We start school later than I like again – it’s almost 10:00am. We read the Bible, pray, read a Catechism lesson from Our Heavenly Father, do our memory work (poetry, hymn, Bible verse, French nursery songs, and Shakespeare). I am WAY behind on our French again, but get the feeling this week is a write-off.
Bear gets Math, EFRU, and cursive done. She is supposed to work on her map of Seabird, but ends up doing her Latin lesson instead. Latin is supposed to be done 4 times per week, but looks like this crazy-full-of-play-dates-and-sun-filled-days week will limit Latin to one day.
Meanwhile, J-jo and I do math, copywork, and spelling.
Next, I read a chapter of Our Island Story for history. J-jo volunteers to narrate it, even though officially, he isn’t supposed to narrate until next year. I am pretty impressed with how much he retains and comprehends. He loves Our Island Story and never wants to miss me reading it aloud. He gets very attached to certain countries and kings, and he gets pretty upset when history doesn’t pan out the way he would have wanted.
Seabird is also on the schedule, but Bear announces she finished it. She narrates it for me.
We head to the park to meet friends after lunch. We come home in time to eat a snack and drive to choir practice at church. Choir ends at 6:30pm and of course, I did not plan a crockpot dinner so I will have to cook something when we get home. This means the kids will get to bed very late (9:30pm). Piano gets practiced while I am cooking.
See the rest of the week: Monday Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Whew. It is 1:40pm. I am completely drained. Probably because I have chosen to blog about my week, today was full of contrary children who opposed me at every turn (It will end up that this week becomes an atypical week full of outdoor play and playdates!). Welcome to the whole picture of homeschooling and if it happens to be all peaches in your home every day, just please keep me ignorant!
I couldn’t sleep last night. A tired Mommy, who finally crashed on the couch at 3:30 am, to be woken at 8:30 am, doesn’t usually help the day.
School started at 9:30. They both did copywork. Bear did EFRU. Unfortunately, both children were quite grumbly, and it wore me out. Thankfully, my husband had most of the day off today so he was around to help.
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We read our Bible, prayed, read a story from the Angel Food Readers about how we can be good eggs and bad eggs. This story must have hit home with my son, because after the story he did the rest of the school day without complaining. We did a lesson from the First Communion Catechism and read some of Christina Rossetti’s poems. Bear reviewed some Shakespeare memory work.
I sang our new Folk Song (Clementine) to them as they ate lunch. We use this book and not the AO list of folk songs. I just choose ones I think they will like from the book.
After lunch, Bear did a written narration for her Sassafras Anatomy book(not an AO book, but one we added in). We don’t use the whole Sassafras curriculum, just the living book. J-jo read to himself from an Usborne What’s Inside You book.
Some friends came over at 2:00pm and the kids played outside most of the rest of the afternoon. After dinner, the kids practiced piano and took baths.
In looking at my checklist at the end of the day, I realize how little of it we have actually gotten to so far. I color some things in yellow I really want to get to tomorrow.
See the rest of the week: Monday Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Monday is a short day. The kids have an extra curricular program for history and fine arts that takes up most of the day, giving us a very short time for school in the morning.
We do not have set getting up times. Sometimes the pregnancy makes me very lightheaded in the morning and the best thing to do is lay in bed longer, and sometimes, the leg and foot cramps are so bad, I have to get out of bed to make them better. This particular morning nothing was amiss and I got up earlier. The kids tend to sleep in until 8 or 8:30 am (and even sometimes 9:00!), but J-jo sometimes gets up earlier – this was one of those mornings when he was up earlier.
The kids have to have their beds made, teeth brushed, faces washed, pajamas away, clothes on, and prayers said before coming down for breakfast. I usually shower and get dressed after breakfast to give them some free time before we start school.
{This post contains affiliate links of items that I use and like. Thank you for your support of this blog and our family by purchasing through our link. Note that anything you purchase once you click through one of my Amazon links will result in supporting the blog; you don’t even have to buy the item you clicked on initially!}
Today Bear took a long time to come downstairs so I started school with J after my shower. He does math, spelling, and copywork daily. He joins in for the majority of the year 2 readings but next year will do his own year 1. Today he requested grammar – very rare occurrence, since I decided, as per Charlotte Mason, that grammar is not necessary in the early years. However, since he requested it, I got out the First Language Lessons (FLL) book I used once upon a time with Bear, which I started with him in the fall.
J-jo and I did FLL and spelling while snuggling on the couch. For spelling, we use All About Spelling in conjunction with a wonderful app my husband built me. J-jo neither cares to write very much nor use the All About Spelling tiles but he loves to use the iPad. I couldn’t find an app exactly like I wanted, so I asked my husband to create something. You can see the app in action below. The good news is that it’s available at the app store, so you can all use it, too.
Bear came down for her breakfast. I read our Bible while she ate. J-jo had a snack. After teeth got brushed, they both did copywork. Bear uses Pentime Cursive, and J-jo does the copywork from Writing With Ease. He likes this program, so I kept it.
From 9:30 to about 10:00, I read aloud from Saint Anthony and the Christ Child, and we read our daily poetry (Christina Rossetti this term). The chapter from our saint book was quite long. I use various saint books to replace Trial and Triumph.
Then we went outside for math. It was 10:00 at this point and beautiful out. We had about 45 minutes left. I had to juggle both lessons and I hadn’t photocopied the worksheet portions of either of their Rightstart Lessons (level B for J-jo and E for Bear) so I had to improvise on our little whiteboards. It made both their lessons take a bit longer, but they swung on the swings and dug in the dirt while waiting their turns. See, I am not always organized and now you all know that truth.
It was time to go. Fortunately, the previous evening, I had been organized in the making of our snacks and lunches for our extra curricular program, so we brushed our teeth, got our shoes on and left the house. We used our time in the car to listen to half of a chapter of Robin Hood (an AO Year 2 literature title for term 3).
Piano practice got done after dinner. One bathed while the other practiced piano. We prayed the Saint Joseph novena and other family prayers, read half a chapter of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (our current bedtime read aloud), and then the kids were in bed by 8:00pm.
I learned about loop schedules from Sarah of Amongst Lovely Things. She has a great post on it and she also mentions it in her book, Teaching from Rest.
Basically, you just list the tasks or subjects you want to tackle and then do them in order, regardless of what day it is. If there is a task you want to get done more frequently, write it more often on the list. Hence on my list you will see spelling repeated. Usually we get two chunks done each day, which means we can get writing and grammar done on one day and spelling and reading done on the other. However, some days are shortened by doctor’s appointments and field trips, and on those days we get done what we can and just pick up where we left off on the list the next day.
{This post contains affiliate links of items that I use and like. Thank you for your support of this blog and our family by purchasing through our link. Note that anything you purchase once you click through one of my Amazon links will result in supporting the blog; you don’t even have to buy the item you clicked on initially!}
Here’s how looping works for us for home schooling.
PS. Sarah’s book comes with an audio component that is just wonderfully inspiring when you are feeling discouraged with homeschooling (or even when you are not) and she is offering Andrew Kern’s conversation on Teaching from Rest as a free download. Please go listen to it and consider buying her book. I like to reread it when I feel overcome with it all. It’s also a great read for those first time homeschool moms who are completely overwhelmed by the plethora of choices available to them. Sarah puts it all in perspective.
