bearing blog

How was yesterday, for example?

6:15 A.M.  Up with Mark early to have coffee with him before he heads off for his Thursday morning hour of adoration.  (He gets up first, gets ready, then takes the baby downstairs to make coffee and breakfast while I get dressed.)  After he leaves, I nurse the baby, sip my coffee, use the computer.

7:30 A.M.  Oscar and Milo have staggered downstairs.  Usually I feed them breakfast at this point, but they say they don’t want any.  We all snuggle on the couch for a while.  (It’s a good time for me to read aloud to them.) 

8:00 A.M.  I make sure everyone’s dressed, including shoes, and Mary Jane’s already bundled up and in her sling. I send the boys downstairs to play while I start piling on the table the stuff we need to take to Hannah’s.  This is what is on the table:

• diaper bag backpack, containing:
  • Mary Jane’s diapering stuff and spare clothes
  • A spare shirt for me
  • My wallet, phone, and keys
• shoulder bag, containing:
  • Oscar’s folder of schoolwork
  • Oscar’s recorder
  • An empty covered casserole
  • A loaf of bread made into sandwiches (the night before) and repacked in its bag
• Oscar’s and Milo’s backpacks, each containing:
  • a complete change of clothes
  • mittens
  • several apples
• All our coats

8:30 AM.  Out the door!  Milo has taken off his pants so I put a different one on him as he comes up the stairs.  Coats go on boys and backpacks go on boys.  I hang my keys around my neck, shoulder the diaper bag and the other bag, and push out the door, turning the knob lock as I go. 

8:45 AM.  We are on our way.  I call Hannah’s phone and tell it. 

9:05 AM.  We arrive at Hannah’s.  The sandwiches go in the fridge.   Hannah and I sit together on the couch, nursing children, and catch up with each other.  I discuss with Hannah whether we can save time by letting our oldest boys sit in the back seat of my new 8-seater minivan without booster seats (three boosters across the back makes it hard to buckle).   I call them upstairs and put them in the van and send Hannah out to check.  She comes back in:  It works great if you use the built-in seatbelt repositioners.  I say, I have seatbelt repositioners?

9:37 A.M. We start packing the carseats and kids into the minivan. 

9:56 A.M.  Hannah climbs in and slams the door and I start the engine.  We look at the time.  Wow!  We’re getting really good at this!

10:00 A.M.  We arrive at the big county park where we’re hosting a little-kids trail walk through our local, loosely organized homeschoolers-hiking-nature study email list.  I’ve never been to this park before and it’s been a while since Hannah has been here.  We are early so we stop and get a map and then drive around for a few minutes before unloading at the trailhead.  Each boy gets a backpack.  Some shoes need to be put back on.  Hannah and I each have a baby in a sling under our coats.  It’s sunny, but the wind is bracing.  Silas, Hannah’s four-year-old, has left his coat behind.  How did we miss that?  I find an extra one under a seat in my van. 

10:30 AM.  Other mothers have  arrived.  Including our six, there are eleven or twelve children.  One mom from the email list unloads several teenagers from a minivan.  They’d hoped to join up with another group from our list to go geocaching, but that group can’t be found.   So the teenagers head off to explore and the mom comes along with us.

10:57 AM.  We finish the short hike and head to the playground.  Hannah takes all our kids except my baby on foot while I drive the minivan from one parking lot to the next.  The boys dump their backpacks and coats on a table and run to the play structure.  We hang out in the sunshine, babies in our slings, while the boys wear themselves out on the playground.  The play structure is an unusually extensive one with a giant network of ropes to climb on.  The big teenagers hurl themselves at it, hollering.  The little boys watch in awe and try to follow them around.

11:50 AM.  Hannah and I say goodbye to the other moms and coax our kids away with promises of lunch.  Everyone grabs coats and bags and we pile back into the van.  We are exhiliarated, as this is only the second time we’ve done a first-thing-in-the-morning Thursday hike and we can’t believe it’s actually working for us.

12:15 PM.  I cut the sandwiches in quarters and Hannah cores the apples.  Ben, age 7, sets the table.  We gather everyone up and Hannah says a meal blessing:  Help us to be thankful for this food that You and Erin have provided for us.  We start eating, and the children discuss who is primarily responsible for the cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches, me or God.

