A long Homeschool post

September 10, 2016

A long Homeschool post

Our homeschool year is off to a good start. So far we have done about 26 days, which leaves us with about 150 left! I mentioned in another post that I was nervous about adding additional things to our school year and so far I can tell that it does make our day longer and makes things a little more involved than last year but so far I think it is helping make a better learning experience. I am positive that we will have to make adjustments as the baby gets here and that's ok. I figure some of a good thing is better than nothing.

Our day looks something like this:

My day:

Wake up at 6:30 to go walking, do yoga, or other exercise

Get home at 7:30

Make breakfast

Morning family prayer before Mike leaves

Get started with "Morning Meeting" around 8:30 or 9

Conduct Morning Meeting until about 10:30

Get in the shower and get ready for the day

Do dishes, throw in a load of laundry

Spend some time with Piper

Make lunch

Do another chore (mop, vacuum, sweep, wash walls, whatever needs to be done)

Fold laundry or run errands

Work on business stuff (art or clean products or post something to social media)

Start dinner (between 4 and 4:30)

Eat with the fam around 6

Do dishes again

Scriptures, prayer, bedtime 8:30

The boys:

Wake up between 7 and 7:15

Take turns taking a shower

Read personal scriptures

Read whatever book they are working on

Piano

Spanish

Breakfast

Family prayer

Clean bonus room

Morning Meeting around 8:30 or 9

10:30 get started on all their other work

Snack break and Recess

Play with Piper

Lunch around 12 or 1

Get done with work between 1 and 2

Clean room

Free time

Dinner around 6

Scriptures, family prayer, bedtime 8:30

Our Morning Meeting consists of working on memorizing The Living Christ, writing our days work in our planners, reading a book together out loud (currently Frindle), History, Writing, and discussing anything the boys had a hard time with the day before. I use this time to spend extra time helping them understand concepts they were confused on from the day before or to go over their tests with them. We also use this time to share book reports or do a group science project or art project.

This won't mean much to anyone not familiar with school curriculum but our curriculum for the year is:

Shirley English

IEW (Medieval times) for writing

Saxon Math

Alfred's Basic Piano

Rosetta Stone for Spanish

Story of the World 2 for History

Harcourt Science for the younger two boys and Physics for Will

Scriptures (we let them read The Friend or New Era too)

Reading book (whatever book they want to read)

Art

At the beginning of the year I had the boys start their Math by taking their tests until they missed more than two in a test and then at that point I made them start their daily work. They were able to get through five tests before they needed to start doing their daily work which was great because Saxon Math can get pretty intense and by doing this we were able to skip about 25 lessons. I like to do History with the boys because I really like History. We read a portion a day and then review and on Thursday we do a big review and take the test leaving them with no History on Friday. They also work really hard on writing all week and on Friday don't have writing. Both their writing and their English curriculum have vocab so I decided to use the vocab from the writing and not the English. When they take their English test and get to the vocab I give them bonus points if they get the vocab right on their English test and then test them for a grade on their writing vocab. Will was tired of learning the same thing in Science every year so he requested to learn physics this year. Isaac started his science curriculum and then discovered that he really liked learning about the body so he asked Mike if he could spend more time on a body unit and Mike found him an Anatomy book that was at his level and he is going to work through that book until he wants to go back to the other science book. I make the older two boys do a Math assignment and then the following day they have to grade their previous math assignment before they move on to the next one. I think it helps them see what concepts they are not understanding and it frees my time up to do other things. I grade their Math tests though as well as their English tests. We do Art mainly on Fridays but I am not great at doing art with them. I'm hoping to get more prepared so we can do some more art projects. For P.E we haven't done a lot yet because it's just too hot outside still. I'm hoping in the next few weeks the temperatures will lower a bit so we can get outside but in the meantime we go swimming a couple of times a week and call that P.E. When our Morning Meeting is done I do my own things around the house and make myself available to keep them on task or to help with any assignments they have questions with (this is mostly for Eli because he often needs help with Math, English, and Science). I try to fit in my chores and other things around this time and then by 2 I am usually free to run errands or do other chores uninterrupted.

Some days it just seems like so much and I especially struggle to find the time to really focus on Piper. She gets shuffled and ignored sometimes and I don't like that. I still require the boys to spend some one on one time with her each day so she is getting time to play with them and I try to do some reading and writing or a craft with her but she isn't getting what I think she should.

What I like about our school year is the ability to be fluid. We stick to our schedule for the most part but if I have errands or visiting teaching or something that has to happen in the middle of our school day I can adjust our schedule. It's also nice to say, "We are going on a field trip today so we aren't doing x, y, or z today."

I am hopeful that our school year will continue to be smooth and that the boys will enjoy learning in this environment. I frequently worry that I am not doing a good job but then I just have to take a step back and remind myself that they are getting a good education with some really great curriculum to learn from and that I can really focus on areas that interest them.