Some things we are using

The Polyglot of the Book of Mormon
Spanishdict.com
Milestones Academy Year 4
Kindred Learning year 4

Homeschool Links

Here is another homeschool website to explore:
Trivium Academy

What our school day looks like

Our days are often chaotic and full of interruptions. You don't see the many interruptions that happen in normal life when I write this out so keep that in mind, LOL! We have disagreements, diapers (3yo son is still in diapers, yes!), or the child who spends a lot of time in the bathroom, etc. There are days that we don't get as much done, when one subject or child needs much more time. But it is so worth it! I love to be able to homeschool, it is truly a privilege!

*early morning, kids become PBS kids (prayer, bed, scriptures), violin practice/Aleks (math), get ready for the day, breakfast. During breakfast we have gospel study and memorization.

1. Math first, as much as we can do until 10:00. Some days they only work in Singapore workbooks or texts, but I like when we can also do either flashcards or a timed math sheet. My older two girls (10 and 8) also spend 1-3 hours/week doing Aleks.com an online math program tailored to their needs and state grade level requirements. My younger daughter (6) does math baseball (funbrain.com) for fun. I really don’t want to do math this long, but my kids like math and don’t want to switch subjects earlier.

2. Assigned reading, we set monthly reading goals for the Pizza Hut book-it program. Many of these come from Amblesides free reading lists, Truelight Academy lists, or others that I feel are important. They read these themselves (the older two) as silent sustained reading and the time varies from day to day. My 1^st grade daughter reads to me, however sometimes I go directly into her AO readings and read to her depending on what extracurricular things we have that day (field trips, VT, etc.). The kids come report to me as they finish reading something and narrate.

3. Ambleside readings, more narration, copywork . We follow the schedule for Ambleside as much as we can, however sometimes we get books from interlibrary loan and so that book is studied more intensely.

4. Combined subjects, foreign language, artist study, composer study, singing. These are not all done everyday.

Lunch. Sometimes we listen to books on CD (Old Testament, Pilgrim’s Progress, or anything).

5. Read aloud, history, nature study, biographies, Shakespeare and Plutarch. Field trips. I pick a read aloud from each of their AO schedules to read with everyone, we often read these at night too. We do some history together 1-2 times a week, but we still are working on this one. There are so many interruptions in the afternoons, usually due to field trips. Once a week we read from the Handbook of Nature Study from Anna Comstock and try to go on a nature walk. The biographies come from AO readings. Shakespeare and Plutarch are only a couple of times a month, but my kids love it and always want to do more. Amanda (6yo) isn’t into Plutarch yet and I don’t always require her to stay for that one.

Our school

At this time in our school we are following Ambleside Online. We are doing year 3 with my oldest dd who is now 10, year 2 with my 8-year old dd, year 1 with my 6-year old dd, and some of year 0 with my ds, who is 3. I started this school year having my 8-year old do a combination schedule. Some things she did with her older sister in year 3 and some things with her younger sister in year 1. Now I have scratched that and she is doing year 2. I am also doing an eclectic ancient history that utilizes elements of Veritas, Beautiful Feet (intermediate book list here and senior book list here) and other ancient history book lists like Sonlight and WTM.

Homeschool Articles

I came across a couple of articles for homeschooling that had some excellent points to ponder. Here they are for you to enjoy too. We are eclectic homeschoolers with a strong Charlotte Mason emphasis, but I appreciate the good found in the many other homeschool philosophies. These two articles are by Donna Goff who I recently met at a Homeschool Support Meeting. Enjoy!

http://donnasjourney.moorhouseacademy.org/?page_id=82
http://schoolofabraham.com/myvictorylist.htm

Scheduling

This year in our school we are trying something new. I have scheduled out our week and each day, as always. However, the kids pull out craft sticks that relate to that hour of school. Each craft stick is marked with something that child must do. For example, the first hour of school is for math, poetry and memorization. There are several different craft sticks that could be pulled out, such as Singapore Math, Aleks (Aleks.com), timed math, flashcards, math baseball (funbrain.com), poetry, and memorization (scripture passages). The backs of the craft sticks are color-coded to indicate how often that thing should be completed in a week (daily, couple times a week, weekly, bi-weekly). So the kids try to do as many craft sticks as they can in the hour before we move on to the next hour of school.

Our daily routine looks like this:
First hour: math, poetry, memorization.
Second hour: literature and writing.
Third hour: combined family rotations (Russian, singing, composer study, artist study, Plutarch, Shakespeare), different things on different days.
Fourth hour: lunch, listen to books on cds, and in the perfect world spend time in the current zone.
Fifth/Sixth hours: art, history, natural science and nature study, (combined as a family).

