A Day in the Life of the Jackson 5

Welcome to the new "A Day in the Life" series! This weekly string of blog posts will feature individuals or families here on the Big Island, describing what "a day in the life" (or a week!) of a homeschooler is like. This weeks post is by (me) Sally Jackson of Hilo, mama to Zadok, Odin, and Jonah.

 Aloha friends! I thought I would take a stab at sharing what a day in the life of our homeschooling family is like. We don't normally refer to ourselves at the "Jackson 5", but it sounded catchy, so I'm sticking with it (just for today.)
So yes, there are five of us in our family. My husband Micah is a public school science teacher and awesome father of the family, and I am the stay-at-home nurturer and domestic manager of the house! We have 3 sons: Zadok is turning 7 tomorrow, Odin is turning 5 in two weeks, and little Jonah  is 2 1/2. We may be a young homeschooling family just starting out, however, I feel like this homeschooling journey is a natural part of our progression in life. We love being together, we love learning, and homeschooling seems to fit us perfectly.

Our days start early, as my husband gets up at 6am to get ready for work. However, Zadok wakes up before everybody else and usually watches Wild Kratts while he waits for the rest of us to drag ourselves out of bed. By 7:30am we are all up, and eating breakfast. Pancakes are a favorite around here!
One thing I learned early on as a homeschooling Mom is that I stink at  following a schedule, but I love having a routine. So, each morning we aim to accomplish 8 basic things, which  I call our "Important Things." We don't move on with our day until these things are accomplished: 
1. Rise and Shine
2. Eat breakfast
3. Brush Teeth
4. Get dressed for the day
5. Personal prayers and praying together as a family
6. Scripture study and/or Spiritual focus time
7.  Morning hugs for everyone
8. Daily chores (hang laundry, vacuum, wipe walls, scrub floors, dust, mop, clean out the car, etc)

After we're done with our "Important Things," it's usually about 9:30am. Now we can move on to whatever activities we have planned for the day (or make it all up as we go along.)
If it's a sunny day we'll head to the beach to explore the tide pools and swim. My boys love to run around and collect specimens to be identified. Last week we found blue-bubble jellyfish washed up on the shore, and sea turtles resting on the rocks. Odin loves to collect sea glass and also collects cans for recycling money. 

Catch and release!

We have a handful of favorite beaches we love to visit, and consider this our exposure to the natural, physical, and marine science world.  We  also love to  hike up at Hawaii's Volcano National Park, and explore the parks near our home. Anytime we are spending time in nature is valuable to our family.

If it's Tuesday, we'll head over to play kickball with our homeschool friends. Starting a weekly kickball game was something we really needed to do for our children. I am so grateful for kickball! You can read more about that here on my personal blog. 

If it's super rainy we might head over to Keiki Steps, which is a free, interactive  pre-school for children and their parents. While we are there for 2 hours, I get to do crafts and activities with Odin and Jonah, while Zadok hangs out and does games on his computer like Minecraft. Or, we'll stay home and play board games all day. My kids are really into Scrabble, Battleship, UNO, and well, basically any board game that exists. They learn a lot through playing, so we really value our board/card games. Sometimes we'll set up a fake store with fake money and sell our stuff to each other. They get a huge kick out of this, plus it gives them great practice in adding and subtracting bills and coins. 

Would you like to buy a dinosaur?

By 12'o clock we are hungry for lunch, usually sandwiches and veggies or fruit.  Zadok makes pb&j and Odin makes turkey and cheese. Jonah will eat anything I give him, thank goodness. I usually take this time to make myself something yummy, too. After lunch we will either read a bunch of library books like Magic Tree House, make something crafty like hot glue and Popsicle sticks, or find computer games for the kids to play online. Lately it's been Cool Math Games, Animal Jam, or StarFall. Odin  likes to work on Star Fall, as he is just learning his phonetics. Next the boys take turns on the computer while Jonah naps, which allows me to get stuff done for myself. I try to alternate days exercising, blogging, reading, or catching up on emails, as I can never do everything I want all in one day. Does anyone else have this problem? haha

Reading book to little bro

After Jonah wakes up from his nap and the boys have met their quota with "screen time" we hang out and wait for Dad to get home, which is about 3:30pm. During this time the boys will wrestle, or play freeze tag with me, or play Yu-Gi-Oh card games.  
Zadok is really into the Yu-Gi-Oh card game and has converted his little brother along with him. He collects the cards and plays tournaments against other kids on the weekends. As his parents, we totally encourage his passions, and have seen immense growth in his reading skills  and problem solving abilities since he began this hobby. Odin is a couple steps behind him, but eager to follow his big brother in whatever he does. 
When Dad gets home we often head out to the beach, or play games around the house, or spend time in the yard with our chickens and garden, until dinnertime, which is about 5:30pm.  (I often even sneak out the door by myself for a surf session or a long jog to unwind from the day after he gets home.)

Okay, I guess that's it for now! Every day is different and not every day goes perfectly. Some days are really hard, where all I feel I'm doing is breaking up arguments and entertaining boredom, but, there's also so much I love that makes up for the tough days.
 One of the things I love best about homeschooling is the variety of interests our children have and their excitement to pursue them on their own.  I remember a couple years back when everything was about animals! Our eldest son was suddenly on this personal mission to find out everything there was to know about animal's lives, their habitats, their defense mechanisms, and so forth. We found ourselves at the library, weekly, checking out animal books, watching animal documentaries, and drawing animal life cycles. It was an exciting time for our family, and one I look back on fondly.  Then, as the interest in animals waned, he soon moved on to dinosaurs,  then Star Wars, helicopters, plants and seeds, the Universe,  then Yu-Gi-Oh, and on and on. We just let the learning flow, and let his curiosity lead the way, whatever it may be. I realized that no matter what they are interested in, we can tie it into learning. For us homeschooling isn't just about excelling academically, but also about being passionate about living  life, about having a strong spiritual foundation, and about being happy with who we are. 

So that's a day in the life of the Jackson 5!  Thanks for reading! Next year might be a little different since we signed up for the Myron B. Thompson Academy. We are looking forward to a new challenge, and maybe even some extra free-cash for gymnastics classes and Imiloa.

Painting a playhouse to live in.