I decided to let him catch up on his sleep and wake up naturally. Meanwhile, I am planning out in my head what we would do today. Right now I'm doing some research into the Chinese New Year Lantern Festival and ogling at the lovely Chinese New Year lanterns on Marie's post. Ideas are starting to formulate in my mind...
Wait! Did I hear a stir upstairs?
I held my breadth. Tiger waking up means the start of another busy day of being 'Mum'. Even after nearly ten years of being a mother, I still need to have the quiet stillness and alone time in the mornings to think about things and enjoy the silence.
The noise turned out to be the low rumbling of thunder outside.
Between 9am and 10am
I finally heard footsteps coming from upstairs. Tiger is up.
I made some pancakes for Tiger's breakfast while he laid on the sofa waiting. He really wasn't feeling too great.
After breakfast, Tiger went to do his morning chores.
As I waited, I came across an interesting website that led me to a clip that gives me a glimpse of what some other homeschoolers might be doing:
Between 10am and 11am
After watching the clip, I decided to help Tiger with chores in the kitchen so that we can both start our day quickly. Half the morning has past and we haven't done anything useful yet. I'm not happy about this.
When the chores were ticked off, we sat down and made a list of the things that needed to be done, including outstanding projects that have to be completed.
Once we knew what's expected of ourselves (from the list), we sat down and started work. We watched two episodes of Happy Chinese. I paused the clips every now and then to explain new terms to him. Tiger's Mandarin is improving rapidly, as noted from his increased ability to understand the conversations in the series.
Between 11am and 12pm
We had a break after the Chinese clips to drink water and to have a few minutes to ourselves. Tiger laid on the sofa to read.
It turned out to be a very busy hour, with answering the phone call about a course enquiry for Tortoise, answering the door to a delivery, and answering emails about some field trips on offer.
By the time Tiger and I reconvene, it was already ten-to-twelve!! Where did the time go?!
We hurriedly sat down to start on Tiger's Chinese homework. We try to get the Chinese homework out of the way as early in the week as possible to avoid last-minute rush later in the week.
Between 12pm and 1pm
Nothing very much happened in this hour apart from getting on with Chinese homework. There is usually quite a fair bit of revision to do for each new lesson before we would start on the homework proper
Each homework session takes a long time because we approach Mandarin learning in the traditional way, which is to make sure that Tiger completely understands each new vocabulary and text before we move forward to the next. Every new character has to be practised stroke by stroke, in the correct order, until there is no mistake; each new word has to be pronounced in the perfect tone. The reason I insist on this level of accuracy is because it is the nature of the Chinese language -- a stroke more or a stroke less will render the word incorrect, and the wrong pronounciation of a word can have a completely different meaning.
By quarter to one, we were both hungry. Tiger was nearly done with today's portion of the homework, so I put the oven on to heat up lunch.
Between 1pm and 2pm
It was a quarter past one when we ate lunch. Lunch was nothing fancy, just reheats from last night's dinner.
We usually take a break of between 15 to 30 minutes after lunch before we carry on with learning in the afternoon. However, this afternoon Tiger decided to start working on a sketch for his bookclub's project straight after lunch.
He completed his draft shortly afterwards. We discussed the draft in view of the project requirements and agreed that we would have to work on it some more tomorrow before we start putting the final drawing together.
Between 2pm and 3pm
We discussed a little about what we wanted to do for Friday's Lantern Festival. I showed Tiger some of the ideas that I have found in the morning that we might want to do. Then the sun came out! We haven't seen the sun for days so we couldn't wait to get outside.
Between 3pm and 4pm
We ended up getting in the car and driving to another town to check out an oriental supermarket that I have heard about from a friend. It was just as well that we went because we bought a few items that would come in handy for Friday. The bonus was to know the location of the oriental supermarket so that we can get the specialised ingredients without having to go to Chinatown.
Between 4pm and 5pm
Once we arrived home, Tiger went straight to his room to play battles. I reminded him that he still had a few more things to do before his 'school hours' are over, namely emptying the bins and doing a few Introductory Mandarin exercises on Memrise.
Tiger completed the Memrise exercises just as Tortoise stepped through the door with a slice of carrot cake for me! Blessed is the man who remembers to bring home treats for his wife!
After 5pm
It was time to cook dinner. While the rice was cooking on the stove, I read aloud to Tiger who was playing battles. Our read aloud normally happens at Tiger's bedtime, but as we have some catching up to do prior to attending the upcoming bookclub meeting, we've decided to have a few extra read-aloud sessions. This was one of them.
After dinner, the boys continued their epic war game, which have been going on for days. However, tonight everyone is not feeling well. The germ has got to all of us, so we're all going to have an early night after having our cups of lemon-and-honey drink.
This has been a fun post to write, and I'm thrilled to see that two of my UK homeschooling friends, Claire from angelicscalliwags and Lucinda from Navigating by Joy, have also joined in the fun by writing about their days respectively:
I had an errand to run in town today so Tiger and I went out bright and early in the morning.
By noon time, London began to get really busy.
Our stomachs were rumbling by the time we arrived at Chinatown for lunch.
The weather was not very good today. In fact, it was mostly wet, windy, and cold.
It was pouring down when we got to Trafalgar Square, so we spent a good few hours at the National Gallery admiring and learning about Viennese portraits at The Portrait in Vienna 1900 Exhibition.
After indulging our visual senses at the gallery, with the sky still not brightening up at all, we decided to pop into another one of our favourite haunts:
Another few happy hours spent in the bookshop made me realised how very easy-to-please Tiger and I are: just leave us in a bookshop and we can entertain ourselves very happily for a long time.
While Tiger was deeply engrossed in his reading, I was happily sipping latte (we were sitting near the cafe inside the bookshop) and reading my own choice of book which I think is quite appropriate for new year's eve. This book has given me much food for thought and I couldn't have read it at a better time.
When Tiger next looked at his watch, it was time to come home. We just felt that it was getting darker, and many people were starting to arrive in London for the New Year's Eve countdown. We didn't want to get stuck in London for the night, so we headed home before the big party started.
Now, in the warm comfort of my own home, I am waiting for the new year to arrive in a few minutes. Here's wishing everyone a very happy 2014!
One of the most frequent questions I get asked, when someone knows that we are homeschoolers, is whether I have some kind of timetable for our day. I don't get such questions from other homeschoolers who have been doing this for a while so those who ask this question are usually parents who are either not homeschooling yet but are interested to know how to get started with lessons, or who are new to homeschooling.
I am guessing that the question arises as an extension of what most of us understand of how school works, that there is a set of allocated time for a certain activity before moving the herd to the next. For those who are looking for the short answer to this question, my answer is: yes, I have a beautiful colour coded Excel spreadsheet pinned on the wall in front of our work table.
We are not totally without structure in our days though. We have let go of structured timetable and curriculum schedules, but we have established a sense of "rhythm" for our days. What I mean is that, from Monday to Friday, Tiger and I both understand that we will be productive from after breakfast to the time I start cooking dinner. That's typically between 9:00a.m. to 5:00pm. During this time, we can be engaged in a variety of different activities, for example:
academic learning at the table
watching documentaries
reading
researching
writing
artsy pursuits
going out on field trips
hands-on projects
having discussions
playing games (board games, chess, card games)
being in nature
external classes
There is a short break in the morning and a lunch break around mid-day.
The reasons I have let go of the formal structure (timetable, curriculum, and predetermined learning outcome) are:
1. Tiger's ability to concentrate and follow up on a topic has increased as he gets older (compared to two years ago), so the short, timed lessons are not relevant anymore.
2. When we are engrossed in a topic, we want to pursue it to our satisfaction so we often find ourselves spending an entire morning on Maths or sometimes an entire day on Military History. On the other hand, when the topic or learning resource does not inspire us (I still get it wrong sometimes)or when either one of us has had enough of it for the day, we can wrap it up in 10 to 15 minutes. Tiger has been known to complete certain tasks in 5 minutes and I don't feel it is necessary to make him jump through more hoops on such occasions.
3. Our learning isn't really limited to 9am-5pm either, which allows for flexibility in terms of 'down time' through sickness or simple non-productive moments. At moments like these, I find it to be more effective to let Tiger rest, then pick up the study again after such moments have passed. Therefore, we occasionally (not often) continue after dinner.
4. When Tiger demonstrated his intention and ability to direct his own learning, I learned to reliquish the tight control I had over his time and curriculum. I expect it will take a few years, but we have started the process of my gradually handing over the ownership and responsibility of learning to Tiger. Our process is very dynamic. The amount of ownership Tiger gets and the pace at which the handover takes place depend on his demonstrated level of maturity, discipline, and ability (both emtionally and intellectually).
6. As far as I know, all the great teachers throughout history -- from Confucius in the East to Socrates in the West -- did not use structured timetables or specific curricula with their students. These great teachers taught a way of thinking, of learning, of being, of discovering which, unfortunately, do not come in a neat package off the shelf. With this realisation, all forms of rigidity in terms of timetables and standardised curricula lost their appeal to me. Having said that, if anyone knows which packaged curriculum or National Curriculum Socrates or Confucius had used, please
let me know. I'll be very interested to get my hands on them.
Weekends are strictly family time. That means no formal, sit-at-the-table type of learning, although much informal learning takes place without us consciously thinking about it. As a family, we spend a lot of time conversing with one another. The conversations and discussions that we have together often spark new ideas to be followed up in the following weeks. The other function of our family conversation is that it is sometimes used as an informal assessment of what and how much Tiger has learnt during the week.
Those who are looking for a more structured approach, my post from two years ago of what our day looked like back then will give you a better idea of how to get started.
