A Day in the Life...

No day here is ever the same, but on a typical day this is what happens:

At 6:30 I wake up and shower, while Elijah is usually awake Noah on the other hand will sometimes sleep until 7 or later.  They are required to stay in bed until 7:30 reading.   At 7:00 I have some quiet time while my hubby is getting ready for work.  Then I begin to prepare breakfast.  At 7:30 they are to get up, potty and dress themselves.  I get the Zach up and dressed.  About 7:45 we are sitting down to breakfast.  After breakfast we do a quick clean up and I begin a few chores, while the older boys go outside and play for a about 15-20 minutes.  Then at 8:30 ish, we begin our school day, which always begins with calendar time.  During our calendar time we do the days of the  week, months of the year, weather, how many days we have been in school and then temperatures (inside and outside).

Calendar Time

After calendar time, Noah gets to play his learning games on the iPad, and Elijah and I begin his school day with math, then phonics or language.  About 9:00 I put Zach down for his morning nap.  After that I spend some time with Noah doing his "school" while Elijah works independently on Spelling, and handwriting.  At 9:30 Elijah does his read aloud to me, and then after that we take a break until about 10:15.  At 10:15 we do either Science or History depending on the day, Noah will usually join us for Science, but not History.  He had the option to either play in his room, or get something out of our closet, which is puzzles, manipulative and that type of thing.

Noah playing his iPad learning games.

Elijah using the Bananagrams do practice his spelling.

Lunch is at 11:15 and after that we have some more clean up time and then some some afternoon chores.

I just had to throw a picture of Zach in here, he is enjoying his lunch!

Elijah doing his chore of unloading the dishwasher.

At 12:00 we either prepare to run errands or if we are going to be home we have some read aloud time.  At 1:00 they each take some quiet time in their respective places (Noah in their room, Elijah in our room, and Zach is usually going down for another nap).  They have quiet time for about an hour, then they can get up and either play outside or do some more "closet activities" until 3:00.  Sometimes in the afternoon I will do a craft or art project with them.  On this day we did a sailboat craft.

  At 3:00 we have a snack and then go outside.  At 4:00 they are allowed to watch TV (PBS) until about 5:00, then its time to get dinner ready.  They usually help by setting the table or playing with Zach.  Depending on the dinner, Elijah will sometimes help with the prep.  At 5:30 my hubby gets home and we sit down to dinner.  After dinner we have our family Bible lesson, and then clean up dinner and get baths.  By 7:00 the boys are playing in their room and bedtime is 8:00.  

That is a typical day in our homeschool!!  I have a schedule that we try to follow and that helps our day run pretty smoothly for the most part.

This post is linking up to the iHomeschool Network Not Back to School Hop!!

The First week of School

This past week was our first "official" week of school.   We had been doing some stuff for about 2 weeks, I decided to ease into in to.  So this past week we did our full on schedule!  My boys did fantastic!  Mommy on the other hand was a little frazzled some days.  I am still trying to work out finding time for my preschooler, Noah.  Elijah who is in second grade is needing a bit more "hand holding" than I was hoping for.  BUT we will once again adjust our schedule and with a little more planning on my part I think this week will go smoother.

My plan for this week is to try schooling them simultaneously at the table.   Not too sure what will happen but I am hoping for good results.  My hope is that I will be able to get them started on a paper or activity and then independently they can complete it.

Here a few photos from our first week, and few from before that as well:

Doing a little play on the table.

Having some iPad learning games time.

Noah doing his school work.

Yup some more curriculum came this week and that meant another box to play with.

Elijah doing his phonics work.

Family Bible lesson time.

Learning about the Days of Creation.

Now for the Back To School pictures:

My big preschooler and 2nd grader!

The best attempt at getting one of all three of them!  :)

The biggest news of the whole week, the tooth finally came out!!  After being loose for a very long time he finally lost it!  He has three more loose teeth so this might be an expensive month for the tooth fairy!

This post is linking up at the iHomeschool Network Not Back to School Blog Hop!!  

Our "School Room"

When we decided to homeschool I had wonderful visions of what I wanted in our school room.  I knew I would not get a room, so then came the thoughts of where could I go.  I had thoughts of using our basement, but its not finished and in order to finish it off it would cost a chunk of money, not to mention there are no windows!  Then I thought about using the babies room and moving him in with his older bothers, but I am just not quite ready for that yet.  So in the mean time I came up with using a corner of our dining room, which was already used for storing their coloring books and homework supplies anyway.  We use the work box system, so both of my boys have their work box carts in the dining room.  In each of the boxes are their work books and on top of their carts they each get a pencil box which holds 3 pencils, an eraser and dry erase markers.  All of their art supplies are in a separate place since I didn't want to buy double of everything.

To the left on the wall is our calendar board.  The carts with the colorful drawers are their workboxes.  Preschool one on the left and 2nd grader on the right.  The middle drawers hold coloring books, highlights magazines, and other miscellaneous items.  The globe I found at a garage sale for $1.50, only to get home and  have my hubby point out that its outdated, it still has East and West Germany!  HA!!  Oh well, it was cheap!

