A Day in the Life of a Relaxed Homeschooler, Part III

by Andrea Hermitt | More from this Blogger

14 Dec 2006 09:06 PM

It is 9:30 and the kids are in bed. My daughter is listening to a book on tape, and my son has his laptop in his bed playing with html codes. While they are in bed, they are trying to stay awake until Daddy gets home from the airport. He travels a lot. The concert was short and sweet, and the kids enjoyed the buffet afterward (cheese, fruit, chips, brownies) so when we got home, I just had to reheat last night's dinner. One piece of corn on the cob, and one chicken wingette was plenty.

I never did get any rest. I never did find that missing shoe either. We did however get to the concert on time.

I feel like I mislead you all by calling this a day in the life of a relaxed homeschooler... it seems we did more relaxing than homeschooling today.

The point in showing this day as opposed to others is to show that we manage to learn and live at the same time. My daughters' chosen extra curriculum (pageants) calls for us to keep our schedules flexible, as does the Fine Arts/ History Program that the kids go to on Monday. Both of those activities occupied today's schedule. We like to do other activities like Fencing, Track, swimming, whatever, as early in the day as possible, while physical energy is abundant. With that done, it is much easier to read multiple chapters in a book and write an essay, or do two pages of equations. After a day of running around, the chance to sit down and concentrate on something is welcome.

While we spent the day in extra curricular activities, we still managed to get several hours worth of "learning time" in. My son read ten plus chapters in a required book, my daughter read several chapters of historical fiction and practiced math for over an hour. We will catch up on Science tomorrow, and History is covered in classes on Mondays (though the school in on vacation this month). I also managed to sneak in a few extra hours of work yesterday under the guise that we would have no time to work today. In the meantime, we just lived our lives.

Read The Relaxed Homeschool, a Family Production by Mary Hood. This book introduced me to the concept of relaxed homeschooling, which allows the parents to remain parents. Instead of teaching, we provide educational opportunities for our children. While it is one of the more expensive forms of homeschooling, it is also one of the less stressful forms of homeschooling.

Other homeschooling methods include unschooling Charlotte Mason Method Unit studies Classical Homeschooling and more

Learn more about Andrea Hermitt

Andrea Hermitt is a native New Yorker currently residing in GA. She has been married for over 16 years and has two teenage children.

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