How to Keep School going all week

Still working on this one!
This year we've been using a 5-day week schedule but I'm seeing the need to revamp it and change to a 4-day schedule. It seems we end up doing 4 days anyway and at least 1 day is a catch-up or errand day.
Also recently my husbands work schedule has changed so that every other Friday he has the day off and obviously it would be nice to be more free from a schedule when he is home.

It is extremely helpful to be able to make cd's of the books we are reading from librivox and take with us if we are traveling. Someday here I will get another mp3 player or maybe (Lord willing) even an ipod! I'm always leery of purchasing higher priced electronics just because of the destructive nature of children......especially mine, but I'm really missing the help of my old mp3 player in getting all of the kids readings done.

If you have and ipod or mp3 player available to you I would highly suggest using it for your kids school readings. I found that my oldest son, who often has difficulties attending to my reading with other noise and distractions going on around him, could narrate back more of a story he had listened to on the mp3 player because the other noise was eliminated.

Don't be discouraged if your schedule seems to need constant revamping and reworking....I have realized that this is just life and our job is to remain fluid in it. Be purposeful in your school time but don't fret the small stuff.

First Things First

It's taken me awhile to implement and I'm still pretty new at this but thanks to some encouragement we have begun a new practice in our home.

After Breakfast....
Before kitchen chores....
Before Circle Time....

Each child gathers their bible from the "bible shelf" in the livingroom and returns to our table. We open to the portion of scripture we are reading through (James right now) and then 1 by 1 we make our way verse by verse.
Most days we cover about 8 verses or so, 2 per reader, although while we were reading the Psalms we usually read a whole Psalm. After we read and after I've explained any hard words, we open up our journals to write. So far I'm keeping this pretty relaxed, just gently encouraging each one to listen for His voice, for a rhema. Some children do record, others simply talk it out, I always write my own thoughts in my journal.
When we finish in our journals I open up a tiny notebook that has become our family's prayer journal. I've been taking George Mueller's advice and recording the dates that we begin praying for things so that as the answers come we can record that as well. I ask for prayer requests and we read over the ones from the past days and update as needed. I also use prayer updates provided by Voice of the Martyrs so that every day our focus goes beyond our little house to the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.
Usually all of the children are eager to pray and then I close our time together with a prayer.

A few weeks ago I would have thought this daily habit something impossible to begin or keep and frankly what would have been the point...aren't they too young to understand...to hear? But thankfully my heavenly Father knows best.
My first inkling of change came on Sunday morning at church. Honestly, it's been a dry few months in my own spiritual life. But this Sunday was different, I came excited, I came feeling full, I came thirsting more. I was not coming to receive but I felt like I was coming to give! Why? What changed?
God and I had met, had spoken, had communicated in those after breakfast times in His Word with slow beginning readers, ornery little boy antics, and fussy baby snuggles.

And then today, we read about being doers of the Word and not hearers only and discussed bridling our tongues and being slow to anger. Wouldn't you know that each of us was given a chance to be obedient in these areas and to encourage each other with scripture!

I encourage anyone who reads this to make being in God's word a priority over chores, school and housework it is a thing worth doing, of lasting value.

Drop in for a Visit

A "typical" day in our house.

Well, I tried to journal just one days worth of homeschooling to put here but it was one of THOSE days around here today:) So instead I'll run down the basic gist of how 70% of our days go.

To give a bit of background I have 5 children; 3 boys (Tom-7yo, Wes-4yo, Will-2yo) and 2 girls (Ali-7yo, Emi-5yo). We are using Ambleside Online as a curriculum guide and Tom and Ali are in Year 1. I posted our daily school schedule at the end of this post so you have an idea of how our day goes school wise.

My children have always been early birds but since moving them all into 1 room I have trained them to not come out (except for bathroom use) until 7 a.m. so generally that's when our day begins. I am working to instill the habit (again) of early rising in myself so have made it my goal to get up at 6 a.m. in order to have my quiet time and preparation for the day.

Our Morning Routine goes something like this:

• Everyone Dressed


• Beds Made


• Free Play til Breakfast (Emi is my breakfast helper)
  
  

After breakfast we move onto Chore Time:

• Kitchen Chores
  
  


• Room Chores-the older 4 children each have a room assigned to them to clean everyday.