Here is our calendar board, I am thinking its going to need a bit more dressing up!  I am also using the "Day's in School" chart, "Today's Weather Is" chart, and the "Todays Temperature" chart, all from www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com.

Second came the question of where are we going to store the books, and manipulative's that come along with homeschooling?  We have a closet in our hallway that was really not used for much except a place to "hide" things.  So I cleaned that out and it has become our "closet", aka the place where their manipulative's are.  These are games, puzzles, and toys that only come out during what we call "closet time".

Lots of games, puzzles, flashcards, pattern blocks, geo boards....

This is the top shelf of the closet, this is where I keep our art supplies.

 I was able to find an amazing solid wood bookcase at a second hand store for an even more amazing price!  I was super excited!  So that is in our living room and holds our books.  I have our school binders, teacher manuals, story books and reference books all on here.  Also the bottom two shelves are for the babies toys, and books.  Which is why in the picture they are empty!  :)

Yup the baby loves to pull everything off!!  

We also have a computer in the dining room, which is used for school work.  Its a really old eMac that my hubby got on ebay for $35!!  I am really proud of him for finding such an amazing deal, it works great for the kiddos and its allowed us to be able to better control which websites they go to.

That about sums up where we do school, well so far!  We have only been doing school for about a week.  :)

This post is participating in the iHomeschool Networks Not Back to School Blog Hop!!  You can find more great "school rooms" here.

Our Curriculum

Since this is our first year homeschooling, we really had no idea where to begin!  Its so overwhelming once you begin to dig into all of the options!  Because Big E had been in public school for 2 years I really wasn't sure where I was going to need to pick up, and what he had already covered and mastered.  I know I should have known this, but I really couldn't tell from the work he brought home from school.  Reason #156 why we are homeschooling!  

When we decided to homeschool last March, it was already after Spring Break and we chose to keep him in the public school until the end of the year.  So that gave us plenty of time to come up with the curriculum we wanted to use.  So after spending HOURS and HOURS perusing the internet, talking with friends (who by the way, each one uses something different and had great reasons why they use it!), we narrowed it down to two choices.  Both of them were going to be at our local Homeschooling Conference that was in April.  So we went to the conference thinking we knew what we were going to choose, mostly because it was a boxed curriculum and it was super affordable.  BUT of course we had to muddy the waters and browse around at the other choices.  That began us to re think our choice, we really liked the second choice (which was My Fathers World) but the price tag was a little more than we could spend, especially since we would still have to add Language Arts and Math to it.  Anyway long story short... we chose to go with Christian Liberty Press, which was our first choice by the way. Its a workbook based program and everything is in it that we needed for the year.  So here is a run down of what we will be using this year.  

Curriculum for 2012-2013 School Year:

Big E- 2nd Grade:

Bible- Studying God's Word Book C

Math- Liberty Math

Phonics- Adventures in Phonics, Phonics games on iPad

Language Arts- Language 2 from Abeka

History- Our Nation Under God

Science- God's Wonderful Works, Christian Liberty Nature Reader

Handwriting- Handwriting with Prayer, Handwriting without Tears 

Poetry/ Vocabulary- Beautiful Stories for Children

Reading- Robinson Crusoe Reader

Art- Art for the Very Young

Music- Stories of the Great Composers Book 1,  Piano lesson beginning January

P.E. - Soccer in the Fall, Archery in the winter/spring

Little N- PreK 4:

Bible- Studying God's Word Book C (done along side big brother)

Math- Manipulative's, counting, shapes

Handwriting- Kumon workbook Alphabet Games, Jump Start Preschool book, practicing tracing and writing first and last name

Fine Motor- Kumon workbooks:  Book of Pasting, Book of Cutting

Science- God's Wonderful Works (along side big brother)

Reading- Read aloud time with Mom, may begin "Teach your Child to Read In 100 Easy Lessons"

ABC Jesus Loves Me- this we purchased but not quite sure I have the time for it, so some components may be thrown in from time to time.   

Art- Art for the Very Young

Music- Stories of the Great Composers Book 1

P.E. - Soccer in the Fall, Outside play

Assignment Scheduling

I was having a  really difficult time figuring out how to schedule and give assignments to my oldest.  He can read and likes to follow schedules, so I thought it would be great for him to have a paper copy of what he needed to do for the week or the day.  So after extensive searches on the internet, I came up with a few that I tried.  After two different ones (which were templates that I just filled in his info), I still didn't like how they were done.  So after some help from my husband at making a spread sheet (its been a LONG time since I have used Excel!) I worked up something that I absolutely love!  The best part is that he loves it too, we have been using it for the past few weeks.

