A Day in the Life

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted and a lot of things have changed! I thought it might be easiest to write down what a typical day looks like in our homeschool now.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

7:45 Baby wakes up. I go into her room to feed her and change her diaper. B (age 7) is already awake, working on his morning checklist (get dressed, make bed, brush teeth, etc.)

8:00 When I come out, B has found my Kindle and started reading The Wizard of Oz. (We’ve been reading The Wizard of Oz at bedtime together, alternating pages, but last night I was busy so I left the Kindle with him while I was helping the girls. When I came back in he had read two chapters on his own! I had offered to let him read on my Kindle before, but apparently I needed to be more sneaky about.) I shower and get dressed.

8:30 I start math with B. Today we’re working on Beast Academy. B finds it challenging but usually enjoys it. Today we make good progress until I tell him that he’s gotten a couple problems wrong. After a few attempts to keep going, I give up and tell him we’ll try again tomorrow. Although he’s made a lot of progress, B still has trouble with perfectionism at times. K (age 5) is coloring with us at the table.

9:10 We’re on Week 21 of WWE 2. It’s Day 3 so we do dictation. I read a sentence to him and he writes it down with correct punctuation, capitalization, etc. I feed Baby some pears in her highchair.

9:25 After Baby is cleaned up, we start spelling. Today we’re reviewing different ways to spell the sound of /o/. B sorts all of the words correctly except for the last one, so we have another short whining break. K gets dressed.

9:40 For grammar, we talk about articles: a, an, and the. Then a page of Explode the Code to review phonics and work on comprehension.

9:50 I tell K I’m ready to work with her, but she is busy looking at a book on the couch. I check on Baby and find her playing happily in K’s room. I go to print B’s calendar for the Book-It program that starts today. I hear Baby making noise somewhere else and find her heading into the bathroom. Someone left the door open. B is reading Wizard of Oz again.

10:00 I help K comb her hair and tidy her room.

10:30 Time for Baby’s morning nap.

10:45 When I come out the kids are playing Rush Hour. It’s time to do math with K. She’s on lesson 23 of RightStart A.

11:10 I cut up an apple for K. Today she doesn’t want to do science with us, although she does help out with a demonstration of air pressure. We dogpile on top of B to show how the air closest to the earth’s surface has more pressure because of the weight of the air above it.

11:30 We’re done with our schoolwork for the morning, so the kids head out to play with the neighbor kids. I look through all of the Singapore math books to see what we need to do next. I check my email, facebook, etc.

12:10 Baby wakes up. I realize I haven’t started the laundry yet so I get that going. A load a day keeps the mountain away. I feed Baby, then find lunch for me.

1:00 I call the kids in to eat and read. Normally we read books that go along with what we’re studying in science or history, but the kids are excited about our latest read aloud, Ramona the Pest, so I read part of a chapter.

1:30 The kids have quiet time in their rooms. I read my scriptures, but have to go turn K’s music down a few times. She likes to dance during quiet time. I start writing this blog post.

2:15 I feed Baby and switch the laundry.

2:20 B comes out to announce he’s finished Wizard of Oz. I send him back in his room. I make a copy of the review cards for history.

2:40 I play with Baby for a few minutes.

2:50 The timer goes off and quiet time is done. It’s time to clean the house. We clean up the living room and kitchen every day. Today we also clean the bathroom.

3:15 Baby is ready for her afternoon nap. The big kids eat a snack and then watch an episode of Salsa Spanish.

3:45 We do a quick review of Spanish vocab and B goes off to play SimCity. I work with K on handwriting and phonics. It’s pretty late in the day so K is rather distracted. When we manage to fit this in earlier, it seems to go more smoothly.

4:15 The kids head out to play again.

4:30 Baby wakes up and I feed her again. I sit down at the computer for a few minutes.

5:00 J comes out of his office and starts boiling water for spaghetti. I finish making dinner.

5:30 Dinner. The kids run out to play again as soon as they are done.

6:15 I feed Baby again.

6:30 I grab the laundry and start folding while watching Lark Rise to Candleford. I watch about 10 minutes before the kids are back in the house again. We go put all the laundry away.

6:50 I read to the kids. We read Ramona the Pest, Snow White and Rose Red, and a chapter from the Book of Mormon Reader.

7:30 B takes his shower. I feed Baby some pears and K has her bedtime snack.

8:00 I help K get ready for bed.

8:30 I say goodnight to B. This is when we usually read together, but he’s still on his Kindle reading binge*. Now he’s reading the sequel to My Father’s Dragon. I put Baby to bed.

9:00 I am done with kids for the night 🙂

I am worn out after typing all of that. No wonder I’m tired at the end of the day! This is the schedule we follow most days. We have PE on Tuesday and we go to the library on Friday, so we skip some subjects on those days. I am very much a homebody so I actually prefer the days where we stay at home even though we do more. We alternate history and science every other day. We also alternate Spanish and art, although its common for us to skip those altogether.

 

*B usually prefers easy reader or picture books and doesn’t often read chapter books on his own. I think he liked reading The Wizard of Oz and My Father’s Dragon books since he was already familiar with them. This morning, he ran out of familiar books to read and gave me back my Kindle. I will have to try reading part of a book with him and see if he will read the rest on his own again. Yesterday was also the first day of the Book-It program, so I’m sure that was a contributing factor. He tends to read a lot at the beginning and then taper off towards the end of the month. Those pizzas are very motivational! We’ve been doing much better about reading consistently this year, so I hope this will inspire even more progress.

First Week of 2013

Math: We finished a few lessons on perimeter and measurement, and we have 7 lessons left in this book. I am adding in a 4 digit addition problem daily as review.

Phonics: We are almost done with ETC 5, and I think we will go on to 6, before coming back to 4 and reviewing syllabification.

