Our homeschool day is pretty simple.  I sometime worry that we are not doing enough, and maybe we aren’t, but we have been through A LOT to get where we are. 

We started out super structured, super pushed and super stressed.  After autism, OCD, threats to set oneself on fire, holding a knife to one’s chest and more… let’s just say we had to try another way.

Then there was the year and a half in private Christian school where they learned that everyone does school and they could do so much WITHOUT crying or complaining as well as learning some foul language and the art of girls treating girls like dirt… our journey has been long. 

What we are doing is working, our days are peaceful and our kids are learning - so here we are. Charlotte Mason was the best thing I ever stumbled upon and I haven’t looked back since.

So, here is how our day looks. All times are approximations!

8:45ish to 9:00 AM: Family work

This is where we do literature, any science or history reading and narration, picture study, music study, scripture memory, hymn study, nature study, geography, etc.  What we do in this time is different based on the day of the week.  We do a lot of different subjects, spread throughout the week.

9:30: Independent Work

Bible study, copy work, math, typing grammar, guitar, Spanish, life skills, personal development, dictation, reading, WordSmithery etc. – all stuff that they can mostly do on their own with a little guidance.

10:00: Break

At 10 we take a 30 minute break.  I exercise during this time and we eat a snack. Right now the kids have a show on PBS that they watch during this time.  In the past and when the weather gets good again, we take a walk during this time.

10:30: Back to work

30 minutes isn’t enough time to finish all their independent work so this goes until around lunch time.

12:00: Lunch

And that is our day.  Sometimes it goes fast, sometimes there is more to do after lunch.  This is our first year integrating our most difficult child back into homeschool so I have taken this first half of the year pretty cautiously and will start to push more and more as he can handle it. 

Our littles know that they have to play quietly during family work time and they come in and out of our school time during the independent work time.  Nathan has started getting out his “math book” and doing some work in it.  Maury likes to color and mostly do whatever.  They also do puzzles, play with blocks and generally just enjoy themselves. :)

I use the Charlotte Mason Organizer from Simply Charlotte Mason and I love it.  Everything is in there and set up, I just click on today's work and we are ready to go. Our curriculum choices also mostly follow the SCM Curriculum Guide.

 Things that make my life easier.

Fit & Fresh Portable Drink Mixer

Today I posted on my Discovering Nathan blog about this cool supplement mixer, go check it out.

This is so much prettier in my color coded Excel document, but here is our schedule for 2010.  We basically keep this schedule loosely right now, I just haven’t written it all down before. 

In the free time before bed I go over the next days schedule and make sure all is ready and in order.  Some time I will post our chores, cleaning schedule and our new menu plan. 

No wonder I feel like I don’t have a lot of time to spare, with school and cooking 3 meals a day, I don’t have a lot of time to spare! 

December 2009
Descanso Gardens

You get the prettiest and most natural smile from him if you bring up a girls name…

Family Work

• Scripture Memory
• Literature: A Christmas Carol
• Map Drill: Fill in outline map of Africa
• Wisdom and the Millers

Independent Work

• Bible: Awanas
• Copy work: Christmas Copy work
• Math: Abeka
• Reading

Christmas Class:

About.com Advent Dec. 20

LAST DAY!!! 2 WEEK BREAK!!!

My Dad loves to give candy to the kids and they run to reach in his shirt pocket each time they see him to see what treasure is waiting for them.  Nathan, my 4 year old, gave me the idea of making him a candy jar for his birthday.  Here it is, it’s was very simple and I think it turned out really cute!

I started with these sparkly stickers:

Attached them to the jar I bought at Target:

I filled it with candy:

All done! I might cut a paper into a circle and stick it in there so that you can see the words with candy still in the jar, we’ll see!

Timothy & Tony at Descanso Gardens

Family Work

• Scripture Memory
• Literature: A Christmas Carol
• History: Moses
• Nature Study – Nature Study Notebooks: ? See what we discover outside!
• PE: Baseball
• Science: Exploring Creation with Astronomy

Independent Work

• Bible: Awanas
• Copy work: Christmas copy work
• Math: Abeka

Christmas Class:

About.com Advent Dec. 19 – Hopefully today we can do the craft and take some pictures for my mom & get to those filled cookies!

3 days left till Christmas break!

Katie Ann & Josiah at Descanso Gardens in Los Angeles

Family Work

• Art: Watercolor Christmas scenes
• Scripture Memory
• Literature: A Christmas Carol
• History: Moses
• Music Study: Chopin

 Independent Work

• Bible: Awanas
• Copy work: Christmas Copy work
• Spanish: Online Spanish Lessons
• Math: Abeka
• Reading

Christmas Class:

About.com Advent Dec. 16 – TODAY We’re going to make Filled Cookies.

