Our Current Homeschool Routine

This is our fourth year homeschooling, and I think we're finally figuring out what works for our family, because it's been our best year yet.

With Benjamin in 3rd grade, Joanna in 2nd, Ezra in 1st, and 3 preschoolers/toddlers, here's what our days look like right now:

Early morning:
The kids are up at 6:00, and they have a little over an hour to play before our clean up/chore alarm goes off between 7:15 and 7:30.  They clean up their toys, get dressed, and do their dishes or laundry jobs.  The older kids have taken over about 2/3 of the laundry jobs, which has been amazing!!
We have breakfast, then all the kids have "book time" (reading or looking at books of their choice), while I finish cleaning up the kitchen and getting ready for the day.
On a good day, I like to read a few picture books to the younger boys, then do "morning time" with the older kids.  Morning time includes "Bedtime Math", working through "Our 24 Family Ways" devotional book, and reading a poem.  If we're running behind, we'll skip this and go straight to the next part of our morning.

Next up is our table work.  The three older kids all have a few activities that they complete at the table, while I rotate working individually with them for 10-15 minutes.  I'm currently teaching Ezra to read, by working through Alphaphonics.  He practices writing letters, then is free to draw or look at a book for the rest of table time.  In our one on one time, both Benjamin and Joanna read aloud to me, just to work on comprehension, pronunciation, and reading slowly (paying attention and not skipping words!).

For the rest of his table work, Benjamin does a couple of pages in Abeka's Arithmetic 2, does a page of handwriting practice, either from a workbook, or by writing out a Bible verse.  He also completes a couple of pages of grammar from "Daily Guided Teaching and Review for 2nd & 3rd Grades", from the Easy Grammar curriculum.  This has been a great basic grammar book to start with, but I'm soon going to be switching him to "Learning Language Arts Through Literature", which is a bit more comprehensive and includes spelling, grammar, reading comprehension, penmanship and cursive writing, and thinking skills.  I'm planning on doing this with him during our one on one time instead of having him read to me.
Joanna's table work includes doing two pages of Arithmetic 1, a handwriting page (she just finished a cursive writing practice book, per her request), and a page from a basic grammar book.  Once she's finished with that book, she'll be moving on to the Easy Grammar book Ben has been doing.
It usually takes about an hour for us to complete these tasks.

I finish up our school time by reading aloud a chapter from a Life of Fred book, and a section from our history book.  We're doing American History this year, using "A Living History of Our World: America's Story", a Charlotte Mason style history book. I simply read a section, and if applicable, the kids will add an illustration to the timeline we're making.

Then, the kids clean up the table and spend a few minutes outside while I make lunch.  I usually read a chapter from our current read-aloud (Farmer Boy, right now) while the kids eat. Then, we spend about two hours at "rest time", which means everyone goes to a separate space and does quiet activities (usually reading, drawing, or Legos).  The rest of our afternoon is free time before the craziness of clean up/dinner/bedtime routines begin!

This is our "typical" school schedule, but it only actually happens 3-4 days per week.  We take most of Wednesdays off, since Seth is home, every other Friday we have a co-op with friends, and I have put Tuesdays aside as "fun" days.  Tuesday is our day to do extra things I can't get to on normal days; art, games, sometimes oral spelling or creative writing.  We do our normal school day on Saturday, since Seth is at work anyway.

Also, this is what happens on good days! ;) We have plenty of bad days too!  The younger boys typically play together or watch a movie during school, but if one of them is especially cranky, I might need to do more with them and skip some of our school stuff.  We also deal with our share of complaining and bad attitudes!  Just today, one kid got in trouble for having a bad attitude, and one of the kids write this note:

Everything is a work in progress!  But finding curriculum that I like and works for us, and having a dedicated school time where that is my sole focus has completely changed our days and what we are able to accomplish!

A New Homeschooling Year

We're now a couple of weeks into homeschooling for the year, and I think we're well on our way to finding our groove.  We've made some changes this year, to keep up with our growing family, and I'm a little bittersweet about it.  While I still remain convinced that "unschooling" is the best fit for our family as a whole, I have added in a bit more formal school time for the older kids.  And I switched our school time to the morning, since it became very clear that doing it in the afternoons just wasn't working.  We started out doing our school time right after breakfast and chores, but I found that the kids were restless, since they just wanted to go play.  So now we are doing it right before lunch, after they have played and cleaned up.  This has helped them be able to focus a lot better, since they have already had a chance to play.  We're currently spending about 45 minutes on our school projects, and that has been a good compromise for us.  The one thing I'm still trying to figure out is our Morning Time.  We were doing this right before lunch, but now this is our school time, and anyway, it wasn't working for Simon, and therefore it wasn't working for any of us!  I've been experimenting with doing this during breakfast, and that works about half of the time, and I'm just going to keep going with that for now.  Maybe it would help to do a little more breakfast prep the night before?  I'll have to think about that.

Benjamin and Joanna were having some trouble writing a
letter correctly, so I brought out some pans of flour for them
to practice with their finger.  It worked great for them, but
everyone else had to get in on the action, and I'm not sure
I'll be doing that again in a hurry! =)

Here's what we're doing this year:

Math:
Since Benjamin is in 2nd grade this year, we decided it was probably a good time for him to start doing some more formal math, and learning how to read problems and write answers.  I really went back and forth on this for a while, because I'm not really a fan of workbooks in general, but he started asking me to make him math sheets to fill out, so I decided to take advantage of that interest.  After looking at several options, I went with ABeka Arithmetic 1.  Although he's in 2nd grade, I started with the first grade book because I knew there were probably some concepts he hadn't learned yet.  Most of it has been really easy for him so far, but he has learned a couple of new things, and I think the ease has helped make it a good transition.

I'm continuing to use Life of Fred for both Benjamin and Joanna, and Ezra often listens in, too.  We never finished the first book last year, so I started that over, and we will continue on to the second book once we're finished with that.

We're continuing to use Bedtime Math during our morning time, and I really can't recommend these books enough.  All of the kids love it, they constantly ask for more difficult problems, and their math skills have greatly improved.

Reading:
Benjamin is really a great reader and can read most things.  He does a lot of reading on his own, so I don't make him do a formal reading time, though I should probably have him read to me occasionally to make sure he is sounding out the bigger words.  He prefers reading nonfiction, so I don't use any specific books with him, but instead make sure to regularly get books from the library that he is interested in.

Benjamin is such a great unschooler!  He loves to study on
his own.  I picked up a United States encyclopedia from the
library, and he decided to make his own map of the U.S.

I never finished Joanna's reading lessons last year, so we're continuing that this year, and we had to go back and do a little bit of a refresher.  We're still using Alphaphonics, and I'm still really happy with it.

Since Ezra is in Kindergarten this year, I've started working with him on learning the alphabet, but I haven't pushed it much, since he only just turned five.

Writing:
We're spending a bit more time focusing on writing this year, especially on forming letters correctly, and using more lowercase letters.  We're not using any curriculum, but instead just practicing them in a spiral notebook.  All five of the kids have a spiral notebook to use during school time, and we use it for any sort of writing or drawing that we do.  Not only does it keep everything in one place, it serves as a good record for what we learned during the year.

Morning Time during breakfast

Our Morning Time Basket

Morning Time:
This remains pretty much the same as last year; we read a story or two, do our calendar, do Bedtime Math, read a poem, talk about something of interest, etc.  I have a science book that I've been reading through lately, which is often turns into a short discussion.  This is one of my favorite parts of our school day, so I'm hoping to find a good routine with this again.


And that's about it for our formal schooling!  I'm still trying to keep everything relaxed and simple, so I'm happy with making sure the three Rs are covered and learning everything else through living life. We still love watching Magic School Bus and What's in the Bible?, and we added in a Schoolhouse Rock DVD to our collection, and the kids have been learning a lot through that.  I love to read aloud, and we continue to read chapter books during lunch, and they still often listen to Story of the World while I'm preparing lunch.  We listened to the first book twice last year, so this year we're listening to the second book.  They have been really interested in American history as well, so we often have discussions about topics related to that, or pick up books from the library to read.  The four older kids are involved in AWANA this year, and we also are continuing our homeschool co-op that we started several months ago.  The homeschool group that we joined offers several family sports at different times of the year, so right now we all go play soccer on Monday nights.