12:30 PM.  The kids have all run away.  Hannah and I finish eating.  We let Milo, my three-year-old, out in the back yard with the bigger boys, not without apprehension, as:  (1) Hannah’s family has only lived in this house for a few weeks, (2) the yard isn’t fenced yet, and (3) I don’t really know whether Milo will try to wander off or not.  We decide to let him out and watch through the window to see how he does.  He doesn’t wander off, but he does try to hit the others with sticks, and Ben helpfully tackles him whenever he crosses the property line.  Hannah decides to go outside to dig thistles and observe.  When I look up a few minutes later from unloading the dishwasher, she and five children, each with a hoe or shovel, are standing around the raised bed in the middle of the yard, hacking at the thistles.

When she comes in, the littler ones follow.  She says as she joins me in the kitchen, I think we should have an adult be out with Milo, at least for the first few weeks while we are setting expectations.  I agree.

1:50 PM.  The dishwasher is reloaded and the table is cleared.  We start setting up schoolwork at her long dining room table (really two tables end to end that extend a bit into the adjacent living room).

2:00 PM.  Ben and Oscar start school at the table.  Ben does all of his work there; I have to move Oscar to the sofa for a while (Hannah finds a clipboard for him) so I can sit and nurse Milo to sleep on the couch while going over Oscar’s geography workbook from last week.  It looks like he circled random answers; I remember he had been in a hurry to finish so he could play with Ben, who was already done.  Well, today I have time to supervise it closely, and I help him see which answers are correct. 

2:30 PM.  Milo’s asleep.  Oscar and I rejoin Ben at the table.

3:10 PM.  Oscar and I move to yet another chair and I read aloud to him until I can tell he’s had enough for the day.  He jumps up and heads downstairs.  Ben’s done soon, too.

3:30 PM.  I put on some tea and straighten the kitchen.  Hannah and I survey the cabinets and decide to make shepherd’s pie — or rancher’s, I suppose — with beef, onions, peas, potatoes, and cheese.  MJ is asleep in my sling, but both Si and Hazel want Hannah just as she gets the beef defrosting in the microwave, so I scrub potatoes.  Si wants to help me cut them; Hannah supervises Si with the knife while I chop onions.  I’ve never made this before so I follow Hannah’s directions, boiling potatoes, browning beef and onions.  Hannah comes to drain the potatoes because I’ve got a baby in my sling and can’t do it safely; then she puts them in the mixer and helps Si turn it on to mash them.   She grates the cheese too, after I have to stop to nurse MJ.

4:30 PM.  I call Mark to tell him to preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and make some kind of vegetable, if he gets home before I do.

5:00 PM.  Done with the pie parts.  We layer the beef mixture, potatoes, and cheese in our casserole dishes.  Hers goes in the oven.  Mine goes in my car.

5:25 PM.  I load all my other stuff into the bags and put it in the car.  I buckle Oscar and MJ in, and come back in to collect Milo (still asleep) from the couch.  I holler, "Thanks!  I had a great day!" over my shoulder as I bang out the front door. 

5:30 PM.  I start my car.

6:10 PM.  I arrive home to find Mark has made a carrot salad and preheated the oven as requested.  He carries stuff inside for me.  While we wait for the casserole to bake, he sits down with Oscar to do the arithmetic time test and take the thermometer reading for the weather chart. 

6:30 PM.  Dinner.  Everyone loves the shepherd’s pie, although the kids require a lot of ketchup to hide the peas.

In the comments, from mandamum:

Hey, when you get a chance can you post about house rules for schooling together with other families? I’d love to hear your thoughts/experience.

Sure.  There are three other homeschooling families we get together with regularly.   When all the children were small, we moms regularly spent 2-3 full days at one another’s houses per week:  working, talking, taking turns with the kids, etc.  As the oldest child in each family has entered school age and started to do higher-level work, we’ve had to experiment with scheduling and the like.

Right now, on "tribe days," we do some of our curriculum at home before we leave or before friends arrive; some while we’re together; and some more in the evening (that my husband oversees).  The work our families do together is usually the parts that the children can do quite independently, like math worksheets.  We pick the best time of day, often after lunch when smaller children are napping, and we start them off at the same time, sitting together at a table.  We started off aiming for a very short time period (10 min) and have worked up to maybe a half hour or so.

One family prefers to do all schoolwork without the distraction of other kids.  The child from that family, an 8yo boy, knows that the kids who are working shouldn’t be disturbed, and he often plays with the younger kids in another room or listens to read-alouds while they’re working.

As long as I can muster the self-discipline to tear my own self away from cups of tea and the like to start school, I find it’s even easier on "tribe days" because the moms can take turns with preschoolers and school-agers.  Hannah can easily supervise my son’s schoolwork.  I could do some supervision of her son’s schoolwork if needed, but not quite as well —  just a matter of the boys’ different temperaments.

I’ll write more on this later.