Wow! The 15th already! Christmas break begins December 21, 4 more days to go!!! Just think of the baking we can do then!

Family Work

• Picture Study: Raphael
• Scripture Memory
• Literature: A Christmas Carol
• Science: Exploring Creation with Astronomy – The Moon

 Independent Work

• Bible: Awanas
• Copy work: Christmas Copy work
• Typing: Online Typing Lessons
• Math: Abeka
• Timothy: Music – Guitar

Christmas Class:

About.com Advent Dec. 17 – We’re going to make Filled Cookies.

Josiah, our 3rd child, has just about got reading down.  He is reading easy readers on his own for fun now, so I’d say he is well on his way.  I took a different approach with this one, letting him take his time and not starting with him until he was 6.  My first 2 were reading by 4 & 5 years old.

We used Frontline Phonics as our reading program.  I have used this with all 3 kids and have been really happy with it.  I think the reason I like it is because the kids are reading books right away and that boosts their self-esteem while they are still learning. I’m reading REAL books!

The idea behind starting so late was from Charlotte Mason and her principle of letting the younger ones spend their days learning and exploring the world around them rather than putting them in front of the books early on.  I did this with my first child, starting him super early and he learned to read, but it was a far less pleasant experience as compared to the one I have just had with Josiah.  I also found that Josiah caught on faster and didn’t struggle through each word in each book like the older ones did.  I think this comes in direct result of waiting until he was more than ready.

Frontline Phonics starts with letter sounds, so we skipped that because he knew them already. We basically just read through the books for level 1 and 2. We took a little time to learn things like the 2 vowel rule and special sounds, all of which are taught in the Frontline Phonics program.  I didn’t follow the rules or teachers guide so much with this child, mostly just taught him what he needed to know for the current book we were reading.

There are 4 sets of books that get increasingly difficult. When they’re done, they’re read to cast off and venture out to new books. 

Josiah chose to go on to With Jack and Janet and in that theme we have stuck with all of the older books that my mom has collected over the years.  He is reading With Jack and Janet on his own in his free time and before bed. We read Here and Near together and have now moved on to Under the Tree. 

I want to be sure and listen to him read still so that I can make sure he is not skipping words, guessing words and also so that I can tweak anything that still needs to be taught.

I like these old books even though they are mostly sight reading.  I have yet to meet anyone who was taught to sight read that enjoys reading. Except perhaps my aunt, I will have to ask her if she was taught to sight read.

Anyway, now that he knows phonics and has the tools to figure out words, the sight word books are good because some words you just need to memorize!  They introduce one word every so often and then it pops up throughout the book.

Josiah loves these old stories and cracks up laughing at the predicaments the characters get themselves into.  I don’t know, there is just something fresh and wholesome about these old books.

And that, in a nutshell, has been our reading journey with this guy.  It was a very pleasant experience and I’m glad I waited until he was ready.  He is a sensitive one and I think if I had pushed him as hard as I did the other ones he would have struggled a lot.

Besides, he was my spoiled baby and old habits die hard. ;)

Katie Ann Turned 9 on the 9th!

Family Work

• Scripture Memory
• Literature: A Christmas Carol
• Map Drill: Fill in outline map of Africa
• Wisdom and the Millers

Independent Work

• Bible: Awanas
• Journal Entry
• Math: Abeka
• Reading

Christmas Class:

About.com Advent Dec. 11

I need to go an buy supplies so we can actually make some recipes and do some crafts next week!!!

Today, for nature study the kids drew and painted our new poinsettia.  It was cold outside so we brought it in and worked at the table.

Timothy

Katie Ann

     Josiah

Maury

Nathan doesn’t usually join us for anything unless I make him.  He did color one stocking coloring page this month and it’s the best coloring I’ve ever seen him do.  He struggles some with fine motor skills, but I don’t know if it’s that or laziness that keeps him away.  Maury on the other hand, is always in the thick of things!

Me, My mom & my sister Christmas 2008
Oh and some other family members… :)

Family Work

• Scripture Memory
• Literature: A Christmas Carol
• History: Moses
• Nature Study – Nature Study Notebooks: Poinsettia
• PE: Baseball
• Science: Exploring Creation with Astronomy

Independent Work

• Bible: Awanas
• Copy work: A Christmas Carol Vocab
• Math: Abeka

Christmas Class:

About.com Advent Dec. 14

If you’re wondering why I am posting these, it’s because we are doing something different for December and I didn’t want to have to change my school organizer for the month and then change it back.  So ignore the school assignment lists if you’d like, we use them to work off of.

Family Work

• Picture Study: Raphael
• Scripture Memory
• Literature: A Christmas Carol
• Hymn Study: O Come, O Come Emmanuel
• Science: Exploring Creation with Astronomy – The Moon

 Independent Work

• Bible: Awanas
• Copy work: A Christmas Carol Vocab
• Typing: Online Typing Lessons
• Math: Abeka
• Timothy: Music – Guitar

Christmas Class:

About.com Advent Dec. 10 – We’re going to make Grandma’s Ornament craft.

