Morning Routine

What do your mornings look like? Are you the early riser that exercises, showers and dresses before the kids get up? Is your house full of energetic kids that are up and running before 7am? Do you have circle time and cute baskets full of books and busy work? I must admit when I first began homeschooling I pictured my mornings like that. Smiling happy faces sitting around the breakfast table ready for a day of learning and fun.  Three years into our homeschooling journey and our mornings are far from spectacular. What they are is quiet, laid back, even a little lazy. Every time I read a blog post or an article about a fabulous morning routine I feel a pang of guilt that maybe I'm not doing enough.

I read a great post by Kris Bales over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers that reminded me that my morning routine needs to work for me and yours need to work for you. And that's all. There is no right or wrong way to start the day.

The truth is as homeschool moms we have to stop comparing ourselves and our families to other homeschool families. The uniqueness of the homeschool community is what makes it great! Isn't that one reason we started homeschooling in the first place? To leave behind the cookie cutter world of public school that tries to keep everyone the same. Our routine works for us and that's all that matters.

So, I'm coming out of the closest with my morning routine! I'm proud of what we accomplish during the day and how it gets started is a big part of that, no matter how unexciting it may be.

Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays I get up just whenever the dogs wake me up. Usually around 7:00am. Tuesdays and Thursdays my daughter gets up early for classes, which wakes the dogs up, who in turn wake me up so I'm up by 6:30. I use the term up loosely. Being up on Tuesdays and Thursdays generally consists of moving from the bed to the couch and dozing again after the dogs have been fed and let outside. I'm usually up and moving by 7:30 or so.

Getting dressed consist of brushing my hair and teeth and putting on clean clothes. I consider "comfy clothes" (yoga pants, athletic shorts, t-shirt, etc.) getting dressed. Unless I'm going out, that is what I wear. 

My two favorite morning things: coffee and yoga. I'll sit and drink my coffee and watch the news for a few minutes and then do about 20-30 minutes of yoga. Not a lot I know, but it's better than nothing.  When coffee and yoga are done, the TV goes off and the music comes on. I despise daytime TV so it is rarely on during the day. Sometimes if I am feeling really energetic I'll get in a load of dishes or sweep the kitchen while I'm waiting of CJ to get up. He is usually up by 9:00am.

That's my mornings. Nothing exciting. I'm even feeling a little silly about writing a post about it! Hopefully, it will remind someone that just because your day or routine or schedule does not sound like someone else's that doesn't mean it is anything less than the best.

What do your morning look like?

What Our Homeschool Week Looks Like

We've been going for a little over a month now and I think we've found our groove. A typical week for us (if there is such a thing!) looks like this:

Monday
CNN Student News
Co-Op Classes 9:40 - 3:30
      IEW Writing, Real Science 4 Kids Physics, History Odyssey Modern Level One, Leadership and
      Art

Tuesday
CNN Student News
Writing-read source material and complete key word outline
Science-read chapter and take notes; finish writing lab report if not finished in class
History-20 minutes review countries for geography quiz; 20-30 minutes work on lesson
Math-Teaching Textbooks 6 one lesson
Spelling-2 pages
Vocabulary-16a and 16b
Grammar-Exercise 1 and 2
Reading-30 minutes independent reading (can be done before bed)
 Loop work until 3pm

Wednesday
CNN Student News
Writing-rough draft; revise and edit using checklist
Science-Daily Questions
History-20 minute country review for quiz; 20 minutes work on lesson 2
Math-Teaching Textbooks 6 one lesson
Read-30 minute independent reading (can be done before bed)
Spelling-2 pages
Vocabulary-16C and 16D
Grammar-exercise 3 and Playing with Words
Loop work until 3pm

Thursday
CNN Student News
Writing-type polished copy
Science-20-30 minutes on project
History-20 minute country review for quiz; 20-30 minutes on project; finish lesson if needed
Math-Teaching Textbooks 6 one lesson
Spelling-spelling test
Vocabulary-16e
Grammar-Test
Reading-30 minutes independent reading (can do before bed)
Loop work until 3pm

