Not Back to School Blog Hop- Week 4 - A Day in the Life

This is the hardest post to write for the Blog Hop.  Honestly, each day around here is usually different than the one before or the one yet to come. When the kids were little, we did our best to maintain a regular schedule but since they became teens/adults (say for our youngest), that went out the door.  And since my husband travels for at least 12-14 days per month-things can get nutty. Sometimes when we can, we'll tag along with him and car/hotel school.  We have to be very flexible and we have been doing this for so long that it is second nature to us now. Generally I shoot for the basics and get ecstatic when we go beyond that.

My general schedule:

This is to be read in a somewhat joking manner as I truly love being a mom and having the privilege of being their main educator. It is truly a blessing and one I wouldn't trade for the world...but you have to have humor when you homeschool, so here you go...

-Spring out of bed all chipper and ready to tackle the world (boy do I wish. Sometimes I pray for a 'school closing' [and actually call one when need be] and at times I get up hoping that it is the FUN DAY I have some great situation/field trip planned that will whisk us off our 'normal' and refresh us with a "Wow that Awesome!" kind of a moment." Otherwise, I will trudge head downstairs then

-Check my mail/FB and other 'puter things (I can do this in 15 mins or less usually) and slug back a cup of coffee to start my morn.

-Stuff workboxes (if I haven't done that the nite before) and look over the general plan to see if I need to have any other supplies, books, etc. ready to go for the day's lessons.

-Eat breakfast (I need to wait for a bit before eating due to the thyroid med I take) and pray.  Yes-gotta pray people-I am telling you our days go so much more smoothly and without as much 'drama' if I pray for willing/content/right-hearted students and for me to not want to run away...so that requires patience, love, kindness and fortitude.

-Ring the bell (aka: in mom talk that means to shout out to the kids upstairs to get moving and get down to start). This indicates it is time to get up, take care of personal biz, eat and be all excited and ready to tackle the day's schedule.

-Once we have settled, we do a morning prayer, then we start up.  The workboxes are a life saver here because they can start on their work immediately and I don't have to have my brains explode trying to answer a zillion questions in regard to what they are suppose to be doing. Helpful hint: I put the stuff in the first two totes that can be done without my help so that I can gather my marbles together before I start losing them.

-Then I work with the student who needs direct instruction first to get them started to I can move to the other one(s) on a rotating basis. OK this will be different this year. I will only have the boy-so I guess my rotating days have come to an end...for now.

-End whatever we're doing by lunch and feed the troops (who can really do this themselves) and this is where I try to catch up with the hubby (when he is home) or I just 'zone out' for a bit (usually means getting some chores done or checking the 'puter or hiding away in my room for a moment of solitude).

-Wrap up whatever we didn't get done in the morn right after lunch so that the majority of the afternoon is 'free time'.  Especially since I need time to work on some projects that need to be completed (scrapbooking/sewing/creating material for the boy to use for learning, or for writing blog posts such as this.) Weather permitting, I have the kids get outside or go do something (like bike).  This is a very Charlotte Mason moment.  One I love and will cling to with all my might.  All of it people-unless I need them to get some cleaning done or assist me with some project-then they are called to duty first.

-Declutter school area/any project areas and set up workboxes/material for next day (if I am not doing errands or have other things to attend to). My main goal this year is to definitely have this done each afternoon.

For the Student

We're using the Heart of Dakota study this year, so it is pretty much laid out for us.  I just have to decided the order we want to tackle the material and to avoid boredom or burn-out I try to vary the order a bit a few times per week.

One thing I found is that the study has science almost 4x per week and that is just too much.  I feel like I am rushing thru the material and he is not getting the main gist of it. SO, I am moving it back to what I have always done and we find best suits us-2x per week only. This is a general listing of what I like to get completed:

Math: 4-5x per week

Science: 2x per week

Language Arts: HW 2x per week, reading 5x per week, copywork (depends) but usually 2-3x per week,  dictation 1-2x per week, notebooking (depends) but usually 2-3 per week. LLATL-prob'ly 3x per week depending on what the lesson requires and our schedule.

Bible: 5x per week

History:  4x per week

Fine Arts: 1-2x per week for Great Artist study. 1x per week for Great Musician study [these fall under a 6 week long study].  Varies on art activities which are based on what is going on with the history/science studies. Nature study depends on the weather and my motivation-goal for this year at least 1x per week.

Lapbooking:  1 per semester. This is usually an on-going process related to the science or history. At times, I also will add a shorter lapbook study in sometime during the semester, if the boy asks for a particular one.

No foreign language this year (at least not this first semester) because he needs to get more fluent in his reading which is our main goal for the year.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you around this year! Blessings for a great new school adventure!

You can link up to the blog hop here:

Not Back to School Blog Hop - Week 2 - School Room area

Week 2: The Education room
First I need to point out something-I have been (officially) homeschooling about 18 years now and well-you have to understand-this is a process [getting a room like this] and in no way, shape or form did we always have an area solely dedicated to our schooling stuff.  We usually (depending on where we lived) just had totes with books crammed in them, stuffed where ever I could tuck them and a few little book shelves with the current material on them.  We worked at the dining room table, the couch, the floor, their bedrooms (usually on their beds), out on the deck or even up in the play structure's loft area (oh how I miss that thing as we moved and gave it away).  It is not about where you homeschool, it is about homeschooling period. Keep that in mind as you go thru all the wonderful posts and pictures from other homeschooling fams. Everyone has different budgets, and space to dedicate to this stuff.  Remember that whatever works for you and your family is all that matters.  