That's all I can think of for now!  I've had mixed feelings about doing some of these more "formal" things, but overall I think we have a good mix of formal and relaxed schooling going on, so we're going to keep it up for now!

First Day of School 2015

So, I guess we've kind of started a tradition of starting school at the end of September, which is totally fine by me!  =)

We had our first day last week, so of course we took some pictures.  Unfortunately, it was not our finest hour for picture-taking, but oh, well!

The good news is that so far everyone is excited about doing, as they call it, "school supplies"!  Ha!  =)  Hopefully that enthusiasm keeps up!

Homeschooling has "officially" started!

We enjoyed a bit of an extended summer, and so we finally started our "official" homeschooling this week!  I had to take the obligatory first-day-of-school pictures!  =)

I originally stated our homeschool plans several weeks ago, but I made a few tweaks and additions before we even started!

I decided to add in a daily "circle time" (or, morning time, as we'll be calling it) to our schedule.  After giving it a lot of thought, and going back and forth on whether or not it was too formal to fit in with my plans, I decided to give it a shot and see how it went.  I love that it gives me a bit of focused time with the kids, and it's a great way for me to introduce them to some things that otherwise would probably go by the wayside.  After all, a huge part of my role in our unschooling is for me to introduce them to new things, and this provides me with one more opportunity to do that.  Our morning time is pretty relaxed, and includes things like reading picture books, flannel board stories, songs and/or fingerplays, poetry reading, calendar, simple group games, Bible reading, and memorization.  I don't do all of those things every day, but instead pick and choose several, so we end up spending 20-30 minutes total.  Right now we are doing this in the morning, right after snack time, but I'm open to switching it to the afternoon if I find that the morning isn't working for some reason.

Another thing I added to our schedule is a Bible program - for us, this year, we're going through the "What's in the Bible" DVD series.  We've seen a few of them, and they're so good that we decided purchase and go through them all!  So far, we've been watching one DVD per week as a family, and then once we've watched one, the kids can watch it on their own as well.  There are 13 DVDs, so my plan is to watch them all a few of times throughout the year.  I'm amazed at how much I've learned about the Bible, and the history of the Bible and the church, and we've had some great discussions with the kids as well.  

With Seth's non-traditional work schedule (he has Wednesdays and Thursdays off), we're doing our school activities on a 3-4 days per week schedule right now.  "School" days are Mondays, Tuesdays, sometimes Thursdays, and Saturdays.  Wednesdays and some Thursdays we'll be taking off because it's Seth's weekend, Fridays will be off because we'll either be doing MOPs or some other activity (like going to the library), and Sundays are off for church.  A bit different from the usual M - F routine, but I think it will work for us!  =)

My (Unschooling) Kindergarten Plans

Benjamin starts kindergarten this year.  I've been nervous about it, partly because I'm not sure I can add "one more thing" to my plate, but also because I'm not ready to give up the freedom I have with just preschoolers.  Then I start thinking years down the road and I really get overwhelmed.  I have to stop and remind myself to just focus on now, this year.  I remind myself that I don't have to do what other people are doing; that's the beauty of homeschooling.  I remember what my philosophy and my goals are.   I remind myself of the main purpose of school, which, I think, is not to teach my kids everything they need to know, but instead to teach them to love learning, and to teach them how to learn.  When I think of myself as a "teacher" I get overwhelmed and feel inadequate.  But helping my kids learn, and learning beside them?  I can do that.

And really, I don't think "kindergarten" is essential.  A lot of other countries don't start formal schooling at age 5, and personally I think that's a good idea.  Kids have so many years of school ahead of them, why not let them just be kids as long as possible?