Friday
CNN Student News
Science-20-30 minutes on project
History-20 minute country review for quiz; 20-30 minutes on project
Movie / Documentary Day

Sunday Evening
Science-review study guide for quiz; finish project if needed
History- review countries for geography quiz; finish project if needed

Loop subjects are (these have changed some since we started):
Art
Game Time
Life of Fred
Sign Language
Uncle Sam and You
Logic
Typing
Photo Finch Photography

So far everything is going smoothly. I sit down on Sunday's and make out a checklist for each day. CJ likes to know exactly what he needs to be done for the day! We seem to be able to get through all of the daily things and still have time for one or two loop things.

Science Day

CJ LOVES science! He would gladly do school work all day long every day ... if it could be science! So, every once in a while we spend the whole day do crazy science experiments. One of our favorite websites to use Science Bob.

Today we did Build a Fizz Inflator, Fantastic Foamy Fountain, The Exploding Sandwich Bag, Make a Paperclip Float, Try Some Lava in a Cup, and Make a Balloon Rocket.

It was so fun! And a great way to take a break from some 'book' work and still learn a ton! Today we just did the observation part. Next week we are going to pick one and turn it in to a real experiment by changing some of the variables to see what happens. It should be fun!

First Day of 5th Grade!

Today was CJ's first official day of 5th grade!

 

We started the day off with a Morning Meeting. This is something new for us, but something I really think we need. We just took a few minutes to go over the schedule for the week and talk about the things we would be doing this year. CJ told me he wanted to be a little more involved with his schedule, he wanted to have a say in what he was going to do. So, I had him sit down and put the loop lessons in the order he wanted to do them in. I've added a couple of things to the loop since my last post. This is what our loop list looks like now and the order he put them in:

Geography
Art
Game Time
Life of Fred
Sign Language
Presidents
Spelling
Vocabulary
Reading
Critical Thinking
Typing
Poetry

After our Morning Meeting we headed outside for some first day of school pictures!  We are using a lighter schedule for now, until our co-op starts in September. That will be our Science, Writing, and History. For now, it's just Literature, Grammar, Multiplication Review, and the loop lessons.

Our first day looked like this:

9am Morning Meeting and First Day of School Pictures
9:15 - 9:45 Literature Reading - CJ has picked Treasure Planet for our first book
9:45 - 11:00 Loop

OK- so I admit we didn't stay on schedule too well. But we never do. My schedules are more like guidelines, so there was no surprise in that. But we made it through 2 loop items before lunch and did two after lunch (called it a day at 1:30), so the day was a success in my book! One day down-- 179 more to go!

New School Year and Loop Scheduling

We are getting ready to start our school year in July! Our summers in the South can be so hot that most of July and August we can't go outside anyway so the past two years we have taken most of April and all of May and June off for our 'summer break'. It has worked great for us. We can spend the mild days outside playing, camping, taking field trips, and going on vacations before the summer crowds! Another thing I love about homeschooling - flexibility! We get to school around our lives, not live by the school schedule!

This year I am going to try something new - loop scheduling. I've thought about it before, but just never given it a real try. I think this year I will really need to try to stick to it because we have so many extra things we want to do. By extra things, I mean things other than math, science and English, but still important things that I want to include. Last year however, I had a hard time balancing the core subjects and the extra stuff. We would spend to much time on extras and then not have time for the core stuff or vise versa. It seemed like something was always getting left out. I feel like a loop schedule will correct that. At least I hope it will!

To create our loop schedule the first thing I did was make a list of EVERYTHING (that I know of so far) that I wanted CJ to work on this year. My list looked like this:

Math, Memorizing Multiplication Facts, History, Geography, Literature, Writing, Reading Comprehension, Grammar, Spelling, Vocabulary, Typing, Science, Life of Fred, Poetry, Presidents, Logic and Art.

