Enjoy and Bless

Episode Transcript:

Throughout our home education journey, it has been really helpful to me to hear specifics about how other families go about their day or go about their week. It’s always fun out to hear about unique ways that families spend their time, depending on their situation, their unique passions and interests.

For example, Sarah Mackenzie is a big voice in the homeschooling world that, if you haven’t heard of her, highly recommend you check out her website and her books. You can find her at readaloudrevival.com.

In one of her books, she shares a story, and this isn’t the point of the story, but the context is that she shared that her family has a zoo membership, and this was maybe several years ago, but anyway, they had a zoo membership, and they would go to the zoo with the intention of spending focused time with one animal. So they would say, okay, today we’re gonna go spend time observing the lion’s den or where the bears are or we’re gonna watch the monkeys today. And it might seem silly that this hit me as an aha moment, but it sounded so fun to have a membership at the zoo where we could just any day decide on a whim, “Hey, let’s go to the zoo and let’s just wander and explore and go as quick or as slowly as we want.” I sort of feel like the magic of unschooling and home education really blossomed before me and I really got a feel for what it could feel like and be like in that moment.

So we did that. We got a zoo membership and we have thoroughly explored our local zoo and it’s been so much fun. We also got a membership to a local wildlife sanctuary one year. There’s all kinds of opportunities like that.

All right, back on topic. Point is, it’s been helpful for me to hear specifics of what other homeschool families do. So I thought I’d share what our family is doing right now.

Quick side note that I realized is I start to share more specifics about my children, I’m not quite prepared to share their names publicly, so I’ve given them little nicknames. And they have each approved these nicknames. My oldest daughter, who is 12 years old right now, will be Moon. My middle child, daughter, who is 10 right now, is Artemis, and youngest boy, he’s 7 years old, will be Volcano. So there you go. That’s going to be their names for this podcast.

All right, I’m just going to start with Monday. So Mondays, we get to sleep in. We do not have anything scheduled until the evening when Moon has horse riding lessons at a horse farm that’s in walking distance from our home. Artemis also used to take horse riding lessons, but she decided she wanted to take a break from that and focus on other interests. It took me a while to be open to horse riding lessons because I feel that horse riding is notorious for being an expensive hobby and I was reluctant to get too deeply involved, but the fact that the horse farm is so close to us and the trainer there is very open to the girls coming pretty much anytime if they want to come help out around the farm. They’ve gone through different seasons of helping more or less, and I try to be hands off and let them make those decisions. Right now, Moon goes maybe once a week in the mornings to help turn the horses out into the pastures. So that’s an example of an opportunity that presented itself just by nature of living close to a horse farm. I realize not every family lives close to a horse farm and that’s not an option. It’s an experience that she enjoys and I feel widens her horizons of just knowledge about the world and taking care of creatures and the hard work that goes into owning a place like a horse farm.

Tuesdays are our big activity day because we go to our local co-op. Each year I talk with the girls about which classes they’re interested in and we only sign up for something if they genuinely want to participate in it. This year, Moon is taking a class in drama. She is on the crew team for a play, also acting 101, a cooking class, backstage crew for the musical production the co-op is doing. And she’s taking a break from performing in the musical this semester. We weren’t super excited about the show they’re currently doing and decided to take a break.

Artemis starts her day with a dancing and creative movement class. She is also taking acting 101. She’s taking a class called Bushcraft, which is pretty interesting talking about survival skills, although she says it’s mostly been a lot of knot tying. She’s also taking cosmetology and a scrapbooking class, which is her favorite because she says she gets to sit around with her friends and joke around while they’re creating their scrapbooks.

I know I’ve mentioned before that my son is on a different learning path than my daughters took. He is very resistant to organized classes or sports and has not expressed any interest in joining any of the classes at our co-op. However, part of being part of the co-op, and it’s not a traditional co-op, but part of it is parents do volunteer a certain number of hours per semester. And this year I volunteered to be a weekly assistant in the elementary art class, and the teacher agreed that it would be fine for Volcano to sit in the class and participate as he wishes. So far, he has, we bring some trucks and building blocks and he’s sat on the floor and just played with those while I help with the art class. And that’s been a really good experience just to see him experience what the class is like and feel comfortable. And I think it means a lot to him to have the agency to choose to participate or not. But he spends the day with me and we are there at the co-op part of the day and lately we’ve been going somewhere to pick up lunch for his sisters and we bring that back and eat with them. And I also am the parent in study hall for one hour and I let Volcano watch a show during that hour. So he always looks forward to study hall when he can watch a show.

Wednesdays we will sometimes take the kids to my in-law’s house and they spend time with their grandparents while I get some time on my own. I usually go to a coffee shop and read and think and write or run errands if needed. And then Artemis has been part of a musical theater program Wednesday evenings. They just performed their show, so she has a break from theater on Wednesday nights right now. And Wednesday nights, Moon has been attending youth group with a friend in the area.

Thursday is another sleep-in day—Yay. When my son, if you’ve listened to my other episodes, you know that my son did attend a little micro school for a while and man, it was a chore every morning to get him out of bed and it is such a joy now to be able to let him sleep, allow him to listen to his body and get the rest he needs. I’m just so grateful for every morning that I do not have to drag him out of bed because it was quite a, quite a chore. Thursday evenings, the girls have soccer practice, and Fridays are wide open. We can sleep in again. We can decide if we want to do some sort of field trip adventure or just stay home.

Saturday the kids always look forward to because dad isn’t working and they get to play video games with dad, at least Moon and Volcano get very excited about video game time. Artemis is very particular about which type of video games she likes, so she is sometimes excited about that, but usually interested in using her time for other things. And Saturdays, we also have soccer games. Sometimes we’ve had children’s business fairs that we’ve participated in, or we just go to festivals for fun if we feel like we want something to do outside of the house.

And then finally, Sunday! Sundays are our one morning of the week where we really have to drag Volcano out of bed. We have to leave pretty early to get to church because we attend both services. One service, 4 out of the 5 of us are serving. Moon, Artemis and I help with the preschoolers, and my husband is a greeter and helps get families checked in with their children going to their environments. So Sunday morning is dedicated to church, which we love. We love our church.

And then Sunday afternoon is either time at my brother’s house to cheer on the Denver Broncos. Or the kids go to my in-law’s house and my husband and I get some time to go out to eat together, go to a coffee shop, take a walk, talk and catch up. It’s been really meaningful and helpful that all of the kids’ grandparents are always so eager and willing to watch the kids for us. I know not everybody has that in their lives and I’m grateful that we are in a situation where we do have 4 grandparents here available that love to spend time with our kids and are willing and eager to to have them over.

Okay, that’s the quick overview of our weekly schedule right now. I think I might do another post that shares how we fill in all the gaps because you probably, you may or may not have noticed that leaves a lot of open, unscheduled time. Thanks for listening. This may or may not have been interesting depending on what season of life you’re in and where you’re at in your home education journey.

I’ve had a lot of big ideas bouncing around in my head that I’m hoping to get into podcast form soon, but those ones tend to take a little more time to process and develop before I can get them vocalized. Enjoy your kids today, and if you want, feel free to send me a message to let me know what kind of interesting things your family is up to lately. Bye.