Sharing extra about P’s homeschool curriculum and the way we construction our days. For extra about why we determined to homeschool, take a look at this submit.
Hello buddies! How are you? I hope that you just’re having a beautiful morning. I’ve a few shopper calls immediately, homeschool enjoyable, and we’re going to take a day hike. What are you as much as?
For immediately’s submit, I needed to talk extra about how we construction our days now that we’re in week 3 of homeschooling. It’s value mentioning right here that on daily basis is totally different and these are simply bins we examine every day. The great thing about homeschool is that it’s versatile. It takes far much less time than conventional faculty, and you’ve got the liberty to pause, change issues, or transfer issues round, relying on what’s occurring.
It’s additionally value mentioning right here that I’m NOT an skilled and have minimal expertise on this space. I’m the newb of the newbies and am severely figuring this out as we go. I’m so so grateful that there are homeschool consultants on the market and buddies who’ve provided with assist and recommendation; I’ll take all the information I can get!
I’m additionally SO grateful to Brittany from A Wholesome Slice of Life who jumped in, hopped on the cellphone with me after I despatched her an excellent lengthy voice message, talked me off the ledge, and helped me work out a gameplan. Take a look at her weblog for homeschool data, recipes, journey, and way of life – she is wonderful.
Though I’m nonetheless figuring this out, I needed to share this submit for my buddies on the market who’re contemplating homeschool, however are tremendous intimidated, simply as I used to be. I assumed I’d need to be a *trainer* to be good at this. You don’t have to have a educating background. You simply want to seek out the correct curriculum match (and know you possibly can change at any time), have a little bit persistence and adaptability, and proceed to indicate love and persistence to your kiddo. <3
Our homeschool curriculum and the way we construction our days
For essentially the most half, right here’s how the day goes:
We get up and take Liv to highschool. We come residence, P has breakfast, I give her a little bit little bit of chill time the place she will play with toys, puzzles, construct issues, and many others. (that is the place I’ll make amends for a number of emails or put out work fires) and we begin *faculty* at 9. I sit on the desk together with her and eat my breakfast as we work collectively.
Virtually the entire curriculum we’re utilizing is plug and play, which suggests you open the e-book, learn the lesson, reply the questions, and transfer on. (Virtually every little thing beneath was advisable by Brittany)
Math- 20-Half-hour
We’re utilizing Nicole the Math Girl and Saxon Math. We used to make use of Saxon math on the women’ faculty (that they had switched to Math in Focus) and I knew I needed to return to Saxon. Nicole the Math Girl teaches every lesson (a few 10 minute video with a corny mind break, which P loves) after which you will have observe questions and 1-2 worksheets to finish. You enter the youngsters’ solutions into the pc and it tracks their grades. Every lesson takes us about 2 days to finish.
Grammar -20-Half-hour
For grammar, we’re utilizing Masterbooks, which is a faith-based curriculum. It contains image examine, memorization, punctuation, spelling, vocabulary, statement, poems, psalms, letters, and sensible utility via inventive writing. We simply began however I really feel like she’s already discovered quite a bit from this textbook. She discovered cursive this yr, so she’s engaged on answering the questions in cursive.
Writing – 20-Half-hour
For writing, we’re doing the Fables, Myths and Fairy Tales writing classes from IEW. It focuses on their Construction and Model methodology. Proper now, she’s engaged on studying fables, making key outlines, and narration (having the ability to retell the story utilizing her notes).
Studying – 20 minutes
I simply need her to get pleasure from studying for now, so we’re studying one thing tremendous lighthearted and enjoyable collectively. This e-book has held the take a look at of time and she or he LOVES it. We’re each typically cracking up sooner or later whereas studying about Fudge and his antics.
Science + Social Research / Geography – about 2x per week every
I’m nonetheless making an attempt to determine a plan for this, however not so apprehensive about it since we’re near summer season. For now, she’s engaged on memorizing the states, capitals, and having the ability to find them on a map.
For science, we do one challenge every week. The primary week, we dissected owl pellets, matched the bones on the bone sorting charts, and talked about what we discovered. Week 2, she constructed an egg drop that we may drop from the balcony to the yard whereas holding the egg intact. We talked about velocity, gravity, momentum, motion and response. This week, she’s engaged on establishing a curler coaster.
Since we’re simply planning on homeschooling till fifth grade, I’m going to achieve out to Liv’s faculty to see what the expectations are for rising fifth graders for science and social research/geography so I can make sure that we cowl the bases.
Mid-day:
We take Maisey for a stroll and have lunch collectively, make amends for a few chores, and work out a plan for the afternoon.
Afternoon:
After we made this determination, I informed P that I liked hanging out together with her however couldn’t be her cruise director all day. Within the afternoon earlier than we decide up Liv, I’ll have teaching calls, content material creation, enhancing, podcast interviews, no matter I have to do work-wise for a few hours. I’ve additionally shifted my work schedule so I’m working extra on the weekends or when the Pilot is residence from airline coaching. (We began all of this when he left, so I’ve been solo parenting and figuring all of this out alongside the best way.) Saturday is a piece blitz day now, and most of Sunday. Moreover P’s basketball sport, I’ll write/work/edit just about all day till dinner.
Within the afternoon, she’ll play with toys, work on one thing she enjoys (music, crocheting, taking pictures hoops, and many others), and if I’m caught up with work, I’ll take her to an indoor play place, to run errands, and generally I’ll give her some display time. Since she has basketball at night time and we’re chasing round with Liv to bounce lessons, she often doesn’t get display time within the evenings.
The times shuffle round. Typically I’ll have an appointment within the morning, or educate a barre class, so we do faculty within the afternoon, and we’re additionally exploring a number of the Tucson homeschool actions. There are such a lot of nice ones right here: parkour, gymnastics, artwork, co-ops, horse classes, music — I’m excited to examine them out!
In order that’s the way it’s going for now! I’m positive it is going to change over time and my plan is to get her caught up with math (she’s ending the third grade e-book now and I”m hoping to get 4th grade and most of fifth carried out subsequent yr whereas she’s in 4th grade). The opposite books are 4th grade books, so we’ll simply transfer as much as fifth when she completes them.
Homeschool lets you meet the child the place they’re. In the event that they’re progressing shortly in a topic, you possibly can progress together with them, or take extra time on sure topics in the event that they want it.
In case you have any concepts for enjoyable science initiatives or any social research and geography assets, I’d recognize it a lot! Additionally, if there are any questions I can reply in future posts, please lmk!
xoxo
Gina