Or how homeschooling a bunch of children looks like in our home 
I have written before about HOW we homeschool back when we had only 5 children. As always, things change, and now we have 7 children, aged 13 down to 2.5 years old. How we homeschool and even the curriculum we use have changed. How we do chores has also changed. In fact, how we parent has also changed 
But to prevent this post being a mile long, I will just address homeschooling mainly and some chores. I have been thinking of writing this for a l-o-n-g time, since last year actually but I never got the time to do it. But recently a few people have been asking me how our days are like. So I thought that I should get off my butt and write it down.
Some background : This is our 8th year homeschooling. I have mentioned in my previous posts that we use our local curriculum for the preparation for PSLE. And we use Student of the Word (SOW) for our Bible. (See the Homeschooling category for more on our homeschooling experience.)
Before each school year starts (we start in August and if you want to know why, please read, “Homeschool Planning“). I do up my master planner. After which I transfer 4 weeks’ of work into each child’s individual planner.
Please also note that this is the way we homeschool now. We did not start out this way. For what we used to use and how we use it, check out the older Homeschooling posts.
Every morning upon waking, everyone showers and brushes his/her teeth. Then each child will take out his individual planner and check through the list of work to be completed. If he/she wakes up before me (which is almost the case 
) he/she will work on his/her work immediately. Work is interrupted when breakfast is served, eaten and cleared up by the breakfast helper.
If however, a child wakes up after me, then he just eats his breakfast before starting on his work. Sometimes a child may decide to just play instead of work before breakfast. That is fine with me
Once the breakfast table is cleared, we start our Bible lessons using SOW with children aged 6 and above, or 5 if they are matured enough to understand and follow along. While this is going on, the 4 and 2 yr old will play by themselves. Then the children are excused and they either start their day’s work or continue from where they left off before breakfast.
I will then take the 4 yr old one-on-one. The 2 year old often sits in and observes what we are doing, sometimes offering the answers before big sister does
If during this time any of the older ones have a question for me, they will just have to wait. Afterall I only spend 30 minutes with the little ones. Once nursery school is over, they go back to their play.
Then I start helping those who need help and/or go through work that I was not able to do so the day before.
Usually this takes me to 12 noon. This is when I will start lunch preparations or give instructions to my chef-in-training what to prepare/cook. Lunch is served at 12:30pm.
On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I will usually read aloud to all at the lunch table (including the 2 yr old) a book that no one has read before. (Yes, I hide these books from my avid readers so that they will be all ears instead of spacing out on me or talking to each other when I am reading.) On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I eat in peace with my newspapers or iPhone
After lunch the two lunch helpers clear up – one to clear the table and sweep the floor, the other to wash the dishes. There is usually a little break for me here before I send the 2 youngest ones to nap. I usually take a short 10 to 30 minute nap too Then while she continues napping I will clear some emails or start dinner preparation.
Next comes snack time While the children are having their afternoon snack, I start grading their work. I always make myself feel better by grading and clearing the work of the younger ones first
On Mondays to Thursdays I do Science with the middle children, using the Exploring Creation series by Apologia Science. Once that is done, I attack the work of the older ones which require more brain power from me. Ahh!! This is where I often am tempted to drink another cup of caffeine-filled drink!
I try to go through any mistakes made on the same day so that the work is still fresh in their minds and so that mistakes will quickly be corrected instead of being discovered only at the end of the week. But I don’t always make it, of course 
I now have a secret weapon in attacking the huge pile of Maths workbooks to be graded! My 13 year old who is great in Maths!
I pay him to mark them all! Then I go through the corrections with each child. Sometimes (quite often lately I am afraid) my brains are so fried I even need him to explain the Maths to his siblings!) But I do not allow him to teach them unless I say so.
Why?
Well, first of all, patience is not his strongest point And since his mathematically-wired brains sees numbers differently from the rest of us, his explanations sometimes serve to confuse them further. So I will make him explain it to me and then I explain it to them.
My homeschool day is officially over by 5pm. Interspersed with lots of interruptions, sometimes even a grocery trip or two! The children’s day is over the moment they hand in their work box to me. Unless they have lots of corrections to do or they need to re-do certain pieces of work.
Once all that is done, I am free to prepare/cook dinner. Depending on what we are eating, all I may have to do is cook, preparation is done by the 13 year old. Otherwise, I do everything by myself.
While we have our dinner, our Roomba is usually tasked to vacuum the Living Area and Kitchen. Once dinner is over, it is brought to the Dining Area to finish up. It is our best purchase ever!
If dh is home, he helps me with the dishes and showers the 2 young ones. Otherwise, I do that too. By 9pm, everyone is rounded up and we start our bedtime routine. We read a chapter from the Bible, have our prayers and the middle children are packed off to bed. The 2 older ones are allowed to stay up because well, they are older The 2 younger ones are allowed to stay up because they still take their naps. By 10pm, this group are also packed off to bed and peace and silence reigns in the house finally!
I either clear work that I could not clear in the day – usually my 13 yr old’s work which requires me to read and absorb stuff that I haven’t paid any attention to for a l-o-n-g time!
This is also the time when I clear my emails, read FB or do whatever internet research I want/need to do. Bedtime for me is unfortunately more often than not at 2am though I try very hard to sleep by 1am.
Come the next day, the circus begins its show all over again
This, of course, is generally what happens here but there are always interruptions, unplanned outings, visits from friends, etc that will throw us off our usual routine but it is fine as long as these interruptions are not a daily occurence coz then I can’t keep up with the grading of the schoolwork
So there you go, a typical day in our house.
