Our Schedule

This is my first year with three “students” – but I already started incorporating dd#3 in January for her Kindergarten materials, so it isn’t too much of a stretch. When I start adding the more time-consuming and rigorous first grade materials after the first of the year (2012), I might panic. It never seems like I have enough “me” to go around or enough time in the day. It has helped that dd#1 has become a little more independent. She will certainly have to be more independent this year, with the goal of her doing much of her studies in a self-directed way next school year.

Daily Schedule
At 8:30, while everyone finishes their chores, dd#3 & I do her phonics and handwriting.
When finished, she is released to go have some fun on her own (which she does responsibly).

At 9, DD#1 & DD#2 join me for their math. I am “at elbow” for teaching (primarily for #2) or answering questions (both kids). As long as they work steadily through for 45 minutes, they have no homework in this subject. If they goof off, they have the rest of their lesson to complete on their own time.

They transition to working on their individual grammar workbooks for about 15 minutes and then work through Latin together for 30 minutes.

The smaller kids play with different toys in the “school area” during this time. The youngest usually goes down for a nap around 10:30. We all have a break then and the four olders get a snack while I start on lunch.

After snacks, the two older kids work together for 30 minutes on their religion schoolwork.

DD#2 is then released for the morning and DD#1 starts on her writing lesson. Once she is on the right track, DD#3 joins me for some math for about 15 minutes. Then, I finish getting lunch ready.

After lunch & cleanup, DD#1 works for 30 minutes independently on Spanish while I listen to DD#2 read aloud.

At around 1:30, the older two do between 1-4 sentences of dictation for a maximum of 15 minutes. Then, we start our History or Science studies, depending on the day. Both consist of some reading aloud, doing hands-on activities, writing, map work, drawing, coloring, and listening to music.

After the formal “school” stuff is over, dd#3 and I spend some time on a fun activity of her choosing – cooking, sewing, dress-up, crafts, me reading aloud, poetry, or drama (puppet show?).

Older DS has a lot of puzzles, Legos, blocks, and “tools” to play with during this time. He has “fun” workbooks that he can do anytime he likes. He has access to craft materials, Play-Doh, and other mess-making supplies right in our school area. The younger one so far spends some of this time in my lap or sitting on a chair scribbling nearby. He can also play with the blocks, trucks, and tools. The biggest on-going challenge for me is to keep an eye on them and make time to teach them to clean up after themselves before moving onto making bigger & better messes!

Trying a Checklist

I’ve been trying to figure out how to fit time into my day for the few items I’d like to do with Child #3 as she wants to start her formal Kindergarten work in January. The “learn to read,” handwriting/copywork, and manipulative/play-based math don’t take very long each day, but I’d like to give her an hour three times per week for her fun “K” activities.

In that vein, on this short holiday week, I tried something with Child #1 to gain some time and teach some accountability, responsibility, and self-scheduling. I gave her a checklist of all the school-related items she would have to complete on Monday through Wednesday. Each subject has a list under it and some include ‘fun’ activities. I’ve included just a few subjects to give you an idea of the list. There are notations when she needs items checked by me before moving on and ones where she needs my assistance before she begins.

Math
CLE 407 Lesson 6
CLE 407 Lesson 7
CLE 407 Lesson 8
Magic Squares: Fractions Worksheet

Map Skills
Map Skills D pg 39
Map Skills D pg 40
Map Skills D pg 41

Geography
Review all states & capitals learned to date with flashcards
States & Capitals Worksheet
*Play States/Capitals Game one time on the computer, any level.

Latin
Finish pages 48-49 by writing answers and practicing words out loud
Review vocabulary and prayers on page 26 & 50.
Complete pg 51-52
Take Latin Test

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She was so excited to be in charge of her own schedule. Her excitement knew no bounds and she reveled in her ability to decide not only what to do next but when to take a break and for how long. She went straight for the “easy” stuff and did it first. While she got a lot done on her first day, it was the fun stuff or the subjects she prefers. All the subjects she dislikes (because they involve thinking) were left undone.

On the second day, I gently encouraged her to get working on a few items of the “tougher” subjects like Writing, Spelling, or Math. Still queen of her own schedule, she ignored my gentle advice. In fact, she goofed off most of the late morning and again in the late afternoon. I kept quiet because this was meant to be a learning experience for her.

By this morning, when her younger sister had less than an hour of work to do total until done for the entire week, my oldest was in a panic. The tears were flowing and the wailing was almost as loud as the youngest when he wants to be picked up.

She counted some 18 items left and most of them were time-suckers (in her mind, at least).  She knew the rest of us were going to watch a movie this afternoon. She attempted to get a pass on all the rest of her work by whining a question about whether she needed to finish EVERYTHING before she got to watch the movie. This didn’t work, so she tried a temper-tantrum (at the age of 9 – truly humorous!) where she screamed that no one else should get to watch a movie if she didn’t. When this also did not work, she complained loudly and sobbed some more that I had given her too much work.

When at last she decided to get down to work, she was able to complete everything to my satisfaction while only missing the toddler-picked video (a Thomas the Tank Engine flick).

Perhaps in another month, we’ll try again.

Summer School Summary

With most public and private schools starting school (the local public school starts this week, most schools in the surrounding cities started a couple of weeks ago), we are just wrapping up our summer school. I’m hoping to get in another five days of work – or a week and a half of “real time” for us. (We have doctor’s appointments that will take up one day this week and we are taking a day for a field trip, so we will only get in three days of “school” this week.) Then, I’ll have anywhere from a few days to a week or so to complete “baby preparations.”

We will then be taking a school break for eight weeks or so – until the first part of November, hopefully. The plan is that we’ll start back up slowly, ramping up to “full school” by January. It will be difficult to cover a full year of school in a half a year’s time, but our summer schooling has given us a real head start.

For the eldest, we will be 41% (finishing Chapter 2 of 5) complete in Growing With Grammar 3, 28% complete (Week 10 of 36) in Writing With Ease 2, and 20% complete in A Beka 3 Arithmetic (Lesson 35 out of 170).

For Child #2, we will be on roughly Lesson 75 or 76 out of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (100EL). When we restart school, we’ll skip the rest of 100EL and go right into Spell to Write and Read (SWR) which we started during the previous school year. She’s zipping right along in A Beka 1 Arithmetic as she is currently on Lesson 45 of 170 – representing 26% completion of the book.

We have not started our science or history studies yet, but have a plan to complete those by the end of June or so, depending on when we get restarted this fall. By the end of the traditional school year in Spring 2010, we should only have history, science, and perhaps some math still to go to complete our delayed school year.

The children think it is funny when adults stop them to ask why they aren’t “in school” because they have been “doing school” all summer. It will be more interesting to see what they say when they are asked in a month or two why they aren’t “in school.” I am sure they will continue to be looked at askance as the oldest definitely looks “school age.”

School year planning

We usually start our “traditional school year” right after Labor Day. That day is approaching quickly, so I’m posting an update on how planning is going – even though we aren’t going to start then.

Lesson plans (each on individual subject sheets) are done for those subjects that I thought needed them – History, Religion, Science, Map Skills, etc. I didn’t do any for math this year as it is easy enough just to “do the next lesson” with a little bit of pre-planning either the night before or the weekend before for the hands-on manipulatives or up-on-the-white-board work. Grammar (GWG 3) and Writing (WWE 2) will also be “do the next lesson” type of lessons with no need for lesson plans.

We like to use quite a few “living books” for our history studies in conjunction with Story of the World. Thus, I spend several hours during the summer at the local library combing through the card catalog for related books for each chapter. (Our small local library does not have an internet-reachable online card catalog, so one has to physically be at one of the library’s two computers to search their card catalog.) I am just under over half-way done with my search (Chapter 19 22 of 42).

This year, we joined a library about an hour+ from us (paying the “out of area” fee) in order to have access to more books. I am only one-fourth of the way through this search as I have more “hits” at the bigger library system. However, I can do this searching from home using our internet connection.

Both sets of searches require me to carve out time away from the children – a difficult task this summer as my spouse has been working many (MANY) extra hours and those he is home, we like to spend as a family (usually doing an outside activity).

I have my organizational notebook started and as I am in a state which has some homeschool reporting requirements, I have my “letter” from the state officials in hand.

So, why aren’t we going to start after Labor Day as usual? Why will this “school year” be different than our others so far? Well, you see, I’m due to deliver our fifth child in the middle of September. So, I don’t really want to “start school” and then stop it again for those first several bleary-eyed weeks of newborn-ness. We’ll be waiting to start “school” in earnest until after I feel up to running the day-to-day household and managing school – hopefully in October for at least some of the subjects and November for the full fledged schedule.

There’s your update on school planning at the Learning As I Go homestead.

Winding Down The School Year & Field Trip Update

Well, we made it to the first field trip of the week, but had to skip the second. (We had two sick!) We were able to hit the third field trip and all had a wonderful time. My spouse used the time while we were all out of the house to reroute some plumbing that involves the main water line. He was also able to get a TON of other things done because we made sure we were gone long enough that there would be water available when we got home!

We are all looking forward to the “end” of formal school work for this school year. We have only one more “official” week of regular work and then testing week comes. That means I have only one week and two weekends to write my “finals” in science, history, and religion! I’ve started scribbling history questions down but have not looked at the others. Better get cracking, eh?!

We’ll take a week off and then start up with “schooling light” for the summer. Oldest will be starting Growing With Grammar 3 and Writing With Ease 2. We will also play some math games or work on flash cards for 10-15 minutes several times a week.

Child #2 will do some light math and phonics work – the nature of which changes depending on the day you ask.

Math: We are trying to cement into her brain written two-digit numerical symbols (such as 34 or 79). She struggles and the concept isn’t coming quickly. Math games and lots of dot-to-dots may be in order.

Language Arts: We may just work on handwriting using sidewalk chalk again this summer. She loves it and I can sneak in reminders of what the phonogram sounds are at the same time. We’ll see.

Field Trips

We are entering our home stretch for the 2008-2009 homeschooling year. Our official last day of school is Memorial Day, but the last week is a “testing” week where once you get tested in a subject, you don’t have to do it again. The days get shorter & shorter as there are fewer and fewer subjects on which to be tested.

Anyway, going into this final few weeks, I find myself faced with numerous field trip opportunities. After pondering each one individually and as a group, I’ve decided that some things are meant to be enjoyed!

To heck with my schedule and trying to fit in more spelling lists or a few more math lessons!

We are going on three field trips this coming week. That is, as long as the kids aren’t sick and they aren’t behaving horribly, we are going on THREE field trips. I’m still going to be able to get (morning) schooling in on one of the days, so I’m only cutting our school week down from four days to two and a half. Still, for I-Must-Stay-On-Schedule Me, that’s pretty ballsy.

Keep in mind:
- We still plan on finishing the history & science curriculum plans I have.
- We are finishing up our last planned chapter in Religion and then we’ll just review during the time we have left.
- I’m so far behind in my plan for older dd’s spelling, it isn’t funny. However, she’s doing so badly on her weekly tests that I don’t know that it matters how many more lists we do this year.
- We already started next year’s math books, so I’m not too worried about our pace there.

Language Arts for Next Year – Mental Chaos!

As I sat watching my oldest child write from dictation this morning during her spelling lesson (using Spell to Write and Read), I shuddered inwardly in horror. There were words run together, very little punctuation (including, in some cases, no periods at the end of sentences), capitalization in strange places, and of course, many spelling errors.

As much as I share success, here is an example of the opposite:

“onse on a ridingLesonIhad a mad horse he ran off the track and Jopt above four fenses.Iheldonto his nec likoney to a jar andprayed. He final ly stopt and pusht his nose in som levs.”

