Everyday Trish

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When I announced that we were homeschooling I was kind of nervous thinking about what kinds of responses I was going to get. Were people going be supportive or would they tell me I was stupid and on the express train toward ruining in my own child? I waited for it. For just one person to say this was a mistake. But it hasn’t come yet. If anyone DOES think I’m going to ruin my kid, they haven’t said anything. The response was overwhelmingly positive and supportive, and I am so thankful for that. I know that at some point during this homeschool journey chances are high someone, somewhere will have something negative to say, but for now I’ll just enjoy all the positive vibes I can get.

My friend Jenn, who is a teacher, was over this weekend and left us with some books from her massive personal library and today we busted out “Teeth, Tails, & Tentacles: An Animal Counting Book” by Christopher Wormell.  We read it once during Basement Time, and then again at bath time. Let me tell you, if you have a child that won’t sit still, bath time is the perfect time to capture their attention. There’s nowhere for them to go unless they want to be naked and cold.

We’ve been having a little trouble counting all the way to 20, but he did really well engaging and counting along with this book. He even made it all the way through 20 one time without missing a number. I was so proud and he was so happy. We’ll definitely be getting this one out again to practice some more. There are even little snippets in the back of the book that teach you about all the animals, and he found that super interesting. Somehow we ended up on a whole tangent about marsupials. Oh, and then we had to pretend to be bears climbing trees. And we hissed like snakes and “bit” each other with our fangs. It was basically the best part of my day.

And here we are at the end, and I’m feeling those twinges of guilt for not doing enough with the day. Even though it was a tough one with allergies and headaches and extra non-homeschool work. I’m trying to shake those thoughts off though. It was still a good day with progress and triumphs. He counted to 20! He cleaned his butt! He ate something other than candy! I’ll take whatever wins I can get.

Did you have any triumphs today? Big or small, I’d love to hear them!

P.S. I’d love for you to checkout my homeschool kindergarten board on Pinterest, as well as my Amazon favorites where I have curated lists of things we genuinely use and love.

Want to keep up with all my cake-fueled ramblings? You can subscribe to my newsletter or find me at one of these places:

This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking an affiliate link it doesn’t cost you any extra, but I might make a small commission. I use this money to help pay for blog hosting, homeschool stuff, and snack cakes.

I think I’ve said in the majority of my homeschool blog posts so far that I don’t have much of a plan. We’re just going with the flow and seeing where our day takes us. I do have a rough idea of things I’d like to get to each day, but that’s pretty much it. Can I confess though, that I get nervous when I read about homeschool routines. Moms that have the days planned out to the minute. A time for everything in their day.

What if I’m making a horrible mistake doing it this way? But then today I read something that eased my mind a bit. It was a homeschool mom talking about her very scheduled day and how she loves having more of a separation of their “regular” day from their “homeschool” day. And I am glad if that works for her, truly I am. But my desire is so different. I just want days. And nights. And learning all the time. I don’t want relief when the learning portion of our day is done, because learning will just be a happy part of our entire day.

Do I sound crazy? I might. This feels wild and crazy. But it also feels right for us.

Today, for example, was a hodgepodge of things that would probably make the most structured homeschooler squirm.

We got a lazy start and ended up eating tater tots in bed while we watched Lilo & Stitch. The whole gang joined us.

Wyatt told me a knock-knock joke:

Knock-knock

Who’s there?

Pete!

Pete who?

Pete’s me!

This set off a knock-knock joke googling marathon. We giggled for so long. Even at the really dumb ones. Probably mostly at the really dumb ones.

We did some lessons on ABC Mouse and Wyatt checked on his digital hamsters: Cuzzy, Fuzzy, and Cluzzy. He’s never allowed to name a real animal. Ever.

A little while later and he fell asleep mid-sentence on my bed. I still subscribe to the belief that you don’t wake a sleeping baby, even if they are almost 6 years old. So he slept while I worked, and then it was time for soccer.

After sweating through 45 minutes of soccer (I’m talking about me. How close are you, crisp Fall weather? Come find me) we headed to Walmart to buy essentials like toothpaste and Snickers and take-and-bake pizza because that’s as close to cooking as anyone was getting tonight. He picked watermelon toothpaste, because that’s his favorite fruit. And a Super Mario toothbrush with a spinning head, because it’s just like mine. I mean, mine just says Oral-B on it so it’s not quite as cool, but excuse me how cute that he wants a toothbrush like his mom. I think a little more of my heart just thawed.

At home I asked him what he wanted to learn, and he said how to build Legos. I think he’s figuring out how to game this system. And I thought I’d be sneaky by telling him, ok, you have to pick 20 Legos and build me something cool. That was like 2 hours ago. He’s currently sitting on the floor behind me still building. Pretty sure he never counted 20 Legos. It’s okay, we’ve always got tomorrow.

Tell me, how was your day?

P.S. I’d love for you to checkout my homeschool kindergarten board on Pinterest, as well as my Amazon favorites where I have curated lists of things we genuinely use and love.

Want to keep up with all my cake-fueled ramblings? You can subscribe to my newsletter or find me at one of these places:

This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking an affiliate link it doesn’t cost you any extra, but I might make a small commission. I use this money to help pay for blog hosting, homeschool stuff, and snack cakes.

I have some variation of this conversation with Wyatt at least a few times a week:

Me: We have to get these toys picked up

Wyatt: But that sounds haaaaaaard

Me: Well you didn’t think it was too hard to get them all out

Wyatt: But putting them away isn’t fuuuuuuun

He’s not a lazy kid, but man, he doesn’t like to do work if he think it’s, you know, work. So imagine my surprise when I find him outside, filthy from head to toe, hauling rocks for Amma’s landscaping project. Apparently carrying bucket-fulls of rocks is not work. It’s totally play time. And he was pretty proud of their accomplishment.

He was starving after all that work so we plopped some food down in front of him and he ate like I’d never seen him eat before. And I’m pretty sure I’m going to put manual labor on the schedule everyday now.

This seemed like a pretty good time to get some school done so we went to our favorite study spot (my bed) and did some work out of the What Your Preschooler Needs to Know Activity Book. We followed that up with a couple of episodes of Masha’s Spooky Stories on Netflix because he actually did look totally beat after all that work earlier. You guys, this show is…odd. I mean, one of the stories is about a kid who is so afraid of water he stops bathing and turns into a literal pig. I guess that’s one way to scare your kid into taking a bath.

Later on during Basement Time I headed down and was graced with an invitation to stay and watch a new Scooby-Doo movie. Wyatt loves Scooby-Doo and mysteries and pretending that he’s scared when the “ghosts” are on screen. So we settled down on the couch to watch “Scooby-Doo and the Gourmet Ghost” and guys, I just about died when the cartoon likeness of Bobby Flay showed up on the screen. Apparently he’s Fred’s uncle, because anything is possible when you’re animated. But seriously. What’s going on Bobby Flay? Did someone put you up to this? I’m concerned. Blink twice if you need help.

I also made good on my promise to ask Wyatt what he wanted to learn about (albeit a little late in the day) and he said he wanted to know how train tracks are built. Perhaps a little bit out of my range of knowledge, but hey, that’s what Youtube is for. So we watched a couple of videos that only prompted more questions, so I’m thinking maybe a trip to the library for some train books might be in order.

What did your homeschool day look like?

P.S. I’d love for you to checkout my new favorites page on Amazon, where I have lists of products we genuinely use and love.

Want to keep up with all my cake-fueled ramblings? You can subscribe to my newsletter or find me at one of these places: