A Day in the Life at Markwell Academy

State/Country: Oklahoma/United States

Children's Ages: 6, 8

Homeschooling Method: I make it up as I go along.

Curriculum: All About Reading and All About Spelling, BestEver Handwriting Books, Learning Wrap-Ups, Singapore Math, DinoLingo

Favorite Field Trips: We love the zoo and museums around our area.

A Day in our life:

We have gone through several different schedules and routines to arrive at the one we are currently using, and this is a schedule that we really love.

I wake my children at 8 AM, and they eat breakfast. After breakfast we do some kind of physical activity (yoga - Cosmic Kids Yoga, Zumba - Zumba Fitness, Pop It - free on Amazon Prime, soccer, basketball, etc.).

After our morning P.E. session, they get to play in our library for an hour. Our library has educational board and card games, lots of books, an audio book area, STEM toys, an easel for painting, and more. It's all about educational fun.

Then we have a snack because my little munchkins burn through a lot of energy.

After our snack, we start our book work. I work with one child on reading or spelling (we alternate days on those two) while the other works independently on handwriting. Then they switch. Next we work on math. Then we do Spanish. They practice their instruments and do their drama exercise for the day (articulation exercise, monologue, audition piece, or memorizing lines for a role they have booked). This entire block of schooling lasts just under 2 hours.

After our first book work block, we have lunch and "recess," which is basically a free play time for them. They can play in their room, outside, or in the library. I give them an hour and a half to eat and play.

Then we come back and do science, social studies, computer science (code.org), and art. We plan to start new curriculums for these in the fall, so for this semester, I am just picking things to read and experiments to perform and pulling crafty things off Pinterest for art. This learning block lasts 2 hours.

Then they play in the library for 30 minutes, after which we all play a board game together. This can be any board game they choose. I don't limit it to educational ones. It's just a nice way to have some fun and relax together at the end of the day.

After playing a game, they each do 30 minutes of independent reading, and that ends our school day.

They also have music lessons, sports practices, swim lessons, and auditions mixed in, and we take time for field trips and to spend time with other homeschooling friends throughout the week. We school year round, which reduces stress about getting it all in every single day of every single week because I know they will get 180 days' worth of learning in  over the course of the year.

Links: Pinterest - I have a ton of homeschooling boards organized by subject. I also have non-homeschool boards like recipes, cleaning, organizing, fashion, etc.