A Peek Into Our School Day

Posted on by Kandy

Most of you know that, as of last year, we are a homeschooling family. Educating our children at home has been a wonderful journey of learning for all. For me, that education has included lessons on humility, time management, patience, and so many other things that I couldn’t possibly list them all here. Hopefully my children are learning not only academics, but also how to think for themselves in this world. I still plan to write more details about our home school one day, but as for now I thought I’d just show you some pictures of a typical day at Alabama Pines Academy (That’s actually what I named it in our scheduling/grading software; I couldn’t resist.).
Our mornings are spent getting as much school work done as possible in order to free up our afternoons. Many days don’t actually turn out that way, but our goal is to be mostly finished by lunch. Sam’s work has increased in difficulty quite a bit this year, so sometimes it takes longer. It is nice when we have free afternoons, though. There is so much more to do in a day than school work, right?
Here are Sam and Everett working hard on some school work. Occasionally Sam has to tune out  distracting noise with his iPod. I don’t mind, as long as his work is done well.







And here’s Olivia working on some math facts. Unlike me, one of her favorite subjects is math, and she understands the concepts so quickly that I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep up with teaching her. Fortunately Jeremy is a math whiz, and should be able to help when the time comes.

Here is Everett working on some math. He also catches on very quickly and is already almost finished with the math book that I thought he would be using all year. He only has three lessons left in this one, so I’ll probably be ordering his first grade book in a few days.










And this is what Everett does in the morning while Sam and Olivia finish their work. Since he’s only in kindergarten his work doesn’t take more than an hour on most days. Playdoh is good for fine motor skills, right?

One of the fun parts of school is Nature Study. Children love it, and it gets us outdoors. We found this Walking Stick right outside our window, and kept it in a jar for a few days. The kids were fascinated, and learned a little about how to do applicable research (What’s it called? What does it eat? How long will it live in a jar?)

Here, we’re trying to see if we can get an avocado pit to sprout. If so, we’ll  put it into a container, and perhaps it will grow into an avocado tree!

And since Sam’s learning about plant biology right now, this is a little germination experiment he did. These three Nature Study experiments (the stick bug, avocado, and Sam’s germination project) were all going on at the same time, so my house was filled with all sorts of extra living things.

The kids’ favorite part of the day is recess! Here, Everett is showing off his soccer skills by doing a “rainbow” with a soccer ball. It’s a trick that Sam taught him, and Everett is surprisingly good at it.









Olivia also had to show off her rainbow.
And then Sam showed us how it’s really supposed to be done.

After lunch they enjoy some free time. Sometimes that includes crazy Lego creations. I love this, since they usually get along really well, and have figured out how to work together on these “masterpieces”. Somewhat. On really good days, that is.
And some afternoons are just so beautiful that we find ourselves at the beach. We can call that a field trip, right?

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into a day at Alabama Pines Academy!

2 thoughts on “A Peek Into Our School Day”

  2. It's almost midnight but I had to at least “touch base”… the kids look wonderful. Glad school is going well. Miss you all tons…. LIKE TONS!!!! Think of you often and pray as well for your safety and more importantly growth! 🙂 I know it must be hard at times… Love you all….wish you were here.

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