Summer School

We do school year round in our house.  But our summer schedule is much more relaxed then during the colder months of the year.  In the summer, we have a basic schedule that we are free to disregard if we decide to spend a day outside in the sun instead.  We sleep in a little longer, stay up a little later, etc.  The only thing set in stone during the summer is morning devotional.

The day starts when everyone is up.  At the latest, I let the girls sleep until 10AM, but we're usually up around 8AM.  We get breakfast and wake-up enough to do our summer devotional routine.

Summer devotional starts with prayer and a hymn.  Then I read from the scriptures to the girls for 10 minutes.  Next we do our memorization boxes.  Finally, we read from our movie book we're currently working on.  That is the only part set in stone.  From our movie book, depending on how we're feeling, we'll typically read anywhere from 10-45 minutes.

The rest of the schedule changes depending on the day, but follows this general format.

The older girls that can read do personal scripture study and from literature I have assigned them for about an hour, while the younger ones spend time reading scripture stories and picture books with me.  If we already have our math curriculum for the next year, the girls do three lessons a week so they don't lose what they've already learned and have to relearn it in the fall.

We also like to do unit studies during the summer that coincide with fieldtrips we're planning or subjects the girls want to study.  We've already done a Japan unit study this summer (I'll post about that later) and plan on an art one next.

When we decide we're done with school for the day, we work together to get chores done quickly and have lunch around noon.  Then we have the rest of the day to pursue whatever perks our interest that day.  Swimming, walks, water parks, arts & crafts, etc. 

After getting the idea from another homeschooling mom in the community, we plan to also try to let the girls have more say in our daily activities this summer.  At the beginning of devotional each day, after prayer, we want to let the girls each pick something they really want to do.  We will try our best to work it in that day or week.

Washington Online School Utah

Thankfully, we are finally done moving (for the time being) and I can get back into the school routine, which includes blogging time! Yay!

Well, there have been some big changes to our homeschooling life. I was trying to plan an art unit study in which we would learn about da Vinci, Monet and Picasso over a three week period. But two things were causing me a lot of headache. The local library is TERRIBLE! They didn’t have a single children’s book on any of the painters or on art in general! So I was facing the prospect of having to pay $80 a year and travel about an hour every few weeks to use the Salt Lake County library. Then there was the aspect of trying to incorporate age appropriate science into the unit study. Add that to the stress I was already experiencing due to living with family and my husband still trying to find work, and I was ready to come unglued.

Thankfully, my sister-in-law is also homeschooling. But she’s doing it through the state’s online school. She gave me all the information and I checked into it. What a relief for my first year of school! Now I’m assured that the girls will not fall behind!

So here’s the new plan. The girls are part of the Utah K12 program, Washington Online School Utah. They will start out with language arts and science. Throughout the year, we have the option of adding up to five courses per girl in history, art, music and some languages. The K12 program does have a math program, but we’ve decided to keep the girls in the Saxon math program (for which we had already bought curriculums earlier this year).

We'll still do our school journals and family reading, in addition to the regular subjects.  And we still have the flexibility of being able to travel or have field trip days when we need them.

And we haven’t given up on unit studies, either. But instead of that being the basis of our homeschool, it will be a supplemental. We’ll do mini-unit studies for holidays and special occasions. We’ll do full unit studies (like the art study I’ve already put together) during the summer. Then, if a unit study that we’re really interested in doesn’t lend itself well to certain subjects, we won’t feel guilty leaving them out.

This has taken an immense amount of stress off of me for the time being. If the girls do not respond well to their curriculum, we’ll check into others for next year. We’re starting with K12 because it’s free. But if it doesn’t work, we’ll start looking into more purchased curriculums.

Husbands & Homeschooling

Today was a good and bad day.

Good because the girls and I maintained our morning schedule. I’m up at 5 and have an hour to myself. The daughter helping with breakfast is up at 6, the rest of the kids are up at 6:30. We’re done eating and dressed by 7, when we start our chores. Done with chores by 9, then read scriptures for 15 minutes and personal reading for 30 (morning reading is done silently to ourselves). All of this is done before Daddy gets home from work (he currently works 3:30 – 9:30AM).

Then Daddy comes home and usually causes a ruckus – this is why we need to be done before he gets home, because nothing gets done after.

