It is about 9 a.m. on a sunny weekday in November and the Fernandez family is sitting down to their biggest meal of the day: a hearty breakfast of French toast, eggs, bacon, yogurt and fruit smoothies, prepared, as on most days, by dad Ralph Fernandez, who is also executive chef at the Moshulu.

Whatever the menu, the morning meal and the remaining hours until Fernandez leaves for work around 11 are family time and his chance to be more than a breadwinner, to be a real part of his four children's lives.

For Fernandez, who works long, late hours including weekends and holidays at the Moshulu, the floating restaurant at Penn's Landing, home-school has proved to be the answer to a problem familiar in many households: finding quality time to spend with children.

Fernandez and his wife, Lyn, decided the only way to spend time together was to teach them at home, enrolling them in the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, a public school program offering home-schooling curricula and online assistance.

Now, while other youngsters are busing to school or sitting in class, Christina, 10, and Jamie, 8, take turns helping Dad with kitchen tasks, getting lessons from the chef in the process. After breakfast, Ralph helps 6-year-old Nicky with his reading and guides Catherine, 4, through her numbers and ABCs.

Before leaving for work, he takes all four for "recess" in the backyard, pitching for their softball practice and monitoring their high-flying play on the trampoline.

Mondays and Sundays, his days off, are family time.

"We had about an hour and a half on Saturday before I went to work and then some time Sundays," Fernandez recalled.

"I felt like a single mom," his wife, Lyn, chipped in.

But the new arrangement has the children doing lessons after a good breakfast, and then heading out in the late afternoon for activities including karate, ballet, and art lessons.

Fernandez is so happy with the home-schooling experience that he scheduled three "career day" tours of the Moshulu and its kitchen, including cooking instruction and lunch for Pennsylvania Cyber Charter students, a dozen of whom came onboard last month with the school's student service coordinator, Cindy Socko.

The group, while mostly seventh and eighth graders, included several sibling cyber-schoolers -- ranging in age from 8 to 16.

Chelsea Hastings, 14, and her brothers, 10-year-old John and 8-year-old Tyler, were chauffeured from their Drexel Hill home-school by mother Sarah.

Joseph, Steven and Rachel Larson came to the Moshulu with their mother, Claudia, a certified teacher who has home-schooled all 10 of her children.

"The twins [now 22] were in 11th grade when we started in cyber school," said Claudia Larson.

The Beltons, Jack in sixth grade and Kira in eighth, came from Secane. "My favorite part had to be the baking and working with the pastry chef," 13-year-old Kira said.

The youths got to observe and help with the preparation of the chicken fingers most chose for their lunch, the lobster broth for a seafood chowder, and, in the bakery corner, the extra-large, extra-chunky chocolate-chunk cookies the group enjoyed for dessert.

The lessons went off without a hitch, save a nicked finger for one distracted teen and a hot reminder of the purpose of pot holders for another.

Home-schooling can be hard work, many of the mothers conceded, but as the Fernandezes point out, it does have its advantages:

"You can take a 'snow day' in May and work through that January blizzard," said Lyn, who recently added Monday lessons to build up the children's credit hours before a new sibling, the couple's fifth child, arrives in April.

Also, early birds Jamie and Nicky are usually downstairs studying at 7 or 8 in the morning -- so they can have more play time later.

Her children play while Lyn prepares a hot meal for lunch and packs up a take-along dinner for later.

Studies resume, and then, around 4, they head off with Mom for special activities -- gym time (actually karate, two, sometimes three days a week) and fine arts on Wednesdays at the Chester County Art Association. Christina has four dance classes at the Brandywine Ballet Center, plus rehearsals for the center's production of The Nutcracker -- an event the whole family will enjoy at a Sunday performance.

Their cooler-packed picnic-style dinner is served on-the-road in the community halls or in the back of their Chevy Suburban.

And they can vacation in September -- after a summer made busy by the addition of the Moshulu's outdoor top-deck restaurant, and before the equally busy fall/winter holiday season kicks in.

And Dad is involved.

"It's so nice to watch them grow," Ralph Fernandez said. "I feel fortunate that I'm able to experience that in their lives."