Now, I’ve written before about Child #1. I refer to her as “pencil-phobic.” She hates writing. She’s always had poor handwriting, although it has improved tremendously. She’s not a natural speller and has limited “mental memory” of words she has read. For example, she is flying through the Trixie Beldon book series, so she sees the main character’s best friend’s name all the time:  Honey. One of her spelling words today was honey. She tried to spell it “huny.”  Even when I directed her with the “hon” part and went over the phonogram “ey” again with her, she didn’t want to put “ey” at the end – just an “y.” I specifically pointed out that this word was spelled the same as the name of Trixie’s friend Honey. No dice.

So, then I turned to Homeschooling Year By Year to see how badly I was failing in her language arts curriculum. When poring over the second grade section while the children were eating lunch, I was reminded again that it recommends Learning Language Arts Through Literature (LLATL). So, I dashed to the computer to look up the program. I’d never looked at it seriously before.

I zoomed through some sample assessments, scope and sequence pages, and sample lessons, then returned to the lunch table full of thoughts. I was planning on using Writing With Ease 2, Growing With Grammar 3, and Spell to Write and Read for next year’s language arts. I have WWE 2 workbook, but did not use WWE 1. I have not yet purchased GWG 3. I’ve been using SWR for a couple of years already. Now, I was wondering if I should “combine” grammar, writing, spelling, and literature in one “all-together” program like LLATL or Christian Light Education (CLE) Language Arts.

We headed to homeschool PE where I was able to talk to another “curriculum junkie” mom who didn’t help out matters as she suggested I look at two or three other “all-in-one” type literature-based programs. But, she did help me think through why I would jump a ship I hadn’t even boarded yet. The only dictation or grammar we do is integrated into SWR and I’ve been more focused on the spelling aspects than any other part.

After “school” was over, I was able to do a little more research into LLATL on the Well Trained Mind Boards and found out that most people suggested that “struggling spellers” supplement LLATL with a stand-alone spelling program. I also saw some people indicated that CLE’s spelling wasn’t very rigorous either.

I think I’m panicing because I’m looking for some less teacher-(time-)intensive programs to use next year. I was thinking that instead of using three separate programs, I could “get it all” in one in less time. It sounded great. Upon reflection, I’m not sure I would “get it all” and I would probably spend just as much time as I will using three separate programs.

Since I already have two of the three programs purchased, I am not going to throw more money out to get LLATL. At least, not right now.

While the crisis in my head isn’t over, I’ve come to the decision that my previous decisions stands. Child#1 does need to have the instruction and work in GWG 3 & WWE 2 as well as a rigorous spelling program (like SWR). I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how it helps out her language arts progress next year.

P.S. We might be starting GWG & WWE in the summer instead of waiting until the fall. But that’s for another post.

Change to Next Year’s Lesson Plans

Note to self:  When doing next year’s lesson plans, instead of writing all subjects out on a weekly sheet, make the plans for each subject on their own separate pages. I am getting really tired of page flipping because I’m one week behind in religion, three weeks behind in spelling, one week ahead in science, and right on track in the other subjects. I’d rather just grab the plan for that subject and child when it is time to teach.

We’ll see how that goes for a year and then re-evaluate. This “weekly plan” thing didn’t work well for us.

Which Science For Next Year?

So we aren’t even halfway through this school year and I’m already starting to have those curriculum questions that come up every year. I’ll start with Science, although I’ve got questions about grammar and geography (map skills), too.

I’m sold on using the classical 4-yr rotation in science:  biology/botany, earth & space, chemistry, physics. We are on the earth & space rotation this year and using Apologia’s Astronomy book for our first semester. Second semester, we are using my cobbled together Charlotte Mason-inspired “real books” approach with the help of our (limited) local library resources. I have a few experiment books to add to the festivities next semester as my kids really like to do experiments. (I’m not overly fond of them, however.)

So, next year is Chemistry. I still have relatively young kids, so I’m looking at the K-3rd grade level materials. Some that I have looked into are R.E.A.L sciencefrom Pandia Press, Real Science 4 Kids (RS4K), and Noeo Science.

I would say my top pick would be Noeo, but it is SO PRICEY!

