Hey-- La Tex!
Good to see ya!
Yeah-- our method was a gentle wake-up, probably with piano practice in there somewhere, going for a walk, weeding or doing some household chores together, etc.
Then, about 9:30-11 AM, (sometime in there, anyway, we'd start) we would do school. Until it was done or until we had something else going on or we'd both had enough, I mean.
Typical outside-of-the-house activities that we engaged in during our homeschooling years:
a) piano (same teacher that my DD has almost nine years later-- a homeschooling mom herself, she is WAY supportive.)
b) going and listening to weekly, free "noon concerts" at the local university
c) various parks and rec classes (cheap-cheap-cheap and because they are PUBLIC-public, they have to meet the highest standards of ADA compliance... heheh.) We did pottery (a disaster with my sensory-issues preschooler), kinder-gym (awesome b/c of teacher), art (also great), ballet and tap classes (varied widely-- but mostly awesome), drawing, music (meh-- not really on-level for PG DD), swimming (AWESOME success), Tai Kwon Do, Tai Chi, literacy programs (where we were gloriously permitted to 'cheat' a bit on age restrictions, though-- sadly-- it needed to be by about 2y more than they allowed).
d) the library. OMG. I thought that at some point, our marvelous children's librarians were going to ambush me for an intervention. Not completely kidding about that.
I regularly had 110-150 items checked out at any one time.
e) trying various homeschool co-op and indoor play spaces (never had luck-- but we did try)
I'd also-- if this is something that your family would like to foster-- encourage you to explore side-by-side opportunities for community service in your local area. A food bank, collecting supplies for a women's shelter, socializing animals at the animal shelter, helping at the library-- pretty much anything goes.
