Sharing extra about P’s homeschool curriculum and the way we construction our days. For extra about why we determined to homeschool, try this put up.
Hello pals! How are you? I hope that you simply’re having an exquisite morning. I’ve a few consumer calls right this moment, homeschool enjoyable, and we’re going to take a day hike. What are you as much as?
For right this moment’s put up, I needed to speak extra about how we construction our days now that we’re in week 3 of homeschooling. It’s value mentioning right here that day by day is completely different and these are simply packing containers we verify every day. The fantastic thing about homeschool is that it’s versatile. It takes far much less time than conventional college, 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 pals who’ve provided with assist and recommendation; I’ll take all the ideas I can get!
I’m additionally SO grateful to Brittany from A Wholesome Slice of Life who jumped in, hopped on the telephone with me after I despatched her a brilliant 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.
Although I’m nonetheless figuring this out, I needed to share this put up for my pals on the market who’re contemplating homeschool, however are tremendous intimidated, simply as I used to be. I believed I’d need to be a *instructor* to be good at this. You don’t must have a instructing background. You simply want to search out the proper curriculum match (and know you possibly can change at any time), have a bit endurance and adaptability, and proceed to indicate love and endurance to your kiddo. <3
Our homeschool curriculum and the way we construction our days
For probably the most half, right here’s how the day goes:
We get up and take Liv to high school. We come house, P has breakfast, I give her a 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 couple of emails or put out work fires) and we begin *college* at 9. I sit on the desk along with her and eat my breakfast as we work collectively.
Virtually all the curriculum we’re utilizing is plug and play, which implies you open the e-book, learn the lesson, reply the questions, and transfer on. (Virtually every part beneath was really helpful 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’ college (they’d 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 may 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 by artistic writing. We simply began however I really feel like she’s already realized rather a lot from this textbook. She realized cursive this 12 months, 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 technique. 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 check of time and she or he LOVES it. We’re each usually cracking up in some unspecified time in the future whereas studying about Fudge and his antics.
Science + Social Research / Geography – about 2x per week every
I’m nonetheless attempting to determine a plan for this, however not so anxious about it since we’re near summer time. 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 undertaking 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 might 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 developing a curler coaster.
Since we’re simply planning on homeschooling till fifth grade, I’m going to achieve out to Liv’s college to see what the expectations are for rising fifth graders for science and social research/geography so I can be 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:
Once we made this determination, I informed P that I beloved hanging out along 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, modifying, podcast interviews, no matter I must 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 house 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. In addition to 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, capturing 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 screen time. Since she has basketball at night time and we’re chasing round with Liv to bounce lessons, she often doesn’t get display screen time within the evenings.
The times shuffle round. Generally I’ll have an appointment within the morning, or educate a barre class, so we do college 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 verify 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 12 months 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 means that you can meet the child the place they’re. In the event that they’re progressing rapidly in a topic, you possibly can progress together with them, or take extra time on sure topics in the event that they want it.
You probably have any concepts for enjoyable science initiatives or any social research and geography sources, I’d recognize it a lot! Additionally, if there are any questions I can reply in future posts, please lmk!
xoxo
Gina
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