A homeschool day in the life... with a 8,7,5,2, and one year old.

I actually wasn’t planning on posting in this year’s  link up with Simple Hameschool blog’s “ Homeschool Day in the Life” for a few reasons; 1. I have barely blogged at all in the past year because of technical difficulties with getting my photos to load and I didn’t think this would be any different, and 2. Homeschooling isn’t the main focus of this blog, though it’s a big part of our lives. 

So what happened? Why am I sitting here typing this up? Well for one thing, I figured out a way to get some photos to upload, and, while a ton of my recent pictures are still unavailable for use on this space, I was able to take some this morning that I could actually use! And once I realized making a post was actually a possibility I got thinking about how nice it is to be able to look back from year to year on what we were doing and see how things are growing and changing in our family’s life. So I said, what the hey, I’m going for it!

 This post is about a real day (today) and I did try to stick to a pretty typical schedule, except that we needed to go to town to mail some Etsy shop (homemadehomeshoppe.etsy.com) orders so we hurried through some of our morning lessons a bit. We start the day with Me and my husband getting up and getting our tea and coffee so we can have a bit of quiet time before the kids all wake up- but, as often happens, both of the little boys end up getting up with us. The girls trickle out from their room as we finish our morning beverages and we remind a few of them to get dressed or go back and make their beds, though most of the time they remember to do this morning chore themselves now.      




Once everybody is up and has had some hugs and a little time to play, I tell them to get what they need for quiet time. They run to get books, a doll, their crochet or something else they can do while sitting quietly. I put on a CD , usually scripture songs, praise, or something instrumental like classical or Celtic music to let them know quiet time has started. The rules are to sit quietly, not to touch or bother your neighbor, and to ask if you need to get up for the bathroom ( just so mom knows why someone is popping up ). We used to have quiet time just to teach the kids how to hold still for when they would need to, but now we want them to learn to treasure a quiet start to the day, so we started allowing them to bring something they enjoy doing while they have their quiet time.
This all lasts about a half hour while I make breakfast, usually something hot and hearty to keep us going through the morning. This morning it’s biscuits and scrambled eggs ( the chickens are getting busy again!).

  

  

 After breakfast we  tidy up and then we gather to start our morning lessons. We say a prayer, sing a few songs , then work on our scripture for the week. We spend some time working to commit it to memory with verbal work, then we practice our hand writing with the same verse.
Mondays  are our day for handwriting, but we actually get more in throughout the week when we do our notebooking for other subjects. On other days of the week we use this morning time to do U.S. geography, poetry,  or other subjects, but we always sing and practice saying our verse at morning  time.

While the the third and second grader are working on handwriting, I spend time helping kindergartener Ember with some of her own work. She has a set of Rod and Staff kindergarten workbooks  she is going through and she also is learning her alphabet , working on a new letter each week. This week is “Oo” .    

Hard at work! I’ve seen so much progress with handwriting for both my big girls once we made it a regular thing.  

We just try to keep these little guys happy however we can ! Conagher wants to be a part of it all and he enjoys being present during our time together at the table, sometimes he gets pretty loud but we just try to work around it or distract him. 

One of Ember’s daily tasks is to decide what weather gnomes to set out for the day, today was a sunny one, and we also set out our winter season gnome since spring isn’t quite here yet. We have been making a new gnome for each season this year and she loves it! I feel like it’s a great way to learn and be aware of the weather and the changing seasons

“O o” is for owl and orange! The chalkboard wall sure comes

in handy! 

Next we move on to either Science or History, these are group subjects that  I read aloud and then the children notebook  about what they learned.  We end up doing each of these subjects  twice a week and we are making great progress with this technique this year. We also use our note books for storing their handwriting and any other projects. It’s the first year we’ve used the three ring binders for our notebooks and it is a definite improvement!

Today is History. We’ve been using mostly living books for our early  American history study. This one is called “a pioneer sampler “ and I like that it’s a story about a pioneer family, but also has great historical notes at the end of each chapter and lots of good illustrations. My mom read this one to me and my siblings so it’s been fun reading it with my kiddos,  too!

After we are done with history, it almost noon and we hurry off to town. We hit the post office , grocery store and a few other stops, including the library to make this week’s math worksheet copies. We check out Goodwill on the way home and I score a skirt, book on tide pools ,and a CD titled “ tea time classics”  all for 50% off.

When we get back it’s getting late, but the big girls squeeze in some math work while I put away the groceries. Then we’re done for the day. Supper is very snack-ish and then we just chill (and I work on this blog!) while Dustin attends a local volunteer fire department meeting. Some days are more productive school-wise, but I’m happy with this one. I’ll try to finish reading ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ this evening for the girl’s  bedtime story. Then hopefully  I’ll have something nice and hot to drink while I dig into that library book I grabbed for myself ( Its totally YA fiction and I  admit I’m  far from ashamed 🤓😄).