Then from that I listed everything I thought needed to be done everyday at the top and everything else went on the loop list. So then I had:

Daily:
Literature
Math
History
Science
Grammar
Writing

Loop:
Reading Comprehension
Critical Thinking/Logic
Geography
Life of Fred
Spelling
Vocabulary
Presidents
Typing
Poetry
Art

Some of the daily subjects may end up not actually needing to be done daily because they are done through co-op classes and I'm not sure yet what the assignment schedule will be like. But I want them on the daily schedule since the work will have to be done on time in order to turn in at co-op. I don't want it stuck in a loop.

 

Next, I had to figure out how the schedule was actually going to work on a daily basis. First, I decided our school day was going to be 9am - 3pm, with an hour for lunch 4 days per week. Why 9-3? Well, we aren't early risers so I don't expect us to be ready start before 9am and I figured with a loop schedule there needs to be a clear stopping point since there is no set check list of things that need to be done each day. Last year I used a checklist, some days we would be done by noon. Some days we wouldn't get done until 4pm. And most days we never got to everything on the list, so things always felt incomplete. There was little consistency and CJ would get a little stressed over not knowing from one day to the next when his school day was going to be finished. So, I just picked 3pm, it seemed like a good time to stop. I have always used a 4 day a week schedule. The 5th day is our co-op day and when co-op is not meeting, it's great to have a catch-up / movie / documentary day. I also had to figure out when to move on to the next thing on the list. My final schedule looks like this:

Daily:
Math (Teaching Textbooks)- one lesson per day
Literature (IEW Reading Roadmaps) - read aloud everyday, at least one chapter (about 20-30 minutes), with monthly lessons
Grammar (Jr. Analytical Grammar) - follow lesson plan w/curriculum
History (History Odyssey) - co-op class
Science (Physics) - co-op class
Writing (IEW) - co-op class

Loop:
Reading Comprehension (Reading Comprehension Grades 5-6 Workbook) - one lesson
Critical Thinking/Logic (Building Thinking Skills Level 2) - one lesson
Geography (Trail Guide to US Geography) - one lesson
Spelling (Spelling Workout Book E) - one lesson
Life of Fred - one chapter
Vocabulary (Word Wise 4) - one lesson
Presidents (notebooking) - complete one step
Typing (Typing Instructor for Kids) - one lesson
Art (various things) - 20-30 minutes
Poetry (Read and Understand Poetry Grade 5) - one lesson

After we go through all of the daily lessons and do any homework that needs to be done for co-op classes, we move on to the loop schedule, either completing one lesson or a time limit for each subject, and just work through it until the school day is over. The following day, after daily lessons are complete, we start from where we left off the previous day on the loop schedule. Does that make sense? For example, if on Monday at 3pm we are working on Spelling, then Tuesday, after the daily stuff is done, we will start on Life of Fred. I think this schedule will make me and CJ happy! He will have his list to follow so he knows exactly what needs to be done and he will know when he can be done for the day. I will be happy because I know that eventually everything will have a turn to be worked on! And then main reason I will be happy... CJ will be happy! Our days always go better when he is happy!

 

Have you ever tried a loop schedule? What does your daily schedule look like?

Why We Homeschool

When I tell someone we homeschool our 10 year old son they always ask why and for some reason it's always been a hard question for me to answer. That bothered me. We made this big decision to homeschool, pulled our child out of public school after 2nd grade and changed our lives to do it. Yet, I couldn't pin point a reason when someone asked me why. There seemed at first to be so many reasons and yet it also felt like we did it just because we wanted to.

So, I spent some time really thinking about it. Why do we homeschool?  Freedom. That's the one reason it comes down to.

Freedom from the 8am to 3pm September through May schedule.

Freedom from a room of 20 or more of kids all the same age and one poor exhausted teacher trying her hardest to get them to all do the same thing at the same time and do it quietly.