So now all I have to do is go into my saved document and type in his assignments for the week, print it out, and hole punch it to go into his 3 ring binder!  Every morning he goes and grabs his binder opens to the correct assignment page and gets to work.  :)  LOVE IT!!!  Inside the binder I have 12 dividers  one for each month, and the assignment pages are placed in the correct month, that way at the end of the month, or year I will have them all in one place.  A pretty simple system, I am hoping it works!  You will also notice that his color is across the top, just add a little "pizazz"!  :)

Elijah’s Weekly Assignments          Week: August 13-17, 2012

Subject	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Phonics	Pages 1-3		Pages 4-5
Language		Pages 1-3		Pages 4-5
Handwriting					Pages 5-7
Spelling	Page 2 Study and Write the words	Page 2- Second Half of page	Page 3	Page 4	Spelling Test
Math	Pages 1-3	Pages 4-6	Pages 7-8	Pages 9-11	Review/ Catch Up
History		Pages 1-2 Bible Passages Genesis 1:1 Psalm 33:6 John 1:1-5 Hebrews 11:3		Pages 3-5 Answer Questions 1 and 2 on page 18
Science	Page 1 Begin Memory of Genesis 1:1-5		Pages 2-3 Memory Work on Bottom of page 3		Page 4 Activity on page 5
Reading	Beautiful Stories Pages 1-3	Robinson Crusoe Reader Chapter 1	Your Choice: pick a book to read to mom	Beautiful Stories Pages 4-5	Science Nature Reader Pages 1-5
Art		Craft from Robinson Crusoe Reader, page 77
Music					Bach page 3-6
Bible	Genesis 1:1-31	Jesus Storybook Bible- Creation Story	Pages 2-3	Pages 4-5

The outside of his binder, his name written down the side.

Inside the binder is a paper with what he wants to learn this year.

His assignment sheet, and the dividers.

For my preschooler, I also have a binder that we use for his schooling.  In it I have his Bible Verse cards, shape cards, color cards, worksheets to complete, and his book list.  I am still working on figuring out a system for him, but we are also still working out his preschool program for the year!  He loves that he has a binder just like his big brother and it makes him feel special to get his binder down during his schooling time.  I will probably try to do the same type of format for his "assignments" too, I think its working really well.  

Our Homeschooling Daily Schedule

This is our temporary daily schedule.  We have been using it loosely for about two weeks, I have realized a  few things need to be tweaked.  I have gone through and wrote down places that need work and exactly how much time each subject is taking.  Originally I had down about 20-30 minutes per subject.  I then realized that in reality Spelling and Language were only taking about 5-10 minutes each, and Math was taking about 30-40 minutes.  So we did some adjusting and are now doing Math together first thing and then he can move onto Spelling and Language/Phonics.

I also have been allowing Little N to do some work on the iPad during his independent play time, because I have not found a good system that is working with him yet.  I decided to focus on Big E schooling for a few weeks until we get into the swing of things and then I will add in Little N's preschool.

As you can see we are all color coded!  :)

Homeschool Daily Schedule

	Mom	Zach	Noah	Elijah
6:30	Wake up, shower, dress	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep
7:00	Quiet time	Sleep	Sleep- if awake reading in bed	Sleep- if awake reading in bed
7:30	Dress Zach	Get dressed	Potty and Get dressed	Potty and get dressed
7:45	Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast Brush teeth	Breakfast Brush teeth
8:10	Morning Chores	Play time	Morning chores	Morning Chores
8:30	Begin School- Calendar,   Weather, Counting	Play time at table	Begin School- Calendar, Weather, Counting	Begin School- Calendar, Weather, Counting
8:45	Work with Noah	Play time at Table	Work with Mom	Independent work- Phonics, Language, Spelling
9:00		Nap
9:15			Independent play in your room	Work with Mom- History, Math
10:00-10:15	Morning Snack		Morning Snack/ Break time	Morning Snack/ Break time
10:15			Science	Science
10:45			Work with Mom- Story time	iPad/ Computer (if work is done!)
11:15	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch
11:45	Afternoon Chores	Afternoon Chores	Afternoon Chores	Afternoon Chores
12:00	Family Story Time- Chapter book read alouds	Family Story Time	Family Story Time	Family Story Time
12:45	Play time with Zach	Play time with Mom	Rest time in room	Rest time in Mom and Dad’s Room
1:00	Prepare for craft	Nap
1:15	Art, Craft, or Music		Art, Craft or Music	Art, Craft or Music
1:45			Independent “closet” activity	Independent “closet” activity
2:15			Free Play, Outside or in your room	Free Play, Outside or in your room
3:00	Afternoon Snack	Afternoon Snack	Afternoon Snack	Afternoon Snack
3:15			Continued Free Play	Continued Free Play
4:00- 5:00	Dinner Prep	Play time	TV time (if work is done and attitudes permit!)	TV time (if work is done and attitudes permit!)
5:30	Dinner	Dinner	Dinner	Dinner
6:15	Family Bible Lesson	Family Bible Lesson	Family Bible Lesson	Family Bible Lesson
6:45		Bath/ Brush Teeth	Bath/ Brush Teeth	Shower/ Brush Teeth
7:00	Evening Chores	Evening Chores	Evening Chores Playtime in your room	Evening Chores Playtime in your room
8:00		Bed time	Bed time	Bed time