By now in our morning it is about 10ish so we are ready to start our school. I gather all of the kids into the livingroom for our Morning School session. We spend the next 1-1 1/2 hours in this room moving through most of our reading assignments and other group activities. I do require that all of the children stay in this room and for our bible reading, poetry, and preschool readings the 3 non-schoolers must be seated on the couch sitting quietly, after that we move onto the schoolers reading assignments and the younger 3 are free to play quietly in the room.



Morning School Session:

• Say the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag


• Sing weekly hymn and folksong assignment


• Read preschool bible story


• Read daily poetry selection


• Read Beatrix Potter story to preschoolers


• Read Bible story (OT) or New Testament passage (Tom, Ali and I are reading through Mark using their new KJV bibles. We alternate days with OT stories and NT reading.)


• Read Scripture and/or poetry memory selection


• Read daily school assignments (this one is flexible and sometimes doesn't get accomplished until later in the day.

Now this may seem like a lot of reading but there are plenty of breaks and diversions throughout and we are very flexible with the order of this list and on some days only accomplish a couple of them.

By now it's time to prepare lunch so we break up in order for me to make lunch and the kiddos to get in some more free play time. Tom is my lunch helper.

After lunch we do our kitchen chores again and then I take a bit of a break before naptime and the rest of school.

Here is what our afternoon generally looks like although not one day is exactly the same as another.

• Will down for a nap


• Quiet Time for kids (each child picks a few toys and books and goes to their assigned room for an hour of quiet, alone play) Computer or Nap time for mom.


• Disciplinary Studies - Math, Copywork, Reading Lesson, Assigned readings


• Computer Time for kids (Each child is allowed 15 mintues of computer play time)


• Read Aloud/Laundry Folding (I am still working on consistently doing this in our afternoon.)


• Quick Clean livingroom, kitchen and hallway floors

That's pretty much it for our day. Some days some of these things get bumped til after daddy gets home but on most days we finish before he comes.

Our evenings are relaxed and full of play and interaction and before bedtime I sit back down with the kids and we read a couple of chapters in our current read-aloud selection.



Thanks for stopping by for a quick and brief visit.

My school schedule was inspired by Lindafay at Higher up and Further In. Previously I had a much more complicated and detailed schedule that was similar to Sonlight's layout. I am loving how simple this format is and how easy it makes my life. I keep this in a binder along with a printout of the weekly schedule from Ambleside. We are in the last few weeks of our 2nd term so I'll be making up a new schedule soon and will be tweaking it a bit.

In the Groove

What a nice week it has been so far.

After the craziness and distraction (all good) that December brings it is so nice to just stay home and be home and work in our home.

We seem to have hit on a pretty good routine for school and daily life right now so the days clip along at a pretty good rate and we are covering all of our bases while having a bit of fun.

With the new baby coming in just a short 20 weeks I feel the need to correct some training and disciplining problems that have cropped up and been growing with each of the children. So I have put that at the top of my list for each and everyday.

I have also been impressed to use this time in training the daily habit of picking up the house. Alissa, Thomas, Emily and Wesley are each assigned a room to take care of for a duration of 12 weeks. They have 4 chores that must be accomplished in their "room" each morning without fail. I have been spending this week making sure that they are completing these chores properly and weaning them off of my help during their 30-minute clean time.
I also use these as commission chores for which they do get paid a small amount for each chore accomplished.

I have also been trying to catch up in the kitchen after being down for the count for several days due to a bad cold. Normally I would dump my kids in front of some movies so that I could get this done, but we are on a bit of a media fast at the moment so I have asked them to help me out by adding an extra 15 minutes after meal clean up chores are done. They have blessedly cooperated and after doing this 4 different times I only have a couple of nasty pans to wash and a couple piles of clutter to get cleaned up.

It is such a mistake to think that are children are not only capable of doing many tasks around the house but very detrimental not to train and include them in on these things. The kids and I do have a good time working together and have become quite the cleaning team:) Hopefully by the time the baby comes these habits will be instilled as well as cheerful working attitudes so that the transition will be a bit less bumpy.