Writing: We started Writing With Ease. It alternates between copywork and dictation so the child  learns to write complete sentences and to compose their own sentences separately, before expecting them to do it all at once. We will also continue handwriting practice on the days we don’t do copywork. 

Grammar: We also started First Language Lessons, which is a mainly oral grammar program. It takes about 5-10 minutes a day. Between this and WWE, B is already catching on to answering in complete sentences.

Spanish: We are on Episode 21 of Salsa Spanish, so we’re now halfway through. Both kids still enjoy it and know all the focus words.

We have been taking one day a week to do something fun, like go to playgroup or visit the zoo. There is a lot of sickness going around right now, so I decided to try something different this week. We did our regular schedule M-Th, and today (Friday), we just did science and C-rods. It was nice to have a full day to do science. We had plenty of time to read books, watch videos, and experiment. This week was volcanoes, so we made a baking soda/vinegar volcano. B also enjoyed watching some videos about volcanoes online, including one that showed images from Pompeii. He carefully included some dead bodies on his experiment page. He also did about 15 pages of Miquon after I showed him the next book. We may try this schedule again in the future.

A Peaceful Moment

Funny K

While we haven’t been doing anything formal with K, she is definitely picking up a lot from all of our Leapfrog DVDs.

Me: Look, you have two hearts on this pocket, and one heart on this pocket.

K: Two plus one is three! (from Math Circus)

Me: That’s right, you are good at math!

K: Math is everywhere! (from Math Adventure to the Moon)

Year end stats

From April 25 (when I started keeping records) until the end of the year (179 weekdays), we completed:

95 days of phonics

88 days of handwriting

105 days of math

57 days of FIAR

48 days of science

68 days of Spanish

21 days of art/music

23 days playing with c-rods

87 days of reading practice

135 total instruction days (days where we covered at least one subject, not including reading practice)

42 vacation/sick days

From July to October, B went to a Montessori preschool on T/Th mornings, and since then we have usually done a 4 day week. I’m very pleased with our progress.

A New Coat for Anna

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

FIAR: This was one of the best books we rowed so far. There were lots of activities that B enjoyed, so many that we didn’t even get to them all! B and K were both fascinated with the process of making Anna’s coat. B was very good at remembering the sequence and what was traded for what. I had B dictate his own story about how to make a sandwich. B really liked doing paper weaving. He did all the strips except for the last two. B was especially interested in our discussion of WWII. I’m guessing he will enjoy studying history. We watched a couple videos here. The kids also liked measuring and weighing themselves to see how much they have grown.

It looks like this will be the last post for the year. We are taking a break from full-time school and will just be doing the basics until next year. Merry Christmas!

 

Mirette on the High Wire

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

FIAR: Mirette was a fun read. There was a good geography review as we followed Bellini’s career on a map. B was very impressed with the skill of Mirette. I wish we had a balance beam or something similar for him to practice on. We talked about complementary colors and made a color wheel. We also talked about compound words.

Phonics: We’ve been reviewing a little bit with the past Progressive Phonics books and B remembers almost everything. There are 1.5 books left to read to say we’ve done it all, so we’ll see if we ever get around to those. B is still going strong with ETC. He is almost done with Book 5, so I need to decide if we will go back and review/finish Book 4 (syllables) or keep going for now with Book 6.

Writing: B is still doing well with HWT, although he usually wants to do only 1 page a day now. We’ve also been working on a thank you letter for an awesome birthday present. I have decided to postpone FLL and WWE until after the new year.

Math: B has finished the lessons on adding 4 digit numbers. He is very pleased with himself.

Science: This week we studied fossils, which included making some pretend fossils from mud, rocks, and leaves. Anything with mud is guaranteed fun, of course. B also enjoyed watching some fun videos on youtube.

Music: B has enjoyed listening to Beethoven’s Wig this week.

Follow the Drinking Gourd

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

FIAR: I was a little nervous about talking about slavery with B, but he didn’t seemed too bothered by it. He did say that he would not like anyone to take me away from him. We watched these segments from Reading Rainbow to introduce the subject and it worked well. It was good to review the Big Dipper again (we previously studied constellations during our astronomy unit study.) B really enjoyed learning about cotton. He liked this slide presentation about how cotton is harvested and processed. We also went through the house and found many things made from cotton. We also discussed analogies and compound words.

Phonics/Writing: We are slowly going through ETC and HWT. I had to give B a little pep talk about how lucky he is to be at home and that he only spends about an hour a day on required subjects (math/phonics/handwriting). Hopefully the attitude improves because we will be adding in grammar and more writing soon!

Math: We are chugging along with math. We just finished up strategies for adding two digit numbers and are now working on some easier topics (skip counting, halves and quarters). I realized that B will finish Level B in the next few months, so it’s time to buy the next level! B also started working on some Miquon pages and seems to like it.

Science: B still loves science and asks for it every day. We’ve finished the unit on chemistry and are now learning about physics. I feel like B could probably handle a little more depth, but his main focus is on the fun experiments.

Art: I’ve been slacking on art lately, but luckily we’ve had an art project from Elemental Science the past few weeks. B enjoyed painting with magnets and painting with gravity.

Make Way for Ducklings

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

FIAR: I was so excited to finally get to this book! Both kids loved the story.  We used a map to trace the ducklings’ journey through Boston. (I can’t find a link for the map, it appears to be broken now.) We talked about alphabetical order in relation to the ducklings’ names. For science, I found some great material about ducks here. We talked about different kinds of nests, learned some new words, and talked about the life cycle of a duck.

Skip Counting Mazes

We just got to a lesson on skip counting, and I saw these fun mazes at Confessions of a Homeschooler. B loved them!