Sticking to a daily schedule

Schedule, routine, time map...whatever you want to call them, I'm just no good at sticking to them!

Sometimes life gets in the way.  We have every intention to do what we call "book work," but then an opportunity to go somewhere or do something interesting comes up.  

Field trip to butterfly nursery!

Of course, that's one of the great advantages of homeschooling--schedule flexibility.

Sometimes a kid gets fascinated with something and we end up going down a bunch of rabbit trails that weren't part of the plan.  (Our never-ending unit study of WWII led us down lots of unexpected paths and that's why we've never been able to call it finished once and for all!)  

Nature study

Again, this is a great advantage of homeschooling.

But sometimes we get off schedule because we just can't seem to stick to one for more than a week or maybe two at the most.  

I'm an obsessive planner.  I love plans.  

Plans make me feel secure, but carved-in-stone plans make me feel claustrophobic. 

I love learning along with my kids and I love checking things off the plans I've worked so hard to prepare...but I'm simply not capable of doing the same subjects in the same order every day!

Peach cobbler and family read-aloud

For that reason, I just keep a subject list and we pick and choose from it, cafeteria style.  Here is our typical planned-but-not-carved-in-stone routine.

The ONLY things that never change:

Morning Stretch
Morning Mindfulness
Poem of the Day

Our "cafeteria-style" subject choices

 Stuff we do about four days a week, in whatever order 
the kids prefer: 

Math

Literature
Writing
Proofreading Sentence of the Day
Handwriting
Thinking Skills
Foreign Language
Philosophy for Kids
SAT Vocabulary/Spelling/Word Origins
Written Conversations

Daily(ish) proofreading sentence

Rotating subjects that we typically do daily for a week or so at a time:

History

Science

Grammar

Current Events

Art

Super's latest masterpiece!

Other stuff we work around:
 

Music lessons and practice

Volunteering

Occasional tutoring

Our homeschool group's activities
Letting dogs in, letting dogs out, letting dogs in...

I'm NEVER a distraction during school!

 

I don't write dates on my plans anymore.  I used to make files with math worksheets, graphic organizers, etc. for each school day, collated, stapled, and complete with a dated sticky note.  

Then, when we inevitably got off track, I would feel stressed that we were running behind.

Now I just use a couple of crate hanging files for whatever printed material we are using.  They are ready to go when we need them but there is no such thing as "behind" because we are getting it done at our own pace.

My ultra-complex filing system

I do make monthly goals.  By the end of August I'd like the kids to finish up their Hands-On Equations kit.  By the end of September it would be nice to have a couple of books crossed off the reading list.  And by December I'd love to see major improvement in a certain kid's handwriting...

And I have made a four-year-plan for Super now that she's at the high school level.  I want to make sure she meets our state's graduation requirements, is prepared for college, and has a good transcript for her college applications, so I think it's important to at least have a list of goals. 

Summer wildflowers

But if we spend a couple of weeks doing a big block of science and then do history for a week and then focus on grammar for a bit and then get really into a book and just read for three or four days...that's just fine.  We can go in the general direction of the plan even while straying from the details (and I can absolutely guarantee that we will stray from the details!) 

Under-desk solution for squirmy feet!

Scheduling, yes, but on our own terms.  Another great advantage of homeschooling.  

Our "Book Work" for 2014-15

 I'm not sure which family member first used the term "book work" but that's what we call our formal academics around here.  We do lots of experiential learning as well, but when we sit down at a desk or table and get serious about putting specific information in our brains, we call it "book work."


So here is the basic outline of our 7th and 9th grade "book work" this year...

Poetry

We always start the day with a poem.  I've already posted about my initial poetry choices here, but I'll add that Teaching Grammar with Perfect Poems for Middle School was a good resource last year.  We got about halfway through it so we'll finish it up this year.

Math

Hands-On Equations workbook, disc, and manipulatives

 
My kids typically want to do math early in the day.  To wake up their brains, I give them a challenge problem, and they either work together on the dry-erase board or independently in their math notebooks.  I get the challenge problems from our old Singapore word problem workbooks, Math Starters, or a fun book called Perfectly Perilous Math.  There are tons of resources for challenge problems out there, and I'll bet I've used nearly all of them at some point! 

We have a few lessons to finish in Hands-On Equations before moving on to Saxon Algebra I.  We typically do a Hands-On lesson or two, then a review lesson from their old Saxon 7/6 or 8/7 books, and then a practice packet.  I make the packets in advance (I have 21 ready to go!) but not too far in advance so I can customize them based on what the kids need to review.


The practice packets are five or six pages and typically contain a Hands-On worksheet, practice pages from Saxon or Singapore workbooks, worksheets I've found online, and at least one logic grid from Mindware Perplexors.   

Mindware Perplexors logic puzzles

 Grammar and Punctuation

Last year we worked our way through the very silly and fun A Sentence A Day.  This year the kids will learn some interesting history facts from their daily proofreading sentence.  I'll just make a copy of the sentence from Take Five Minutes: A History Fact A Day For Editing and the kids will tape or glue it in their notebooks and then write the sentence correctly underneath. 

  

Literature and Writing

This year we are using Oak Meadow's Introduction to Literature and Composition I.  They have recently reorganized their curriculum and I'm not sure if this specific course still exists, but it includes To Kill a Mockingbird, A Wizard of Earthsea,  Animal Farm, and Our Town, plus grammar lessons from The Least You Should Know About English.  The course manual suggests discussion questions and writing assignments, and we also use the Notice and Note method whenever we are reading literature.

Notice and Note signposts for close reading

By the way, I can't recommend Notice and Note highly enough--it's a fantastic way to help young readers move beyond the basics of characters and plot and get into the deeper themes of literature.  Come to think of it, Notice and Note strategies are worth a blog post of their own...I'll get right on that! ;-)

After I wrote my post about our literature choices for 7th and 9th, the kids requested two more books, and I added three more, so we are going to be doing lots of great reading this year!

Science

My science-loving kids have already started their Biology I course from Thinkwell.  The lectures and course notes are great.  The quizzes, on the other hand, are kind of confusing--they appear to be written by someone who didn't actually watch the lectures.  After some frustrating experiences with poorly-worded questions, the kids decided to just watch the lectures and study the notes, and I'll make unit tests based on the course notes.  

Vocabulary

Vocabulary graphic organizer from TeachersPayTeachers.com

I believe the ideal way to develop a good vocabulary is from reading and from hearing scholarly speech.  However, it never hurts to build on that foundation!  In addition to collecting any unfamiliar words they come across while reading, the kids can choose interesting words from SAT vocabulary books for their vocabulary study.  They really like using graphic organizers for new words.  

Philosophy

Philosophy is a favorite subject around here.  We have read about two-thirds of Philosophy for Kids, and the kids have enjoyed it so much, I ordered The Examined Life so we can continue discussing Deep Questions!  Philosophy is a good subject to do before or during lunch because the questions always spark a lively conversation.

History

We have been working our way through the wonderful A History of Us series for several years.  I really like the author's approachable writing style, all the great maps and graphics, and the short-but-detailed chapters.  We typically read and discuss two or three chapters a week.  If a topic really fascinates the kids (our never-ending unit on WWII comes to mind) we do some supplemental reading and maybe a mind-map or other hands-on project.

Thinking Skills

I'm adding a new subject to our routine this year: thinking skills.  After reading Making Thinking Visible this summer, I really wanted to try some of the "thinking routines" described in the book.  (One example of a thinking routine is called "See-Think-Wonder."  After silently observing an object or a work of art for a few minutes, students are asked "What does this object/image make you wonder?  What questions come to mind?")  Trying out would be an interesting transition activity to try once or twice a week.  It's an experiment, but it should be fun, and I'm sure it will spark some interesting conversations at the very least!

What's the story here?  What does this image make you wonder about?

Foreign Language

My 9th grader will continue her German studies.  She started with German in 10 Minutes a Day two years ago, and last year she took a German course at our local community college.  This year will be her first year to work with a private tutor, so we'll see how that goes.

My 7th grader decided to switch to Greek this year.  He'll start with Pimsleur Greek and Your First 100 Words in Greek.

Written Conversations/Journaling

We usually end our "book work" days with a journal entry.  Last year, I found this really cool idea in a book called Written Conversations.  The night before, I write a brief letter to each kid in their journal, always including a personal question or two, and then they answer my questions in writing.  These journals are not graded or corrected in any way--they are just an opportunity to put thoughts and opinions on paper with zero judgment.  

So that's pretty much the gist of how we'll be spending our school days this year.  Of course there will also be music lessons, handwriting practice, note-taking practice, volunteer work, travel, museum visits, camping, geocaching, and activities with our local homeschooling group.  We're looking forward to a great year of learning together!

This post is linked to the 6th Annual Not Back to School Blog Hop!  Stop by to see what my homeschooling blog buddies are doing in 2014-15!

Reading Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Highlights from the week

We took a lovely fall walk and saw these birds flying. They were soooooo high up and I don't have a powerful zoom on my camera, so they look like a dot-to-dot here.

And we saw this handsome fellow relaxing in the grass. He didn't seem too bothered by us (but we kept a safe distance!)

We played "Which One Doesn't Belong?" (I need harder questions next time!)

We read "November" by Thomas Hood. I'm glad this poem doesn't describe our weather! As you can see, Dude gave the poem a lousy "review."

We made a fall word web, then used our ideas to write our own poem.

I'm really not sure what is happening here. I'm pretty sure I didn't take this photo.