Signing off,
Sleepy but happy mom.

It's Garden Time Again.

Every year when this season rolls around, we all get outside and into gardens to work together. As the children grow, it is so much fun to see them be able to do more and more. They are really becoming a big help, and this year we gave each of the girls their own little plot to plant whatever they like in. They are so excited!

We have several garden plots under cultivation. About a quarter of our front garden is in greens this year. We are currently enjoying two kinds of lettuce, 

radishes, kale, collards, and spinach! Catching up on our B vitamins!:-) 

This patch needed to be worked up before transplanting butternut squash into it and marking off the girl's little gardens. Everyone got involved.

 Conagher says, "Hep, hep!" (help). We might have to find a tool that's more your size, buddy. ;)

Its so beautiful when the flowers start blooming! This is the first bloom that opened on the Echinacea in the herb garden.

Dustin, when mowing the yard, has been going around several of these gorgeous clumps of wild daisies that came up in front of the garden. They are just too pretty, and are so healthy it looks like we planted them there on purpose!

Lilly and Conagher hard at work. Looks like little guy found a garden tool he could actually handle, after all!

This little fellow still gets to take it easy while everyone else works (he he!)! I see you, you chubby lil' lazy bones!

 Peek a boo!

Just a few shots from around the garden and yard, now.

The big pieces of brown paper are what we are using to mulch around our cucumbers. This is going to keep weeding down to a minimum and also should help us have cleaner cukes when it comes like to pick them. We like to make pickles but also hope to be able to sell some at market and in our little farm stand this summer.

These barefoot beauties! I foresee some serious foot scrubbing in the bath tub tonight! I love my country kids :-) 

Looking forward to seeing what this garden produces and what other blessings and adventures come our way this summer. Dustin and I were married in the summer and I always like to count the gardens we have tended together. This one makes number ten!

The Legend of the Great Sweet Potatoes ( and other fall harvest).

We plowed a new garden spot this spring. Sometimes a new garden is a bit of an "iffy" proposition. The soil is often in need of amending with organic matter and the plot will usually do better after a few years of faithful fertilizing. Well, this plot did OK with most of what we planted. We got some pretty nice tomatoes, some indifferent pumpkins and an alright Mellon crop; but the sweet potatoes! They blew us away! These things broke all the rules and got ginormous! :-) 

We sent one of the sweet potatoes home with a neighbor. She weighed it out of curiosity and it was over six pounds! It wasn't the the biggest of the bunch, either.

 Here we are shaking the dirt of the bunches as we dig them up. As you can see we really got some interesting shapes as well as the huge size.

Sweet potato pie, sweet potato wedges with butter and salt, mashed, diced, it's all good! " Yummy-yum!"

Take a look at the clusters of roots!

Our big helpers. Brother missed out as he was taking a nap. Too bad, he relishes playing in the dirt.

Here we are with some more of the harvest. We had a lot of fun with the heirloom pumpkin and gourds. Esther is holding her pet bantam rooster, Jack. He is the friendliest chicken ever and loves being carried around!

Check out Janet's "little pumpkin"! New baby Morgan is due to arrive in February!

Making Hay- The Old Fashioned Way.

Well, well, well...

We still exist and we are still homesteading! The past year has been so busy that I have totally neglected this space. I'm sure our poor blog is feeling lonely! We are coming back into cyberspace with a long anticipated blog on putting up hay with horses. We have made hay twice this summer. The first time Dustin did it completely old school and cut it with a scythe, then piled it by hand before we gathered it on to the hay wagon. These first photos are from that time.

P. S. I sewed the dress Ember is wearing. I was so happy with how it turned out!

Getting the horses harnessed.

Just as a side comment, How cute is this Flag art that Dustin created for the barn? Look closely, its the bare springs from an old mattress!

Cutey!

Horse-ing around with Lincoln. Pun completely intended. :-) 

Baby-wearing sure is handy on a working farm. Sometimes we need all hands on deck even if the littles don't oblige by taking a nice, long nap! Conagher sure  enjoyed hanging with mama!

 Forking it up on the wagon.

The haystack must be Spread and stomped down on the wagon bed as you go. This "ties it together" and keeps it from slipping off.

Higher...

...and higher!

The second time we made hay this year, we were putting up much more. So some of our neighbors kindly came over and cut it with their mowing machine. They also let us borrow their old fashioned hay rake ( we had one of these in TN but were not able to bring it with us when we moved). There are some pictures below of the rake in action. Another one of our neighbors came and helped us load the hay before an on coming shower! Here's a big thank you Jimmy! We could never have done it so fast without you!

Hey there, big boys!

Here is a shot of the field with the mounds of hay (mostly) raked up. Next blog, I want to tell you about our Etsy shop! Yes, you can now buy those pretty things like you see on our pinterest with the click of your mouse or the tap of a finger! Exciting stuff! Until next time!

-Home Made Home.homemadehomeshoppe.etsy.com