A Day in the Life of A Cheerful Catholic Unschooler

From an email and a day of last week -

Today we all got up late-ish. I exercised ( Taebo again!) and dh went for a walk. Alexander did his tai chi and yoga. Thomas and Anny played computer games, got themselves dressed, beds made, ate breakfast. At 8.30 am I woke up Jonathon as he and Alexander had a band practice today with hs friends and I knew we'd have to leave around 9.30.

Anny has been sick these last few days so he was going to stay home with dh and Thomas. I reminded them that later today was their piano and keyboard lesson so a practise might be a good idea. When I left, they were talking on the phone to their older brother Greg.

I know while I was gone, they played Uno with dh, played music, did some handwriting ( they both want to work on cursive writing), did their exercises ( we have a family fitness focus right now) and played games on the Playstation.

Jonathon, Alexander and I drove to a friend's house. Discussed the clouds and weather. They and two homeschool friends had a jam session, trying out a new song Jonathon had written and a new song another band member had written. I sat in the family room and had coffee and chatted to the other mums, the 17 year old dd of one friend and the friend's dh.

On the way home, it started to rain so we phoned dh and asked him to bring the others and meet us at McDonalds McCafe for a treat lunch. While there we talked about lower fat choices - eg skim milk iced chocolates for Thomas and dh and a skim milk decaf cappaccino for me!

Home again and Thomas made phone calls about some toys for which he is saving . Anthony read his book for Advent reading - More About the Saints. Jonathon got to work on writing more songs and readng a James Thurber book. Alexander played guitar and read some of his Advent book - Mere Christianity. I surfed the internet and wrote email!

They all played an rpg with Anny ( his love - Tunnels and Trolls) from 2- 2.45 , when it was time for music lessons. Anny wanted to divide 223 among 4 for the game so I showed him how to set out and complete division algorithms.Dh is on holidays so while the two boys were at lessons and the other two at home, we went for a walk. Together.It started to rain again!

Dh walked home and Thomas and Anthony and I went to the shops for some groceries and to hire a new PS2 game. We talked about the ethics of war and asassins!

Home again, dh was working on his hobby models , Jonathon and Alexander were using the computers, Thomas and Anthony jumped on the trampoline and went back to the Playstation. I did laundry and started dinner.

We had dinner watching Dr Who on the ABC and compared different Doctors. I cleaned the kitchen, including giving the cupboards a scrub. Then Jonathon, Alexander and I went to Tai Chi class .

Home from Tai Chi and Thomas said he had finished his Advent reading - Mary and Frances by Eleanor Spence, about Blessed Mary Makillop. Anny finished his reading and told me about St John of God.

We prayed the rosary and talked briefly about Christmas customs - trees, red and green. Then I read the next chapter from Mao's Last Dancer - and we all just had a long discussion about communism and capitalism and religion and culture. We looked up info on Marx and Engels and Mao Zedung and Lin Biao .

Anny is off to bed, after asking me to choose on of our homemade books for him to read in bed - I chose one Greg wrote whgen he was 14 - Australian Explorers. Thomas is playing the keyboard, Jonathon is writing and Alexnder is reading and Gerry is back at models and I am typing!

Its 10.00 pm and I think we have had a full unschooling day.

....So, there was our day. What do you think?