What does your school day look like (or week if each day is different)?
We struggle with keeping up a rhythm or sticking to a routine. Ideally, I would like to start with them early in the morning- exercise together, cook & eat a healthy breakfast with enough protein and fat to keep them going, then get their core subject instruction done over the next couple of hours with a few short breaks and be pretty much done before lunch so we can do fun things- projects, field trips, classes, the park, library, independent reading.... they love to do all those things, but I don't feel good about saying "Sure, let's go to the park after lunch!" if they whined and moaned through every little thing all morning.
On a typical day, they're up between 7-7:30 and feel sluggish so they want to snuggle for a while. Then they take forever at breakfast, sneak it into the trash if they've decided whatever food they begged me for that morning is suddenly unacceptable for some reason, then complain 15 minutes later that they're hungry.
I try to get them going with their math with one doing computer-based math while I help the other with a lesson (Singapore). Generally this involves a lot of loud protestation and procrastination. And a lot of complaints about being hungry because they rejected breakfast or ate something that wasn't filling enough.
By the time we actually get one lesson done for each of them, it's lunchtime and they want to play after lunch. I might be able to get my K'er to read aloud to me for a while and get DD8 to practice piano (with much wailing and gnashing of teeth.) But other than that, we have to squeeze any other subjects in on days when they're feeling more agreeable.
This isn't every single day, but it is pretty typical. They go to school one day a week for an enrichment program with other homeschoolers.
Have you ever read any of Peggy Kaye's books math games is one.
I have read that one. We have done some math games and they're definitely more receptive to computer games or math apps than math board games. I think I saw that Richard Rusczyk had said you can pretty much do games for math up through 4th grade but that idea makes the control freak in me rear its ugly head. It just feels like we've accomplished more when I can look back at a book they've completed, you know?