Another homeschooling family organized a great activity: making bags for homeless people. Each bag contained a water bottle, a snack, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a bar of soap, a pair of socks, a pack of gum, and wet wipes. We always keep a few of these in our car for when we see someone in need.

We reviewed parallel and perpendicular lines, along with lines, rays, and angles. (Dude gets a little carried away with the arrows on the ends.)

We enjoyed some vanilla cake--not homemade but still very good. These pieces look tiny because this is what we got when we split the last piece!

We treated Gomez for an ear infection, and trust me, that is a challenge. Apparently he would rather hurt, itch, and run a fever than get two little squirts of medicine a day.

I put an idea from Pinterest into action. I moved our various household cleaners out of the laundry room and put them in a shoe holder on the kitchen door. It's not the prettiest decorating idea, but at least they are accessible--and maybe we'll use them more now that we can see them!

Analogies, Pilgrims, dividing hundreds, and probability; guitar, piano, and drum lessons; Scouts, karate, animal care, and whatever else that I can't remember right now! It was a fun, busy week! Hope yours was, too!

Curriculum for 2011-12

I love this time of year, don't you? Planning for the upcoming academic year is always so exciting! Especially when my kids are asking me "What do we get to learn about next, Mom?" It's wonderful to see their enthusiasm (and I'll probably need to remind myself of this moment around February of next year!)

Thanks to Michelle at Lagniappe Academy for the portable filebox idea!

Choosing curriculum can be fun, but it can also be overwhelming. There is so much out there, and what works great for one family isn't necessarily the best choice for another.

Over the years we've tried lots of materials and methods. Every year I feel a little more confident in choosing what will work for me and my kids. And every year I make at least one wrong turn! I guess it comes with the territory.

Science and History

We're making a change in our routine this year. Instead of devoting an afternoon to science and an afternoon to history each week, we're incorporating science and history into monthly unit studies. In the past we did NOEO Science and Dad taught history, using SOTW as an outline. But we tend to get really into whatever we're doing at the time, and going back and forth between science projects and in-depth history studies was too much for all of us.

I've noticed that lots of homeschooling families alternate between science and history. I'm hoping it will make it easier to really focus on whatever we're doing at the time. I'm sure it will make it easier for me to have the right materials on hand, as well!

Elephant books for our unit study

Our first two unit studies (Elephants and Be a Scientist!) are homemade. I put them together from lots of different sources, including books we already had, library books, art projects I found online and other web resources. If I ever get around to it, I'll organize them and post a link to share.

Our other unit studies for the year are based on Teacher Created Resources Immigration, History Pockets Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, Intellego Economics, Windows on the Wild Oceans of Life, GEMS Plate Tectonics, and The Mailbox's Human Body. I say "based on" because we never use a ready-made unit study without supplementing and customizing. Not sure if that means I'm creative, or just a control-freak!

My favorite science resources:
Anything by Janice Van Cleave
Anything by Ellen McHenry
GEMS
DK Books
The Way Things Work and The Way We Work by David MacAuley

And history resources:
Horrible Histories by Terry Deary
History Pockets
You Wouldn't Want to Be Series
Spend a Day Series by Ellen Honan

Language Arts

My kids would do science and history all day, every day if I let them. But into every education a little grammar must fall...

After a lot of thought, I made the decision to use textbooks for grammar and language arts this year. This may not seem like a big deal, but it was for me, because I've tried so hard to avoid any and all textbooks since we started homeschooling. I still have unpleasant memories of the boring "read-the-textbook, do the questions" model from my own school days. Charlotte Mason didn't like them, and generally, neither do I!

In the past, we've used Susan Van Zile's Awesome Hands-on Activities for Teaching Grammar, 101 Ways to Love a Book from Teacher Created Resources, Fill-in Flip Books for Grammar, Vocabulary, and More by Michael Gravois, and Grammar Games and Activities that Boost Writing Skills by Immacula A. Rhodes.

I still think those are great resources and I'm sure we'll continue to use them! And we will definitely use the Four-Square system for all our writing projects (Judith S. Gould and Evan Jay Gould.) But...I need at least one core subject to be easy and already mapped out for me. Especially since 6th grade and 4th grade language arts are so different. I just can't create a custom curriculum for everything!

From Voyages in English 4

As far as textbooks go, Voyages in English by Loyola Press doesn't look too bad. The graphics are fun without being babyish or distracting. And most importantly, the explanations are really clear. The first few lessons are a total review of what we did last year, and the kids are going to complain about that, but I think a little review never hurt anyone.

Evan-Moor's Spell and Write pages

I'm also taking a slightly easier route for spelling this year. We've used AVKO Sequential Spelling before, and it's a great system. But, once again, I needed something that the kids could do independently. I looked at a lot of spelling workbooks in a teacher supply store and eventually chose Evan-Moor's Spell and Write. I liked these because they begin with an interesting reading passage that uses the words in context. Then you practice writing the words a variety of ways. Each chapter ends with a test. However, there are no review pages or tests, so I'll have to make those on my own.

