Well, we've entered our 5th week of homeschooling this year and now we are getting somewhat of a good rhythm. It takes a few weeks for that to happen and for us to figure out for the next couple months what will be feasible and what things will have to wait until we are stuck inside the house all day long. Right now, we are doing the basics so that the kids can still be outside for the biggest part of the day. I always want my kids to choose being outside over being inside. Anyways, we are loving school so far this year and I hope my kids always want to homeschool!
7:30- up and at 'em! We are usually up before this, but 7:30 is about the latest we sleep. Jude and elsie will have devotions and I'll get breakfast ready. Jude and Elsie have a notebook where they write what the Scripture they've read for the day is telling them and what they feel like God wants them to know. We usually eat breakfast as soon as we come downstairs and I can have it ready- I always joke that my kids will eat the table legs off if I don't feed them as soon as their eyes open! ;) After breakfast, the kids brush their teeth, make their beds, and get dressed. I would love them to have their beds made and clothes on before they even come downstairs for breakfast, but thats just not realistic for us, so they do that afterwards. Then Jude and Elsie will do their chores ( dishes and laundry) and I'll have devotions with the two little guys.
9:30- By this time, we need to be sitting at the table doing handwriting. After they do handwriting, they will do reading comprehension. We've been using the Barnell Loft specific skills series- level A of the identifying inferences. Basically they read a short paragraph and have to pick the multiple choice answer that tells what the story is inferring. After that they do English and Grammar. Thatcher has been working on sight words- just 'the' and 'and' so far- mastering those and then we will move on :)
10:30- they take a break- which usually means going outside and riding bikes or playing legos or doing some kind of craft.
12- we eat lunch usually around noon so that Atticus can get to bed. After he is laid down, the kids play some more and I get things done that I can do much easier while Atticus is sleeping.
1- I round the kids back up and they watch their math lesson and then do some modeling with the blocks. We just started basic algebra problems last week, so we haven't moved on yet- making sure they master that first! Thatcher loves watching the math lesson and calls the teacher on the video the 'talking teacher' ;) He loves playing with the manipulative blocks while we do our lesson. Thatcher has learned to count to 20. We then will do whatever our extra subject is for that day- we've been sticking to History on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Science on Wednesdays and then Art for Friday. Somewhere in this time-frame, the kids will do their reading- Jude is reading 'Old Yeller' and Elsie is reading a Magic Treehouse book.
2:30- we are usually done with school by around this time. Some other things we do whenever during the day we have time to fit them in: Spelling- I know that sounds horrible, that we just fit it in when we can, but we use Rod and Staff 3rd grade spelling book and the kids haven't missed any of the words so far, so we just go over them once and then go to the new list the next week. We also do our memory work which is- address and phone number, memory verse, continents, oceans, states and capitals, and then for Thatcher, we don't do continents, oceans or states and capitals, we have just started to add days of the week and months of the year. The phone number, days of the week, and months of the year we do to a song- phone number to the tune of 'Jesus loves me' days of the week to the tune of 'Addams Family' and then months of the year is one I found on YouTube. Lastly, they will practice piano :)
I hope this is helpful for some of you, and if you consider homeschooling- I hope this gives you an idea of how you can easily set up your day. Like I said earlier, I like to leave a lot of time open for my kids to be outside while they can- winter will be here before we know it and even though they will still go outside, it won't be for the length of time they do now. I say that because, it may look like we don't really do much compared to a brick and mortar school, but you have to remember, I don't have 30 students and I don't have to do tons of state/government mandated busy work. The statistic says that 2 1/2 hours of one on one homeschool work is equivalent to 5 days worth of work for a public school student!! Crazy! Anyway, this is basically how our day is set up for schooling- it changes and adjusts to our needs, so this is not set in stone for us. I hope this helps and I hope you all have a wonderful week! I leave tomorrow morning for Tennessee- yay!!
