I thought I'd blog a bit about what we do during homeschool and how we set up our days, activities and more.We do homeschool in the mornings mon-wed, from 9-11:30, and in the afternoons on thursday from 1-3. We take every Friday off, but will start to do field trips on that day also.
This is how our days are set up...
Every day from Monday-Thursday includes these:
Reading, Writing, Math and Devotional (scripture stories and discussion).
For Reading, we use a book called "Teach your child to read in 100 simple lessons"(an amazon buy that a friend of mine told me about). The boys really love it. Since 'A' is already pretty good at reading, we usually do a couple lessons a day. Sometimes Roo is up for more than 1 lesson a day, but it just depends on the day. We also have solo reading time. While I'm going over the daily reading lesson with one of them, the other one gets to pick out books that they want to look at/read on their own.
For Writing we do different things each day. We have a few white-board writing books that they can practice their alphabet with. During our reading lessons, there is always a "sounds writing" portion that they do daily also. If we are learning about a certain concept, subject or theme, I'll have them write out words that relate to it. We also incorporate an LDS pre-school curriculum called "Walk Beside Me" that I found on THIS website. Every week is a different letter, and comes with free printable worksheets that we do. During writing, Roo will work on wiriting the letter of that week from the curriculum, while 'A' and I work on more difficult words. Sometimes we'll even write a little story, or work on a previously started research project.
For Math we bought a few things. We have a multiplication chart, a little push-button game for addition and subtraction, and a few books. One book is all math lessons, specifically for grade 1 "Math Smart Level 1". The other book is called 'The complete Canadian Curriculum grade 1". I'll add extra little math lessons, like counting by 2s, 5s and 10s, or doing math with objects or outside. Roo does printables from the pre-school curriculum while we work on math lessons, unless its a lesson he finds interesting.
For Devotional we read a verse of scripture, read aloud by 'A'. Then I read them a scripture story from 'Book of Mormon Stories" and discuss it with them if they have questions. We go over the "Walk beside me" letter of the week. For example, this week is the letter "F" for "Families are Forever". It inclues a scripture, a song and a little story or description.
Monday's extra subjects include: Yoga, Music and Science.
Yoga is a 15-minute episode found on you-tube, we play it on the ipad and in the living-room for the space. We use the "Cosmic Kids Yoga" program, and the kids seriously LOVE it! It's usually their favorite time of the day. The episodes are super great and really kid-friendly.
Music is just a random lesson taught by me. Sometimes it will be music and movement, or rhythm or a lesson we find on youtube about something. I also find lessons through a few other books I got given. We've learned about instruments and their different groupings. We've learned about note-types and patterns.
Science is sometimes lessons from the books that we have. We have several textbooks and other fun books on science. The boys absolutely fave thing to do is science experiments. They usually come from the book "Science Rocks". We LOVE that book. They are experiments you can do at home usually, and a lessons about each one.
Monday afternoons are free time, we don't have any extra activities on Monday.
Tuesday's extra subjects are: Piano, Social and Outdoor Fun.
For Piano, I bought the whole beginners series of piano books, and I am starting to teach them it this week. It includes theory, a lesson and an activioty book, and also comes with a CD to help.
For Social, we have lessons from a few of our textbooks. We have an kids atlas book, a children's encylopedia, a book with social/history lesson in it, and a section in our "Complete Canadian Curriculum" book on Social Studies. Occassionaly, I plan on switching this up with Health also. My school board has some online curriculum lessons for this, and I have lessons on the body and anatomy and what not in other texbooks as well.
For Outdoor Fun, it is sometimes as easy as playing outdoors with our toys or the playhouse and swings. I have made scavenger hunts and treasure hunts too. It will be a litte more tricky in the wintertime, but for now, its still warm anough to go to playgrounds also.
Tuesday afternoons are spent at the U of L. The activities change every 5 weeks. So far we have only done Track and Field, which 'A' totally loves and does well in. We are starting swimming lessons next week, and maybe soccer or Judo.
Wednesday's extra subjects are: ipad apps, artwork or research.
I usually just pick one of these 3, as we spend more time on the core subjects because Roo is gone. We haven't downloaded a ton of ipad apps yet, but we have found a few that we really like. If anyone has any that are awesome, let me know!
For Art, I have a whole bucket full of crafts and supplies, so we usually just do something random. The kids like to do whatever they want, so I set out a few supplies, or some paint or something, and they choose what they want to do with it. We'll probably do a more set art project once a month. Halloween themed for this month, and probably something around Remembrance Day next month.
We learn how to research via the internet, books we have, and books at the library. Some days we head to the librart for a few hours and research a topic, and other days we stay at home and research a topic here. I let the kids pick what subject they want to learn about.
(Roo does preschool this morning, so we have a little more one on one time)
Thursday is a catch-up day where we just finish anything we need to in the afternoon. Every Thursday morning we go to open swim at the pool, and Roo has swimming lessons. It worked out great too, because he's the only one in his class! Once a month we try and go to a program called "Big Chef, Little Chef" at the Chinook Country Kitchen, where the kids get to do their own baking.
Friday we have a free day. There are 2 stay and play programs at family centers close that we go to occassionally. There is a lego building program in the afternoons, and a library program in the afternoons also. We hope to start doing more field trips also, as they coordinate with what we are learning that week. The boys hope to do tours of the police station, the new fire hall and City Hall.
Starting in a week or so, 'A' will be doing a clay handbuilding class at the new Art Center. He's pretty excited about that.
That's our homeschooling routine in a nut-shell, and we love it!!
I'll try and post each month some pictures of fun things that we are doing:)