We made the recipe for Christmas Advent Day 8 – Loretta’s Bon Bons, but we couldn’t use nuts and we couldn’t use sweetened condensed milk so we used coconut milk and water.  We added more shredded coconut, more sugar, Koala Crispys, GF whole oats, GF ground oats and even some corn starch. They were just a little watery so I put them in the fridge and in the freezer.

They turned out ok. 

They are WAY sweet and still a little goopy.  The kids loved them.  What’s not to love, they’re dipped in chocolate! 

Oh, and we didn’t use the paraffin either, food quality or not, I’m sure chemical wax stuff doesn’t fly in our house. Melted gfcf chocolate chips worked just fine.

Some of them turned out looking decent too, but I just could bring myself to take a picture. In fact I still have the bowl of goopy mixture in the fridge and some balls of goop in the freezer waiting to be dipped in chocolate… I’m waiting to see how I feel about them tomorrow.

We also lit a fire in the fireplace tonight and played Go Fish as a family.  It was fun, the first time we’ve had the whole family play.  

We’ll see if we have any frightened middle children tonight, we watched A Christmas Carol musical today.  We are reading the book and decided to find a not too scary version to watch.  We wanted Mickey, but he wasn’t available so we found a different one.  It was still scary, but the kids liked how some of it was word for word what we had read that morning.

School Plan

Family Work

Scripture Memory: SCM Scripture Memory System

Literature: A Christmas Carol

History: Moses

P.E.: Baseball – rain today, maybe sock catch

Poetry: Emily Dickenson

Independent Work

Copy work: Copy vocab from A Christmas Carol

Reading: Chapter books

Math: Abeka Math

Life Skills:

• Timothy: Photography

• Katie Ann: Crochet Project

• Josiah: How to change a light bulb –someone better show him how to do this so we can move on!

• About.com Advent Dec. 8

Does this look a lot like Dec 3? That’s because I had a problem in Live Writer and accidentally overwrote Dec. 3rd’s post.  Oh well.

School Plan

Family Work

Scripture Memory: SCM Scripture Memory System

Literature: A Christmas Carol

Personal Development: Wisdom and the Millers

Independent Work

Map Drill: Africa

Copy work: Copy vocab from A Christmas Carol

Reading: Chapter books

Math: Abeka Math

Life Skills:

• Timothy: Boyhood and Beyond

• Katie Ann: Crochet Project

• Josiah: How to change a light bulb

• About.com Advent Dec. 5

• Ship gifts (done)

• Mail Christmas Cards

• Get Supplies for Christmas Crafts & Baking

We’re opening Christmas presents over here! :)  Today, the 2 big boys went out to play with the neighbors and the two little boys were wandering around not knowing what to do and thinking about watching ANOTHER video.  We’ve been cooped up here for over a month now, so I decided we needed a new toy! 

I had found a bag of 100 mega blocks at Target for $10 the other day and I bought them for Maury.  I’ll buy him something else, we were desperate! This entertained them for a long time and Maury for the longest which means it would have made a good present for him. :)

We even ended up playing with these for an hour or so tonight as a whole family!  I challenged the older kids to try to make a creation out of only 5 blocks and they had fun with that.

Oh, for Bridgett, here is the list of everyone:

Timothy 10

Katie Ann 8 (9 on the 9th)

Josiah 6

Nathan 4

Maury 2

Baby Girl – Due April 21

That’s us!

Today Nathan woke up and refused breakfast and then threw up.  Katie Ann is sick and ran a fever yesterday.  Timothy has some sort of cough, I’m still sick and Tony is sick but still going of course. That man never stops. 

For a few days I though Maury was coming down with the measles, his eyes were red, he was running a little warm and he was really cranky. He seems fine now. I told everyone that no one is coming or going from our house, everyone is sick. 

For school, I printed out their assignments, including the Christmas stuff and handed it over to each of them.  They like that once in a while, just having their own list and getting to decide what they do when.

Katie Ann glittered her coloring page today.

The big excitement of the day is that we’re going to watch Home Alone 2 because we are reading about Pigeons in nature study and I’m pretty sure there’s that pigeon lady in that movie.  When we watch it I’ll see again the bad language and bad attitudes that the kids have in that movie and declare that we aren’t watching the movie again.  Until, next year when I forget about all that and suggest it as a good Christmas movie! :)

So, here we are again, sick and stuck at home. I have to open the blinds to let some fresh light in otherwise the walls start to close in on us. :)  I’m a homebody at heart so I’m happy to have an excuse to stay home, I’d just appreciate full energy while I’m here!