I got very frustrated with him tonight when we were supposed to be doing our family reading time just before bed. I was reading chapter four of Charlotte’s Web and the older girls were listening attentively until Daddy decided to start goofing off… So we didn’t finish the chapter. After the girls were sent to bed, I kind of laid into him about needing to set an example for the children and that reading time is serious as it’s one of the homeschooling activities.

Will see how things go tonight.

Happy Days!

Today was an excellent day in the course of establishing our daily routine! Everyone got up on time, ate quickly, got to work on chores and we were done by 9am! I was so happy with the girls. After the chores were done, we read scriptures for 15 minutes and then whatever we wanted for a half hour.

Tonight, I read chapters two and three of Charlotte’s Web aloud to the family. Rebekah and Rose were attentive, but Rachel was being kind of a pain. Not sure what I can do to get a 2-year-old to be quiet during reading time at night. Will have to work on that. Robin (7 months) kept squealing during reading time, but it was nice to know she felt involved. After I finished, Dad read Mosiah 23 from the Book of Mormon aloud to the family. Then it was time for family prayer and bed.

If we are able to follow the morning and bedtime routine everyday this week, then I will add journals (for penmanship) to the routine next week.

Tentative Subject Schedule Outline

Daily Activities

• Personal reading time silent
• Personal reading time aloud
• Scripture reading time aloud
• Family reading time aloud
• Family scripture reading time aloud
• Flash cards – alphabet, colors, counting, states, capitals, countries, presidents, prophets, multiplication, subtraction, addition, division, body parts, etc.
• Math
• Journals
• Life skills - chores, cooking, etc.
• Physical education - play outside, take a walk, bike ride, etc.

Weekly Activities

• Science 2x
• Fieldtrip 1x
• Game & Puzzle Afternoon 1x
• Spelling test 1x
• Research paper or book report 1x – Rebekah only
• Arts & Crafts 2x
• Creative Writing 2x
• Library 1x

Monthly Activities

• Social Studies Project 2x
• Health education 1x

Progress Is Being Made

Yay! The girls got all their chores done in two hours today! Happy days! Thus we were able to go to the library. Our library is being renovated, so harder to find things right now. But the girls were able to find books for their personal reading in the morning and I got a copy of Charlotte’s Web to read aloud as a family at night. I read it to Rebekah when she was a baby, but have not read it to any of the others. And of course, my husband has never read it. The girls got me to promise that any books we read that have movies made; we will have a family movie night and watch it when we get done with the book.

I’m at a loss for what to do about a curriculum. We got very lucky and were able to get the Saxon math programs we needed for dirt cheap from other homeschoolers that were done with them. But I haven’t had any luck with anything else. I’ve found several curriculums that I would love to try, but they’re too expensive, especially with my husband not having a full-time job yet (wonderful economy). For now, I think the best course is to use the internet to provide science lessons and experiments for us to all do together, work with the Saxon math, and then read various books from the library on other topics. Some of the books I’ll have the girls do oral reports on to the family and others write reports. Our local library has kits that have lots of picture books on a particular subject. I think we might get one of those each week this summer and check out some harder books for Rebekah on the same subject. For penmanship, I am thinking of journal and creative writing. The creative writing, I’d fill a jar with various ideas or themes. Have the girls draw one and them give them a specific amount of time to write on the subject.

Unexpected Interuptions & Reading Aloud

Homeschooling today started off well, though a little late because I was up all night with the babies again, until a friendly neighbor reminded us of a church activity my oldest daughter was supposed to attend. I had completely forgotten. She was going on a hike and needed a packed lunch, sunscreen, towel, hiking shoes, etc. So we spent the next hour and a half scrambling to get all her stuff ready and get her to the leader’s house on time for departure. That just threw my whole groove off. But I did get a lot of laundry done! Several hours later, when she got home, we picked up on the cleaning routine where we had left off, but didn’t get finished before time to make dinner. I double checked my calendar – no events going on tomorrow to surprise me! And I kept the babies up most of the day with only short naps, so I should get a good night’s rest and be ready for tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll even get time to do some more reading and write a new review soon!

As a plus, we did get to start our reading aloud as a family today! I read from Wuthering Heights for fifteen minutes, and then my husband read a chapter from the Book of Mormon. While it was successful in that we got it done, it was not without hiccups. The girls definitely need to work on their listening skills. Also, Wuthering Heights is too advanced for the kids – I spent so much time explaining terms that we only got a few paragraphs into it. So I’m headed to the library tomorrow afternoon to try and find a novel to read aloud that is better suited to their comprehension level.