You can link up here:

As for us this year-we are down to one student. So I have not made too many changes since last year-say for rearranging a desk and putting the workboxes closer together.  I have to get the rain gutter book shelves up (still have to get the supplies) to go over where the workboxes area and then I am calling it quits.

And yes-I cleaned the room prior to taking pictures

-it never looks this tidy-ever 

(outside of this photo shoot).  

 View looking directly in (this is the 'library/office' area of the house)-you see right upon entering so I try my best to keep it cleanish and all-but honestly, we are busy learning and that can get messy...

I have the desk that backs up to the white board. I also have two totes loaded with the main books/supplies I will need (to carry out his education this semester) sitting on the window area by my desk for easy access.  Obviously, a lot of it will go into the workboxes but I need a 'home' for those so I can keep track of them. The other desk will be a 'carry over' spot and right now I have the (SL) laminated map there for him to write on as we go thru our world geography.

Finally got the rain gutter shelves up. This is one 10' piece cut into 2. I only put 2 holders per length [not cheap] and have it so they are in somewhat from the edges-so I will only put lighter books on the ends to keep from stressing the shelves out.  The kids keep laughing at me about these [which is their humor and I am not taking it personally and neither are the shelves]. They say if we ever need a spare gutter they know where to go, or if it starts to rain in the house they can grab these to help...but honestly, I don't think they look goofy or cheesy and they hold a lot of books, so I am quite pleased with the results.

And that is our school room area.  We still migrate to the kitchen for science and art projects and the couch serves our main area for the much of the history and bible lessons-so we do some work here and move around during the day.

Not Back to School Blog Hop -week 1- Curriculum choice

Not Back to School Blog Hop link up

Curriculum Picks:  2012 

Approx. 5th/6th grade 

on most stuff for our son
(our last student of 4-first time in
 over 18 yrs to have only one student!)

We are continuing on with the Heart of Dakota: Creation to Christ program that we started this past spring. We made it to week 8, so we'll do a quick review the first week, then move on to week nine's lessons.  I have several posts referring to our experience up to about week 6 so you can check those out too, if you'd like.  I have those links at the bottom for ya.  

HOD C to C covers his science, history, geography and Bible.  I chose to do my own math, Lang. Arts and writing programs over what is listed. Well I will use a bit of the writing b/cuz I have the material from reviewing it a few years back but he simply is not ready for much of this....

Math is a mix up this year, as he'll wrap up his Abeka 4th grade math and then most likely I will switch him into the Saxon 54 that I have or I may be able to put him in the 65-I will know once we get to that point.  It all depends on his progress.  This age is tough because I do not want to skip over the building blocks for the higher math-just to say we're at a certain grade level.  I want to be sure he knows those basics inside and out before moving on. 

Language Arts Mix and Match:  I am doing a mix of a couple things for his lang. arts this year.  I usually hold off on formal lang. arts until the reading skills are sufficient but due to my son's dyslexia, we're a bit behind.  He will still be working on his reading comprehension and fluency (we'll prob'ly keep using the Phonics Road to Spelling and Reading level 1 flash cards and word lists until he has a much better recall of what the sounds are). Anyway, we'll be using these goodies (and I may be able to jump him into the purple after we touch upon some of the subject matter in the orange) for his lang. arts-

Learning Language Arts Through Literature-Orange, 

Italic Handwriting D and  Italic Handwriting F

Additional goodies:

Keeping with our Charlotte Mason methods-we'll also being doing Nature Study (using all the guides/books I have already), hopefully 2 artists and 2 great musician studies (we need to do Renoir because we simply didn't get to him last semester, still undecided about the other artist), and I haven't figured out the composers yet but will probably do Brahms and Mozart because I have the material sitting on the shelf and am trying to not buy more than I have to. When I do, I will have all that info on my Charlotte Mason Homeschool Sampler blog.  This is getting too long and these require it's own post to mention all the resources we use.

Science is covered in the HOD study, and originally he didn't want to cover the human body, but I am going to go ahead and cover what the study does. In addition to the Apologia Land Animals study, we'll continue using the rest of the snippets from the Considering God's Creation workbook (notebooking pages and some mini-lapbook components) to add in some hands-on activities which relate to the critters (and I have some things I have made which will also be another post down the road).  I will also use the Great Science Adventure Human Body and Senses to create a nice lapbook to go with the human body study.

  

Considering God's Creation image from Eagle's Wings Website

for typing skills-I am pulling this off the shelf for him to use.

Dr. Fry's Computer Keyboarding

Copywork will be a part of the LLATL and poetry from the HOD study but I will also have him work on the 

Nature lessons for Copywork

(which obviously will be a part of his NS)

Extra Geography:

the states are done, so we're moving to world geo

I revamped the geography center board from the states material to world continents/countries. We'll be starting in Asia/Europe due to the connection with the HOD C to C curriculum.  The science work I made to match the animals of the world will also be a part of this since it requires placing critters on the continents they are most usually found (I hope to have the specifics are posted on my What's in the Box? blog soon but the geo board post is up)....and BTW, I have oodles of ideas and other links on this blog-you don't need to be a workboxing fam to use these ideas....:)

OK, well this is really long.  I will do more posts on what we're using as the year progresses.  Here is the link to the 3 other HOD posts for those who are interested.

Links to all three of them

Thanks for stopping by!

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