Mostly, as we enter the "school" years, we'll just keep doing what we're doing.  Everyday Benjamin learns letters, science, math and reading skills, and it's not by sitting down and doing "school".  It's by asking questions, looking at books, talking about things, living life.  And that's the way I like it.  The kids love to ask "what letter does _____ start with?", and we figure out the answer together.  Benjamin knows tons of numbers, and he's constantly learning more.  Just the other day he had a tape measure out, and he was pointing out numbers he knew and asking me about ones he didn't.  He's great at doing simple addition and subtraction, just from me doing word problems with him at dinner (they're usually related to something we're talking about).  He has been really into whales and other sea creatures for a while now, so we check out books from the library and he pours over them.  He can identify numerous whales, sharks, and other creatures and can tell facts about them, such as what they eat, where they live, and how big they are (besides knowing how many "feet" they are, we've also been measuring things in "Daddies" - as in, a blue whale is about 90 feet long, which is 15 "Daddies" (who is 6 feet).  He knows so much more than I do about sea creatures!  And it's not because I sat down and taught him; it's because he wanted to know and he found out.  Books are very important in our house, and we read together every day.  Lately, I've been reading from a chapter book at lunch time, then each of the kids gets to pick a picture book to read at bedtime.  We've recently started doing some memorization as well.  The kids just learned the Lord's Prayer, by saying it together at bedtime.  I'm planning on having them memorize Psalm 1 next.  There is so much learning going on at our house, and I absolutely love that it doesn't involve sitting down and reading a boring book, or doing worksheets, or taking tests.  Not that there is never a place for those things (well, maybe that's true for the boring books!), but I believe learning is so much more meaningful and memorable for kids when it comes from their interests and doing what they want and love to do.

The one formal thing I will be doing with Benjamin is teaching him to read.  I think he's ready to learn, and because reading is such a key foundation, I think it's a good starting place for us.  And, since it's the only thing we're doing formally, I think we'll be able to really focus on reading and do it well.  I plan to spend 15-20 minutes a day working through Alpha-phonics with Benjamin, probably in the afternoons, which feels weird to me, because I feel like I "should" be doing school stuff in the morning.  But I try to get most of my housework done in the morning, and it's hard for me to focus on other things when the house is a mess and I have chores hanging over my head.  Afternoons at our house are much more open and laid back, so for me it is the ideal time to sit down and work on reading.  I'm open to change if necessary, but for now that's the plan.

I feel so much more comfortable and relaxed now that I have my plans figured out.  This feels like a very gentle and doable transition into our schooling years, and I'm confident we'll have a great year!  In fact, I'm getting kind of excited about it, as long as I don't think too hard about the 20 or so years of school we have ahead of us!  =)

Unschooling: Calendar

One of the things I love most about the unschooling philosophy is the idea of learning about things as children show interest in them.  Which is why we now have a calendar on our fridge.  I've had the calendar for a while, but it only just recently made its way out, as Benjamin is constantly asking what day it is, what we are going to be doing tomorrow, and, most importantly, "Is Daddy home tomorrow?"  It is only natural then, that we have a calendar to show us those things.  I always loved doing the calendar with my preschool class, so I was excited to get this going with the kids.  We don't do a formal calendar time or anything like that.  Sometime during the morning (whenever I happen to think of it), I ask them to help me with the calendar, and we count all the numbers, ending with whatever today is, and add the new number.  Then I tell them the day/date (as in, "Today is Sunday, September 22"), and we'll usually count the number of days until Daddy is "home for two days" as the kids say.  And sometimes we'll talk about anything else we have going on in the next couple of days (like church, going to someone's house or going to play time at the library).  It's just a couple of minutes in our day, something fun that the kids are interested in and enjoy, but at the same time we're learning numbers, counting, months, days, and other concepts of time (today, tomorrow, yesterday, before, after, etc.).

A funny side note: I've had to change the way I write some of the numbers.  A while back, Benjamin informed me that my 4 and 9 were not right.  I have always written an open 4, and I write 9 with a straight line, and apparently Benjamin was only familiar with the ways they're written here.  I tried to tell him that both ways were fine, but he wasn't convinced.  So I've had to adapt. =)

Unschooling: Geography

I read about this idea in a magazine years ago, and I tucked it away for "someday".

I purchased a large world map, and placed it on our table, covered with a clear plastic tablecloth.  Now, when we're eating we enjoy looking at the map and talking about it.  A simple, low-key way to start learning about other countries and their locations.  At their ages, my goal for the kids is nothing more than exposure, but even Ezra knows where the water is and Benjamin can identify a couple of countries and where we live.  Geography has never been my strong point, and I love that I'm learning a lot, too!  Someday, a U.S. map used in the same way will be a great way to learn to identify states and their capitals.