$160 for Noeo Chem I (with their 20% package discount) – a whole year’s worth of work

Right now, RS4K would be my second pick, but the curriculum is designed to get through three unit studies (Chemistry, Physics, Biology) in one year. If I just did one (Chemistry Pre-Level I) with them, we would be through in a semester or less. Going onto the next level (Level I) would be problematic as it is recommended for Grades 3 – 5 and would probably be above Child #2′s head. I’d like to continue to teach them together, so I need to _somewhat_ keep that in mind. If I went ahead and purchased both, that is creeping into the pricey range ($130). If I didn’t, what would we do second semester? I’m not planning on spending $55 for one semester (or less) of material and then spend the time figuring out myself what we will do with the second semester. (That sounds snotty, but I’m pretty stingy with my money.)

$55 for RS4K Pre-Level I Chemistry (1/2 of a year’s worth of work)
Another $75 for RS4K Level I Chemistry (1/2 yr of year’s worth of work)

R.E.A.L. Science rounds out my top three, but it is miles below the other two. My biggest reason? They don’t have a chemistry book out yet for me to examine! However, they are expecting to have one out (sometime) in 2009. Cathy Duffy gives the program a so-so review compared to her glowing one of Noeo.

I also briefly looked at Living Learning Books Chemistry program. It is $32 for the program and they recommend a science encyclopedia to go with it. It is inexpensive for a whole year’s program. I will probably look into this one more in the next several months.

I think that is one of the reasons that I start thinking about these things so early, because I like to research things fully before buying them. Hopefully, we will be able to find something we like.

Homeschool Record-keeping

Depending on which state you live in, the requirements for record keeping for homeschooling differ. Even if your state doesn’t require records, it is a good idea, in my opinion, to keep some records and some examples of your students’ (children’s) work.

Let me give you an example. One of the women in my local homeschooling group was asked by her husband to send the children to the local public school this year instead of homeschooling them. (The details are not important to my point.) She was asked by the school principal for any records she had. Caught completely off guard by the request, she said she didn’t have any. Later, she was able to reconstruct a list of activities, curriculum, and level of achievement in language arts and mathematics. She candidly admits she gave a bad example of a homeschooling parent.

Everyone has a different method – including no method at all and no formal record-keeping. I am writing this post for two reasons – 1) to encourage you to keep some level of records, even if it is only a picture or two of science projects completed or an end-of-the-year math test; and 2) to explain my own record-keeping method.

Each year, I purchase a student calendar/notebook that is my child’s own to draw/write in, but which also serves as my record of what we did each day. If a day was particularly good or bad, I write a note to that effect on the side. If there is something that needs to be celebrated or worked on, I include that in the communication section of the notebook for that week. When my spouse and I don’t see each other much due to work schedules, he can pick up the notebook at any time and see what we’ve been working on as well as how things are going.

This year, I have two notebooks – one for each child that is “schooling.” There is some repeat information (religion, science, history, kindergarten electives) written in both, but each is updated daily. The lesson plans that I worked on over the summer for the different curriculum are very helpful both in knowing what to cover each day, but also when recording what we did. If we did exactly what the lesson plan called for, I can use the page numbers listed in the lesson plans rather than pulling the book back out to check to see how much we covered.

One thing I noticed while looking back over the past week worth of notebook notes – we do a LOT each day.

On a side note, it is a good thing we are running a week ahead of my original lesson plans in Language Arts (Spell to Write and Read, SWR). The consonant/vowel reference page that I thought should only take us three days to complete (while doing other things) has already taken four days. We will probably take two more days to complete it at the pace we are currently setting. While dictation is going well and Child #1 is doing great with phonogram review, she simply hates to write. She doesn’t mind using the white board, but I make her copy down the words in her Learning Log and it seems she takes more time to complain than to write. And, as in years past, I find I can get her to write them if I provide an incentive of some sort for getting done (e.g., an extra hug/kiss or a sip of a carbonated beverage). I try not to resort to that on a regular basis, though.