An average school day

I enjoyed my new internet friend's average day post, so I'm doing one of my own here. The photos mixed in might not be entirely an average day. They're all from school time during our dacha week. They do show how portable our school is. Just imagine most of them transposed to an apartment with slightly cleaner children, and they'll be a little more average.

We start each school day over breakfast, usually at the table, but the dacha variation was around the campfire. I read Bible stories to them, alternating between passages from the New Testament and Old, every other day. We also alternate languages, every other term. Right now we're reading in English, so we use The Child's Story Bible for OT and The Children's Bible (on Kindle!) for NT. When we read in Russian, we go straight from the Bible.

After Bible, we read poetry: Walter de la Mare for Jaan in Year 2, A Child's Garden of Verses for Year 0, and Тютчев for Russian. Then we sing hymns and folk songs. This is the first term that I've seen them really getting into the songs, enjoying them and learning the words well.

Jaan had smoke in his eyes; Asya was SINGING

Jaan and Raia then repeat their memory work. Asya has had a part of that for the past few weeks, too, as we've been getting ready for Zhatva.

Three ragamuffins recite a poem

All that is "morning school." Then they're free (usually to play outside) until after lunch. When lunch is over, Asya has rest time. We're transitioning her out of actually napping, but she still falls asleep most days while listening to an audio book.

Resting with Pushkin on the iPod

While Asya rests, I do school with Raia and Jaan, each separately. The one who's not working, either reads (Jaan), or listens some with Asya, or does some other quiet activity. Raia's school consists of reading books from the Ambleside Online Year 0 book list and working on other accomplishments.

Practicing handwriting

So, I read to her, usually while she draws, then we do some kind of activity. During that dacha week I read The Little House, The Little Engine that Could, Ox-Cart Man, Ferdinand and Make Way for Ducklings to her. She worked on recognizing number groups (attainment #3), a lesson from our reading book (#4), copying her name (#5), learned about directions by making a sun compass and playing with a magnetic compass (#6), and dictated a description of our dacha property (#7). Remember, one of those activities for each day, not all at once!

Using a compass

Then it's Jaan's turn. Or, actually, on the three days of the week that he has music school, he goes first. He has a good bit more work to do. I have a chart that we go through, with places for me to check off or write in what lessons we did in math, reading (phonics), Russian, copywork, and Ukrainian. In between those subjects, I read AO selections to him, and he narrates them back to me. We don't have a set order or schedule. I just try to vary types of activities and work on the harder parts before he gets tired.

Russian

The whole time we're doing afternoon school, Bogdan either...

...sleeps...

...or listens.

He actually really loves to listen in. He seems to follow all the reading aloud very intently.

And that pretty much summarizes an average day in Hunsucker Homeschool. Oh, one more photo, just because I like it: