We decided to try a few pieces of our homeschool curriculum while we were at my parents' house over the Christmas break. It felt good to get our feet wet without diving in, especially having an extra set of hands or two for the littles while we got started. I brought along a few read alouds, some readers and handwriting. M was ALL IN with the handwriting - especially since she received a calligraphy set for Christmas. Her handwriting is pretty cool. It is learning cursive (goes through each letter) and then practices with Bible verses - so each day they do a few words from the verse, day 4 they do the whole verse and day 5 they "publish" it - make it fancy on nice paper that could be hung up or sent to someone. It was also awesome that they kids loved the first read aloud. They wanted me to keep reading - more, more, more! The first book is called "Red Sails to Capri" and I wasn't sure if they would like it, but they love it. Yay! C cranked out his reader and M thought hers was boring. I will say I decided to start with levels 1 and 3 even though they are halfway through the year. Since it is a new curriculum, I didn't want to start directly in the middle to be sure the new terminology and "way of doing things" isn't lost on them. So, my plan is to cruise through the beginning to familiarize them with it, begin when it is not super challenging to give them some confidence and still (hopefully) finish by August. When we got home, I set to work filling in our gaps from what we did at my parents -- that meant figuring out science, Bible, history/geography, math and phonics/spelling. The kids started getting a little unsure about doing all this "work" over break when others didn't have to do ANY, so I tried to only do one subject per day.
Fast forward to January 3. Today. Our first full day of homeschooling. Here is a peek into our day.
1. N up at 6:30. Too excited to sleep??
2. Everyone up around 7:30.
3. Breakfast at about 8/8:15.
4. Kids shocked when I reminded them they would BE AT school at that time. Looking around the table as we casually ate our breakfast in our jammies, my heart felt happy. C helped with breakfast as part of his "job".
5. M excited to start, so we cleaned up breakfast quickly and headed downstairs.
6. I unveiled our new organization system. A clipboard per kid with a daily breakdown of things they needed to do -- each subject included as well as two chores, one meal help, piano, independent reading, creative expression (writing most often I suspect) and a project/art focus for the day.
7. Littles played nicely for a bit while we did science.
8. Littles done playing nicely.
9. Get M going on her creative writing and C going on his independent reading.
10. Play with littles.
11. L needs to use restroom. N has poopy diaper. Bigs done.
12. Get to potty, change, and get next assignment rolled out.
13. Then get L set up with water color painting while I begin history/geography. L gets soaking wet. Get through hist/geo and give up. Bring everyone upstairs. Put L and N in the bath. M reads Bible verses and we discuss while littles splash happily.
14. TOO COLD OUT. Boo. Try to set up a brain break. Our TV is not wanting to go to internet and I forgot the code to download youtube (I thought it was already set up) so we could get a brain break in. So, back up, Bo on the Go. I put N to bed for his nap.
15. While Bo is finishing up, I take a shower, and brush my teeth! Oops-- I will try to get that in earlier tomorrow!
16. Downstairs for precious time while N naps. Set up L with color changing cars in sinks downstairs.
17. Get through everything else except math. L soaking wet. Again. Then decides looking through books will work for him the rest of school time.
18. N up! Lunch. M makes her own sandwich while I prep mac and cheese. Kids surprised that they can have many choices. Blueberries, yogurt and granola as a side? Sure! M says that was a bonus of the day. haha!
19. Do math. M begs to do more. She loves this system now that I figured it out better -- took me a bit with this one that includes lots of manipulatives, a CD, workbook, textbook and test book!
20. Kids earn some screen time. M plays abcya while C does a game on his kindle.
21. M & I make pumpkin bread to have as a snack.
22. I let the kids watch one TV show at the time I would be going to pick them up from school so I could type this! :)
And cut.
No comments:
Post a Comment