Gearing Up For Second Semester...

As every teacher knows, you never really have a break. It's always about the next semester, or week, or lesson plan. It's never finished.

The same is true for home school teachers. I'm always thinking about ways to improve and researching ways to help the girls learn more effectively. On Monday, we start semester 2. It is exciting and daunting at the same time.

As we continue on this journey, I have been asked a lot of times what our days look like. People are very curious- as was I before I started! In order to answer those curious minds, here is what a day in our  homeschool life looks like:

(I am not including times. We don't have so much a schedule as a routine. I'll discuss this more later):

1. Devotional- we start the day off with a song, prayer, story from The Friend or the scriptures, and a review of memorizing both a scripture and an Article of Faith. We spend about two weeks on each A of F and scripture.

2. Math- we do math next. I figure that if the only things we get through are devotional and math we are good. (for the record, I never count just doing those two things as an actual school day, but during Christmas break or a day off for whatever reason, or a field trip I still like to do those two things)

3. Language Arts- grammar and comprehension reading

4. Reading- Teaching Claire to read

5. Handwriting

6. Lunch

7. Read-A-Louds (this is all of our favorite time of the day. We snuggle on the couch with a blanket and do our daily reading out loud. This includes history as our read-alouds are about history)

8. Sporadically- science

9. Sporadically- Art

10. We are usually done by 2. Then the girls play, we go to the library, we run errands, head to the park, or whatever we feel like.

The trouble is that no day seems to be "normal." One problem this last semester is that I have been baby-sitting a lot for a friend who went back to school. It was fine to baby-sit, and she paid me which was great. It was also great to have one of Claire's good friends coming over to play so often. So I don't regret it in the least- I am glad we did it. However, it did break up our day a bit and cause interruptions in school. I am learning that I need to do a better job of not over-scheduling our days to ensure that we get everything done that is needed. I also need to hold the "school time" a little more sacred and work on not getting distracted by phone calls and such.

We also have a lot of co-ops and field trips. That is part of homeschooling. I think they are important, but again- they do break up the day, and I haven't quite figured that part of homeschooling out yet. Sometimes I think I need to let go and realize that I am not tied to a standard school schedule- we don't really take Christmas break or spring break, we work through those. So if we don't get grammar or reading done, I need to relax and know that we will make it up over those break times. (at the bare minimum, we won't be taking three weeks off of school for state testing, so just that adds a ton to our learning schedule) I want this to be successful, but I need to remember that I don't need them to learn everything right now. It's an interesting process.

This semester, however, there are a couple of things I want to try:

First, I want to wake up at 6:30 to get the day going. I am not looking forward to this- I am not a morning person. But, I work out every morning- which takes about 30-45 minutes. This last semester I didn't wake up until about 7:30, so we didn't get started with school until about 9, and sometimes later if we had chores to do first. It wasn't a huge deal, because we could still end by 1:30 or 2 each day, but the kids are at their best in the morning. I think if we can start by 8-8:30 the day will go better for them. That is one of my goals for this year- get up at 6:30 and have a fresher start to the day. We'll see how it goes.

Second, I want to do science and art every day instead of sporadically. If we start earlier, we should easily be able to fit them into the routine on a more consistent basis.

Lastly, I want to try and include more actual recess time. In the winter it is a little more difficult because we can't go outside much of the time, but we can go to the local rec center where they have a field the girls can play basketball and such on. This would make our days longer as it would add about an hour or hour and a half to the day, but I think it will be worth it.

I am pretty happy with the curriculum we are using. I am really liking Miquon Math which I have started with Claire. This uses a lot of Cusineaire rods, which are fantastic manipulatives to help kids really get math. They are awesome!

The kids are definitely learning! It is really fun to see, and I am happy with their progress. There is always room for improvement, however, as all teachers understand. But, I am happy for this journey. It is going really well. The kids both say they love it as well. Hopefully things will continue to go well.