It is also beneficial to look at other homeschooling families' approaches to give yourself a few more ideas to apply to your family's unique situation:
Our Daily Schedule from Savannah @ HammockTracks, in which she talks about her life, from chore lists and meal planning to school work and extra curricular activities.
I've Got Rhythm from Bernadette @ Barefoot Hippie Girl, in which she says, "The Barefoot Hippie has got rhythm...Who could ask for
anything more?"
Homeschool Daily Schedules from Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses, in which she shares her love-hate relationship with schedules and how, over the years, she has
had to learn to find a delicate balance between tight schedules and
flexibility.
Next Tuesday, we will share our book recommendations for new homeschoolers. I hope you will join us again then.
This morning while catching up with the blogs, I came across an invitation to share your homeschool day in the life. It sounds like a fun idea to see how we spend our time on any particular day. Since there is no typical day in our homeschool anymore, I thought today is as good as any day. I must say, on hindsight, that today is an atypical day, since yesterday didn't look like this at all, and tomorrow will be different again, next week is yet another story altogether. Nonetheless, here's my best shot at capturing this particular Friday.
8:30am - After saying goodbye to Tortoise, Tiger and I have our breakfast. Tiger then makes sure that he has done his morning chores before I finish my cup of coffee, as that signals the start of 'lessons'. This morning, Tiger is all fired up to go and he decides what he wants to learn today:
9am - I've finished drinking my morning coffee while checking emails and the news. Lessons start. Tiger wants to start with Classical Civilisations this morning so we discuss whether he wants to continue with studying the myths or wars. I have a new book on Greek myths that I am eager to start with Tiger, but he chooses to study battles. He looks through the "textbook" of his choice for this topic:
This is one of Tiger's favourite books. He reads it very often and uses it to choose a certain character or battle to study. Today Attila the Hun has got his interest, so we watched the following documentaries together:
We always watch documentaries together as there are frequent pauses in-between when we stop for discussions about what we are watching. For example today's discussion range from the character of Attila, his upbringing, his lineage, his battle strategies, to the fall of his kingdom after his death and whether how he had spent his life had been worthwhile.
While all that is going on, I laminate some Latin flash cards that I had printed off a while ago and make them into small piles to be ready for use at some point in time later.
11am - Break for fruit and yogurt. After food, I tidy up a little around the house while Tiger reads to himself.
11:30am - I set out the art supplies for Tiger to put an entry into his nature journal. He was not enthusiastic about it at first, but he changed his mind after I showed him what I have done in mine and said that we will work together. He gets on with his entry happily while I draw alongside him.
12pm - I'm starving so I put the pizza in the oven, and go back to work in the nature journal.
12:30pm - Lunch is ready, and so are we! Tiger has completed his entry. We packed everything away from the dining table, Tiger does his kitchen duties, and we have lunch. More talking and discussion about various topic take place over lunch.
12:45pm - I remember that we have to collect a parcel so we jump into the car and go out to do the errand.
1:30pm - Back home. I try to persuade Tiger to add to his journal entry (so that I can complete mine at the same time) but he says he has done enough art for today and he has decided to replace Art with Maths. He knows what he wants to do with Maths so while he is busy working through coordinates problems, I work in my nature journal. Every so often I am called to see what Tiger has done in three games he has found and worked through by himself:
Cops and Robbers (he broke the record in this by solving the answers in 3 steps)
3pm - I've completed my entry. It's time for afternoon tea. I empty the dishwasher and do another round of quick tidying up.
3:30pm - Tiger puts on an audio book and spreads himself out on the floor with paper and Sharpies. Since he is busily engaged, I carry on with housework.
4pm - I ask Tiger whether he wants to do science together. He tells me he is preparing to go on an expedition. I think it's not a good idea to stop a boy from going on an expedition so I left him to it, after he has explained his route on the maps that he has just drawn.
4:30pm - I start to prepare dinner. I also ask Tiger to start tidying his room for the day. He asks for a 15-minute extension because he hasn't completed his expedition yet. I said ok.
4:45pm - Tiger goes to tidy his room. Wow, if only he were so obedient every day!
5:15pm - All the preparation for dinner is done. While dinner is cooking in the oven, I offer to help Tiger tidy his room together. The level of cleaniness is not the same when Mum takes action. Everything has to be put away, straightened up, dusted, and hoovered. His room is now spotless.
6pm - Tiger has his dinner while I continue to potter around the kitchen and lounge. Where does all the endless mess come from?!
7:30pm - Tortoise comes home, gets changed and spends some time with Tiger. Tiger is exceptionally tired tonight so he gets himself ready for bed by 7:50pm.
8pm - Tiger is in bed. Tortoise and I say goodnight to him then have our dinner together. This is our time to catch up with each other's day.
10pm - Tortoise and I catch up with our respective emails and web browsing. I start to type this blog post. It is 11:15pm now and I have had enough of this post. That's it for today. I'm going to stay up a little longer to catch up on the news. It's Friday night so I'm allowed to stay up late. :-)
