Home School This Week

I'll just warn you right now that this might be boring.  My kids are taking a few public school courses at home this year, so I want to keep a record of what we're doing.


The first week of home school every year is always exciting!
It is fun to think and plan of all the neat things we can learn and do together.
It is nice to try to create a schedule that will make the household work and get school done too.
I was reminded this week of how much I truly enjoy spending time learning with my kids.

The first week of home school is usually overwhelming!
I usually think of and plan a lot more to do than we have hours to do it in.
I discover by about Thursday that I become a zombie when I get up so early to make the schedule work.
I was reminded this week of how demanding and frustrating toddlers can be when I'm trying to do stuff with my older kids.

I'm sure that within the next couple of weeks, we'll iron things out and settle into a nice balance.

What's new this year:

I was inspired by my friend Mindy Henry to do a workboxes system.  I pretty much copied Mindy's system, but there are lots of ways to do it.  I googled it and got lots of ideas.  Each of my school-aged children has a set of 9 plastic 12x12 drawers.  Each drawer is filled with an activity or assignment for that child to do.  They do the drawers in order, and I stagger the drawers for each child that will need my help.  This solves the problem that I have had when we all do math together, etc.  When all of the kids need my help at once, it gets pretty intense.  I have also made up some little assignment cards for things like: break, snack, outside, play with Simon, play with Sarajoy, etc.  My kids really enjoy having things mixed up.  It is fun to see what activities I'll pull out or what I'll think of for them to play with Simon, etc.
The main things I love about it are:
1.It staggers the times they need my help
2.It makes our school days more interesting while still being consistent with the skills practice
3.It gives us a chance to use fun home schooling materials that we own but never seem to have time to use.

So far, so good.  But I have to admit that I fully planned to have them do drawers today, and I forgot to load them last night.  It was okay, though, because we had our open-house at the school and I ended up needing the day to do other things.  They will normally be in school all day on Fridays anyway.

So here's what we accomplished this week:
Math:
Nathan started Algebra 1/2.  He is using the Saxon DIVE CD.  He finished 4 lessons.  He appears to be understanding the material as he only missed one problem in the set.
Funny that for both of my boys who have always used consumable math workbooks, the biggest challenge is teaching them to write neatly on the lines of a notebook!
Brandon is doing Saxon 6/5 He finished 4 lessons.
Ruby is still in Abeka 2.  I normally don't keep my kids back in math even if they didn't finish the book because it has been pretty easy to catch up.  Ruby is finishing her book because she needs to solidify her math facts and carrying/borrowing before she starts multiplication.  The carrying/borrowing thing has been interesting.  Using beans and popsicle sticks has helped.  Ruby inherited my distaste for coming across things I don't already know.  She has a really hard time when she can't just pick up on a concept effortlessly like she usually does. ( I actually remember learning about borrowing in 2nd grade.  I was so mad that Trevor Satterfield already knew how to do it before the teacher taught us the lesson. It made me not even want to learn it.)
Daisy is having a wonderful time starting the Horizons book that Ruby did.  We're also doing Funtastic Frog Math, which I just love.  We use the colorful counting frogs and a scale.

Writing:
The kids are working on journals once again.  The years that we have been consistent with this have produced priceless treasures for my kids to look back on.
The boys are doing scripture dictation.
The 3 older kids are reading novels that support our US history study and writing a summary of what they read.  The book I chose for Brandon is too advanced.  He either needs an easier book or we need to read it together.
I just purchased a writing program for Nathan that we will start next week.
Ruby and Daisy are practicing writing their names with good handwriting.  Ruby is doing cursive.
I am considering doing Teri Ebert's writing suggestions at least for Nathan.

History:
I'm really excited for studying US history this year!  Over the Summer I read Island of the Blue Dolphins.  I've started David McCullough's 1776, and I wish I had more time to read it!  I'm also reading Calico Captive to myself.
We read the first few chapters of A History of US.
We started Leif the Lucky.
We made Sculpey Totem Poles.
We are in the process of pemmican and home made beef jerkey
I started reading Margaret Murphy's Pilgrim Stories to the family.

Science:
I am really disappointed that we did not get to Science this week.  We are studying physics this year.

Arts:
We read about Frederic Remington and his painting "A Dash for the Timber".
We introduced John Philip Sousa and Stephen Foster as our composers for the month.
We introduced Walt Whitman for our Poet of the month.

Our Daily Schedule:

6:00 I get up to read scriptures and go for a walk
6:30 I wake the children so they can begin their chores
       Bed, Room, Clothes, Hair, Unload a portion of dishwasher, Clean their assigned area of the house, and then they each have a more long-term responsibility like garbages, breakfast, or laundry. Practice piano, personal prayers and scriptures, and I think that's all.
7:15 (been more like 7:45 this week) Eat breakfast and pray and send Dallin to work.
Then we do a quick devotional where we do the date, weather, pledge, prayer, song, scriptures
Then the kids do their drawers.
Then we do our together studies of History or Science, Art or Music, and read alouds.
We eat lunch about 1pm.  Our goal is to be done with school so the kids have the afternoons to create and play.  That hasn't quite happened yet, but we're figuring things out.  We're having lots of fun anyway!




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