Freedom from sitting in a desk, standing in a line, asking before moving, not talking, bad lunch food and in a lot of cases, bullying and teasing.

Freedom from equipment that is usually below standard because not enough money is put into our public school systems.

Freedom from curriculum that is that is rushed through and only taught if it is on some test that the government says all children have to be measured by.

Freedom to do what is best for my child when and where it is best for him.

Freedom from the stress of having to deal with above ll of the above.

That's why we homeschool. Freedom. I wouldn't have it any other way!

Why do you homeschool? 

Journalism Co-Op Class

This semester I am teaching a Journalism/Yearbook class at our co-op. Our co-op meets once a week and offers classes ranging in everything from preschool to gemstones and minerals. Classes are taught by volunteers and they teach whatever they are interested in so we have a wonderful variety; Sign Language, Music, Art, Book Illustration, Cooking, Architecture, History, Felicity's World. There is something for everyone!

For my class I am using High Five Media Literacy units. It is three unit program that includes journalism, reading, writing and grammar. I had to pick and chose from the lessons because there are more lessons than weeks in our co-op, and shorten some of them for some of my younger students, but it is working wonderfully. The kids are really enjoying it!

I have 8 kids from 4th-8th grade in the class so our paper has 8 sections: Local News, World News, Feature, Editorial, Comic/Puzzle, Sports, Advice/How To and Review. We publish a paper each week and the students rotate through the different sections so that everyone gets to write once for each section.

Do you participate in a homeschool co-op? What kinds of classes do you offer?

2015-2016 Curriculum Plan

 2015-2016 Curriculum

I think I have finally got our schedule and curriculum down for the 2015-2016 school year. This will be our 3rd year homeschooling and I feel like I am just now starting to find a rhythm. Of course, every time I think that, something changes!

Here is the curriculum I am planning on doing for CJ, 10 years old and my only homeschooler:

History
Bookshark History, Readers and Read Alouds, 4th grade level, year 2 American History.

 

Even though CJ will technically be in 5th grade, I am going with the 4th grade level because this year we did Sonlight Core D, which is year 1 American History. I want to finish out American History by doing year 2 this coming year. I'm looking forward to trying Bookshark. See my post here for reasons why I am switching. 

Hard to believe I know but we have changed curriculum choices.... we are going to try History Odyssey Level 2 Ancients. Honestly the reason we are switching is because CJ was really not looking forward to all the reading that comes with BookShark. He loves to read.... as long as it is Dr. Who or Star Wars related. So, I started looking at some other options. I was torn between sticking with BookShark anyway or trying History Odyssey or Oak Meadow. After giving myself a headache trying to decide, I had an idea. I printed off sample lesson plans of each curriculum, showed them to CJ and talked to him about each one and the differences between them. Then I asked him which he would like to do. He impressed me by really thinking about it and asking me some questions. He chose History Odyssey. So, that was that. We will try it. He said he "liked that is was part reading and part research and part book work". He also liked that it was very student led. He likes to be able to do his work without me hoovering over him. I'm excited about it! I think it will be a good fit for us.

Language Arts

Spelling - We are going to try Spelling Workout E. We have tried All About Spelling and Sequential Spelling, neither worked very well for us. They were both great programs. I think the problem is just that spelling is not our favorite subject and seems to always get pu

t on the back burner so we don't seem to ever get into a good routine with spelling. So, we'll try Spelling Workout and see what happens.

Grammar - For grammar we are going with Jr. Analytical Grammar. This year we used Shurley English and I really like it. CJ has learned so much with it. It is quick (we do the grammar only, not the writing) and the question and answer flow to classify sentences is easy to follow. The only problem I have with it is it does not

Memorize Multiplication Facts

CJ was overwhelmed at the thought of having to memorize all the multiplication facts. But he watched this video I found on YouTube and the light bulb went off! He said, "Cool. I already knew most of them all and just didn't know it."