I'm looking forward to adding more poetry to the mix this year. In fact, I think we'll start each day with poetry (we used to do math first every day, but I'm thinking the kids will like reading and discussing a poem before diving into our day.) There are so many good poetry resources out there. Teacher FileBox has reproducibles for grade levels up to 6th, but mostly, we'll just use the poetry books that we already have.


Dude fell in love with concrete poetry after reading technically, IT'S NOT MY FAULT by John Grandits, and he's been creating his own ever since. Both kids love Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant by Jack Prelutsky (amazing illustrations by Carin Berger.) In fact, pretty much anything by Jack Prelutsky is fun to read and easy to memorize, if you're into reciting poetry. And Shel Silverstein, of course! We have A Light in the Attic, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and Falling Up. Oh, and an easy cure for a kid in a bad mood: make them read Runny Babbit aloud. Works every time!

Math

Math faves (minus Primary Challenge Math--I miss you, Buddy!)

Math! My favorite! ( And I never thought I would say that!) Math is where we get really creative. I try to make it as hands-on as possible. We follow the scope and sequence from the Core Knowledge series. The kids move at their own pace, and I absolutely do not rush them through anything for the sake of "keeping up" with a predetermined schedule. When it comes to math skills, we're aiming for mastery and real understanding, not "covering" lots of material.

So, using the Core Knowledge series as my guide, I put together a very flexible plan with weekly and monthly goals for each kid. Then I found games and activities to match each concept. My favorite resources for this are:

Family Math by Jean Kerr Stenmark, Virginia Thompson, Ruth Cossey and Marilyn Hill
Math Wise by Jim Overholt and Laurie Kinchloe,
Independent Practice series from The Mailbox
Pretty much anything by Marilyn Burns!
Games: Mythmatical Battles, Roll-n-Multiply, Multiplication and Division Bingo, Monopoly, Logic Links, etc. A homeschooling buddy was selling outgrown sets of 'Smath and Exact Change, so we'll try those soon.

Our "official" math games (but don't most games teach math?)

Much to my frustration and sorrow, I lost my copy of Primary Challenge Math by Edward Zaccaro. If I find it, we'll use the challenges for collaborative problem-solving exercises. We'll put one of the challenges on the white board and brainstorm together. (Can you tell I've been reading Alfie Kohn this summer?) If I can't find it, I also have a good book called Math Stories for Problem Solving Success by Jim Overholt, Nancy Aberg, and Jim Lindsey.

As allergic as we are to worksheets, there does come a time when kids just need to practice a new concept or refresh an old one. That's where Evan-Moor's Teacher FileBox comes in. Math Mammoth also has good practice pages. And if we're moving along at a pretty good pace, I told the kids we could start reading Life of Fred by Stanley Schmidt on Fridays. I love how they are excited about doing something that is (secretly) good for them!

German

German resources

We'll continue our German studies using German in 10 Minutes a Day, by Kristine K. Kershul (thanks to Michelle at Urban Cottage Homeschool for the recommendation!) We also have a great DK visual dictionary and Let's Learn German by Marlene Goodman. The labels that I put on everything when our German friends were visiting are still up, and I'm planning to add some more. The kids are looking forward to writing letters to their German friends as well.

A page from German in 10 minutes a day

Art and other fun stuff...

My big purchases for the fall, besides Voyages in English, are a pocket chart and stand, and Atelier art curriculum. The pocket chart will hold our calendar, spelling words, and cursive letters of the week, but I'm really going to use it as a room divider. The kids do 90% of their work together, but when they are working independently they need their own space. And if I let them wander off, they take forever just to decide where they are going to work, and then I have to keep checking on them, and I'm going from room to room answering questions... I'd rather have them stay in our school area, but give them their own space by dividing the room. We'll see how it works!

I must be looking forward to school--I'm already making our August calendar!

I'm excited about using Atelier for art this year. When I asked the kids for their planning input, they both said they wanted to do more art at home instead of taking art classes at our rec center. Homeschool Buyers Co-op has Atelier on sale at the moment, so I jumped on it! I have no idea what to expect, but it's art! How can it not be fun?

I'm not sure where art will fit into our routine, but I'm thinking we may just take an art day every couple of weeks or so. I'm also writing field trips into our monthly plans this year: the "do them as we have time" plan didn't work too well.

Our cozy new reading area, with favorite blankets!

We're looking forward to another fun year of homeschooling! I can't wait to check out the other links and see what you're doing! Have a great year!

This post is linked to Heart of the Matter's Not Back to School Blog Hop! Join us at the hop!




This post is linked to the 2011-2012 Curriculum Special Edition at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers! Check out the great links there!