A Day in The Life - Year 8

Lucy is our early riser; she's often up before 7 and helps prepare breakfast, reads, keeps our second earliest riser company...

Maths is always first in the day. Lucy's ready by 9 but waits on me to catch up. We go over an algebra problem from yesterday, then run through the lesson for today. It's a simple concept - index notation - and so she does the first two sections orally. I leave her to do the last set of questions on paper herself.

Arwen's having a sick day - otherwise known as a "write Glee fan-fiction day" - and Snowy is watching Cyberchase, so I take advantage of the quiet and spend some time working with Lucy on some history homework. She's taking a modern history class this term that's for Years 11 and 12. The content is no problem for her but I work with her on how to read, interpret and answer the homework questions. She has to choose an inquiry question for the period of the early 20th century; we talk about the area she's interested in, which is the Suffragette movement.

It's 11. Lucy takes a short break and I start work with Snowy. Then Lucy works on grammar using Karen Andreola's Simply Grammar.  Then I suggest to her that she takes a look at Youngzine. At Lucy's age I was crazy for newspapers and radio but as she isn't, I find Youngzine to be a good compromise between current affairs ignorance and a distaste for 'the news'.

Around 12.15 we all take a break to get lunch ready. And by 1.00, Lucy, Arwen and I settle down for our read-aloud chapter. We're reading Heist Society by Ally Carter. I refuse to believe an 8th grader is too old to be read to! Or too old to snuggle...

1.30 means free time -  possibly a bit of reading ( I suggest she gets started on Cold Comfort Farm, our novel for book club next week ), knitting, cuddling of guinea pigs, eating of raspberry muffins. On a less grey and gloomy day we'd probably fit in a walk around this time. And at 4.00 she's off to work - next door - to do an hour's babysitting with Arwen.

I should say this was a 'light' day for Lucy, who hasn't been 100% the past few days, but who normally works for closer to four hours each day.She's a natural scholar, my Lucy, a homeschooling mama's delight!