Anything that made multiplication that easy, I have to share! Now he doesn't get so stressed out over math. It's still not his favorite, but realizing multiplication wasn't as hard as he thought helps a lot.

Check it out!

Do you have any favorite math resources?

Our Homeschool Shedule

When I tell people we homeschool they are always curious about what exactly we do all day. And families that are considering homeschooling are always looking for ideas and examples of how other families structure their days, so I thought I would share our schedule.

I have one child, a 10 year old boy, and we are currently using the following curriculum:

Sonlgiht Core D - history, readers and read alouds
Apologia - Zoology 2 (we do this with a live online class through Currclick)
Shurley English 5
Teaching Textbooks 5
IEW Fun and Fasinating
Wordly Wise 4
Trail Guide to US Geography
Live Classes from Currclick
Engineering 4 Kids Robotics and Homeschool Engineering Club

Monday

This is co-op day, so we usually just finish up any homework we have for co-op classes before it starts at 12:30. In fall CJ had LEGO We-Do, Photography and Native Americans. This semester he takes US History Revolution through Lewis and Clark, Newspaper/Yearbook and Gemstones and Minerals.

Tuesday
We have Engineering 4 Kids Homeschool Engineering Club from 10:00 - 11:30. After lunch we  work on homework for our co-op history class, Sonlight history, readers and read alouds and math. If we have time we also do english. We have a live class with Currclick at 3:00 for Zoology.

Eating Our Way Through the States

This is our favorite part of our state studies! We use Geography Matters Trail Guide to U.S. Geography.

Geography Matters

I love this curriculum! There are questions to answer, mapping, topics to research and projects to do. Everything is laid out so that it is easy to follow. Most importantly, my son loves it! It's his favorite thing to work on and he always wants to start the day with 'the states'. 

A few weeks ago we decided to add something fun to our study of the states by adding Eating Our Way Through the States. 

I have not received my cookbook yet, but we decided to start this week. I let CJ choose a state, he picked Hawaii. Then I let him look up so Hawaiian inspired foods and drinks.

He picked Hawaiian Pizza (not sure how authentic Hawaiian that is, but that's what he wanted!) with pineapple, chicken and Canadian bacon. We had pineapple cake and a drink with pineapple juice, lemon juice, club soda and simple syrup. Everything was so yummy!

CJ had so much fun finding the recipes, shopping for ingredients and cooking the meal. It's going to be a great addition to our study of the states and I can't wait to see what we get to eat next!

What food comes to mind when you think about the state you live in? Got any good recipes we should try?

Why I am Switching from Sonlight to Bookshark

BookShark is a relativity new program from Sonlight. It comes with the same service and quality thousands of homeschoolers have come to expect from Sonlight. There are only some minor differences, but it is those differences that have made me switch from Sonlight to BookShark.

1. All program components are sold separately. I mean - all components. I like that Sonlight has programs divided by ages as well as grade levels. Each Core has several different ages and grade levels that it is recommend for. That's great, but my son uses a different grade level for almost every subject! With Sonlight, it is not easy to separate the subjects. If you order just Core D History, you don't get the instructors guide because the instructors guide covers bible, history and language arts. So if you want the guide, you can't separate those subjects.

With Bookshark I can order the perfect package for my son: 4th grade History, 5th grade Language Arts and Science, 6th grade Teaching Textbooks. I simply scroll through the complete list of products and chose exactly what I want. Each subject has it's own instructors guide so that I can order what I want and still get the guide.

2. BookShark is not faith based. For me, this is a plus because I did not use Sonlgiht's Bible Curriculum. So when  I ordered a complete core I was paying for curriculum that I did not use.

Thats it. There's really not much difference between BookShark and Sonlight, but the differences that are there are what convinced me to change. We will start our new BookShark curriculum in the fall and I look forward to letting you know how it turns out! 

Will you be trying a new curriculum in the fall?