There are a few more details, but that is the basic day.

Homeschool Planning

For some time now I have been mulling over what I want to do in our homeschool this next school year. There is a great quote in Preach My Gospel that I heard in my Stake Conference yesterday, it is: "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." I am working on my main goals and objectives for our homeschool and then I will work out the scope and sequence.

One of the best things I have read about planning for homeschool was in the book Easy Homeschool Techniques. The author, Lorraine Curry, gives some great suggestions in the beginning chapters.

http://www.easyhomeschooling.com/PageMill_Images/homeschooling-techniques.gif

Another great resource I found is at the Simply Charlotte Mason website. This is an article about big picture planning.

http://simplycharlottemason.com/home/blog/2008/03/19/the-big-picture/

Our Homeschool Reading

I feel so blessed to be able to homeschool! I believe that we are all spirit children of God, our Heavenly Father. Keeping this in mind, I want to raise them the way He wants me to. For now, I feel that He wants us to homeschool so we are. We have been reading some great books that I wanted to share. Carry On Mr. Bowditch, is fantastic! (By Jean Lee Latham). It is about a young man in the late 1790's and early 1800's who loves to do math. His dream is to go to Harvard, but unfortunately he stops attending school to help his struggling family and eventually becomes an indentured servant. We are reading this as our living math book. (The kids still do regular math, we do Singapore Math texts and workbooks, plus Math Baseball for timed math at funbrain.com.) It is a must read on my list, the children love it too!

Hannah is reading Betsy, Tacy, and Tib and I am reading Betsy-Tacy to Hannah, (both by Maud Hart Lovelace). Hannah is seven. Hannah and I take turns reading to each other, I am still trying to get her to take off reading on her own. She really struggled with reading in public school. Whenever I would bring up my concerns with her teacher, her teacher would say that she was on grade level. We tried lots of things at home to help, but I think that she just needed a lot of one on one time, more than time allowed in our schedule at the time with her in school. (I took the kids out of school last April when she was in first and Emily was in second grade.) We have had to work through some guessing strategies and chunking problems and review a lot of phonics, but Hannah finished her first chapter book on her own this last month, Dolphins at Daybreak in the Magic Tree House series! I am so happy for her! She has read lots of picture books and read parts of tons of chapter books, but didn't complete one until Dolphins at Daybreak. We have started a chart on the wall to help her with vowel combinations that she struggles with. For example, 'oa' is on it with boat, goat, float in parentheses. When we read together and come across a word that she can't navigate it goes on the wall chart. Another thing that I believe has helped her tremendously is reading the Book of Mormon aloud. When the kids wake up they are expected to be "PBS kids", not watch TV, but Pray, make Beds, and read Scriptures.

Amanda (5) just finished the first set of Sam Books (iseesam.com), I am so proud of her. Together, we just finished Abel's Island, by William Stieg for her read-aloud, but she enjoys listening to Hannah's books too. In the mornings, when Emily and Hannah are working on spelling, math, copywork, poetry, etc, I have a circle time with Amanda and Miles (2) and then Amanda reads to me and we do phonics, etc. In our circle time this week we have been reading lots of fun books about cooking. We also do rhymes, finger plays, alphabet and number charts, etc. Later in the day, we include everyone with activites from the unit were are working on. This week we made gingerbread people and a gingerbread doorhanger craft.

Emily (9) reads more books than I can list, but one of her assigned reading books is Li Lun, Lad of Courage, by Carolyn Treffinger. However, she has been waiting for a new prescription for her glasses and hasn't read as much lately because of headaches. She is also reading Pollyanna, Girls of the Lighthouse Lane series, Secrets of Droon, etc. She reads about 15 chapter books a week. I have to tell her to stop reading to play. Most of her reading is before bed, but part of her day is devoted to assigned reading from me.

I am reading Mathematicians are People Too, by Reimer to Emily and Hannah. It is another living math book that we got on interlibrary loan or else I would have waited to read it when we finished Carry On Mr. Bowditch. I highly recommend it. We finished Otto of the Silver Hand last week as a family read aloud, it was a little violent for my taste (I guess that's just the middle ages), but had a good message.

Reading Together

One of my favorite things to do with my children is read. They have assigned reading books that they must read and we also have read aloud books. Right now we are reading several different things: the Treasure Seekers by Edith Nesbit, a biography about James Madison, Felicity books, The Boxcar Children (first one), the Lord Needed a Prophet, and Pilgrim's Progress. Some books we read everyday and others less often. Periodically, we stop and talk about what is going on (narration) and it never ceases to amaze me how bright these children are! Truly, they have been saved "for such a time as this".