The Nuts and Bolts of Our 2015-2016 School Year

Warning: a very long, detailed post follows, more for my records than for human consumption. If you read it, I hope you can find something helpful in it!

So, the school time nitty-gritty. We have a very full house this year, with a fourth grader, a second grader, a kindergartener, a toddler, and a baby. It's loud and busy here all the time. Take a look at our school pictures this year (and go back to past ones -- 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 --my word, they get big fast!), and then I'll share our schedule and booklists.

The best way to make this pig fly this year is by breaking the day down into hours and assigning each one a task, AND (very important!) planning tons of margin in the day. So I schedule about 30-45 minutes of work into each hour. This leaves us with time to regroup at the end, time to change a blow-out diaper or feed a hungry baby (hello read-alouds!), or get everyone a snack, or send them outside to run off some energy, or do a quick clean-up of the house because I can no longer see the floor, or help a kid who is stuck on a difficult problem, or whatever. And it's usually many of those per hour. So here's how it goes:

8-9: eat breakfast, get dressed, do poetry reading using A Child's Introduction to Poetry. When we finish that one, we'll move on to another poetry book. I just read two or three pages and we talk briefly about the poem. I like starting the day with something fun, lovely, and inspiring, before we hit the harder stuff.

The other day, Cory was talking about Iain's "death" in minecraft and he said, "Iain went gentle into that good night." It made my day. Week, even. :)

9-10: math. Iain is in Singapore 3, Cory is in Singapore 2, and Laina is in Singapore K. We're also using this time to drill the multiplication table and work on skip-counting. Iain has to do 30 minutes of focused math, Cory and Laina do 15. Plus the drills. Usually, Cory ends up doing more than 15 minutes, and he's making steady progress.

10-11: Language Arts. This one is tricky because it requires lots of help from me. Iain has two loops to work on, each for 15 minutes. A loop is basically a list of a few subjects he needs to work on, but rather than them being assigned a day (spelling on Monday, handwriting on Tuesday), he works on the next one on the list, regardless of the day. So if he misses a Tuesday, say, he will just pick up again on Wednesday. Loop one is spelling, handwriting, and Wordly Wise, and loop two is typing/spanish, spelling, and Explode the Code. He's using Spelling Workout C, CC's cursive handwriting book, Spanish at our local program where he does extracurriculars (he's also doing gym), and we don't yet have typing set up. I wrote the loops out in the back of his assignment notebook (more on that in a second), and he moves a paperclip down the subjects every day to remind him which one he's on.

Iain is also doing a writing class taught by me. A friend of his is in the class too. We're meeting once a week, and I'm using the curriculum I developed when I taught at Circle Christian School the year I got married. It's a hybrid IEW and other stuff program. I'd love to have a few more kids in the class, so if you're local, have a fourth- or fifth-grader, and want a free writing class, let me know!

I chose a bunch of readers for Iain this year--mostly from Sonlight's Core B read-alouds (thank you Alison for the core!), but he's such an avid reader, he's pretty much going to read for an hour or more every day whether or not I ask him to.

Cory is doing reading with my friend Sarah this year. She's been tutoring him once a week, and my word, has she been a God-send. Literally. He's doing great with her. He's doing some spelling with her, too, and some Spelling Workout A, and he's also doing Explode the Code, which he hates but is good for him. He's doing Handwriting Without Tears at the program I mentioned above (he also does art).

Laina is doing Handwriting Without Tears also at the program above (a different class than Cory; also she does ballet. Hello cuteness!), and Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. She rocks it and loves it. 

So the way this hour works is that I start Cory on spelling and Iain on his loops, and read with Laina. Then she plays or does handwriting while I read with Cory, and Iain continues his loops. Then Cory does handwriting or plays while I do writing with Iain. Phew.

11-12: Morning Time. This is my favorite part of the day. We do Scripture memory using Desiring God's Foundation Verses (we are currently learning the Ten Commandments, so we also sing the campy Ten Commandment song, "number one, we've just begun, God should be first in your life..."). We practice the poem we're learning, and talk about it (currently "The Tyger" by William Blake. And Mason quoted part of it to some friends at CFA last week and landed us squarely in the homeschool nerd camp.). We read some geography from Peoples of the World and eventually I plan to rotate geography with music (hymns and appreciation) and art (picture study and art projects). Then we do what we do best: read-alouds. To be fair, we actually schedule it here, but usually do it earlier, and often later too. We do it when I'm feeding Ivy, and if we're somewhere we have to wait. I have always practiced the very good tradition of always, always having a book with me. Now I have two. One for me, and our read-aloud.

We're reading The Green Ember right now. I have heard so very many good things about this book, and my opinion is that it's...okay. It's a fun story. Not the best thing we've ever read. I'm also reading The Far Side of the Mountain with just the big boys at night after Laina is in bed. Jeremy just finished reading The Princess and the Goblin with the boys, and as a family, we're working through The Chronicles of Narnia (we're on The Magician's Nephew, reading them in the order they were written). I have so many fun books waiting in the wings. Many are historical fiction taken from the time period we're studying this year: the Middle Ages.

12-12:30: Lunch. If we've made it this far without eating, which doesn't usually happen. We try to learn one Latin or Greek root word at lunch.

1-2: Quiet time. Mason naps. 

2-3: Afternoon Loop. Mason still naps. (Sometimes we switch this and quiet time.) This is another favorite. Our loop here is History, Worldview, History, Science. (When you loop, you can put one subject more times than the others if you want to do it more often. It's all about ratios. I hope I'm explaining this well!) For History, we're using Story of the World book two. Worldview is Apologia's Who is God? And Can I Know Him? and Science is Science in the Beginning. This is a fun loop, but to be honest, it is hard to get it done. Once we dismiss for the morning, it's hard to get traction again. That's why we eat the frogs first with math and language arts, and save the fun stuff for later--it's more likely to get done that way!

One more thing: for Iain and Cory, I started last year writing their assignments out each day in spiral notebooks. We love this system and we're doing it again this year. Sarah at Amongst Lovely Things does an excellent job explaining the system.

Okay, one more thing, really: during school, where are the little two? Mason is playing, coloring, eating a snack, running the water in the bathroom, jumping on the trampoline, coloring on the walls, or throwing things. Ivy is in the pack n play (and if she is, she's crying), in the ergo, on my hip, napping, or trying to eat cheerios under the table. It's loud, chaotic, and crazy. It's all part of my plan to teach my kids to concentrate under extreme circumstances so if they ever have to do math or underline the nouns or remember who Beowulf is during a fire drill, they'll be fine.

If you've read this far, I'm impressed. 

Also, if we can fly this pig, I will be impressed.

Homeschooling five kids eight and under: it's not for wimps.