mhaddon Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 If so share what you do. As in you don't always cover the same subjects in one day, etc. I'm just curious as to how others do it :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ondreeuh Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 I have a stack that we work through. We have a golden 3-hour window of peace and quiet while the 3 y/o naps. If we're limited to that 3-hour timeframe, we focus on getting through the daily things. For us, this is math, read aloud, reader, reading, LA, and spelling. Journal and handwriting are fit in easily whenever there's a break. Science and SS are ones we save for days when we finish early or get an early start. I am trying to do science in the mornings while the 3 y/o is awake but he just has to be in the middle of everything! I wish we could just incorporate learning throughout our day but we both do better when we sit down and focus. Once the 3 y/o is up, we're all ready to stop working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embassy Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 We cover a vast range of subjects in a loopish kind of schedule. Every day is different. You can see how we do things here. We do about 5-6 hours a day. My toddler no longer naps so she is in the room playing while I school the older two. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 In our home, when my dc were little, we didn't have "subjects." We just learned stuff. Sometimes it looked like Official School Stuff, sometimes it didn't. We learned about things until we were tired of learning about them, then we learned about other things.:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhaddon Posted January 7, 2011 Author Share Posted January 7, 2011 It seems like already I'm trying to cram things in and if I take more time he does better. So we will read of course every day, but don't do math everyday. Well- we review/talk but not formal stuff. I remember doing block scheduling in HS and it was great, I didn't know if anyone did something like that? I just feel like for him trying to do it all in one day makes him shut down half way through as if I spent more time every other day he'd do better. I'm amazed your 3 year old still naps! I try to do a quite time for my almost 4 year old (since he turned 3) and he refuses. He is very very strong willed. Funny though b/c he has picked up on so much I didn't realize why he didn't want to take a nap/leave the room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2_girls_mommy Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 Well, we have "afternoon" subjects, a different one each day. We have our morning routine, but on Mondays we do art, Tues and Thurs are History, and Wed. are Science. Is that what you mean? I like doing this. I know that art won't get skipped if I schedule it in. It doesn't mean we don't do projects when they come up during the week, but it means that for sure on Mondays we are going to either do an art lesson or do a messy project. The other days, I find it is easier to focus on one topic at a time for a longer period than trying to get a bunch of different things in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ondreeuh Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 He doesn't sleep as much as night as a lot of 3 y/o kids (9-6:30?) but it's a tradeoff I'm happy to make! He loves to sleep and has always gone down for naps and bedtime without any fuss. He didn't even try to climb out of his crib and we just finally took it down when he turned 3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalanamak Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 I don't start with the same subject every day (usually mix it up) We don't do all subjects every day I school 7 days a week I start after 4 pm We use 3 writing books and 7 math books! We have science and art days when we do hours of each. We have "runs" of subjects, like a whole week of just the 3 Rs and history for the bulk of the time We interrupt what we are doing to locate every place on a map we come to in our reading Kiddo has hours and hours of gym work every week with the co-op, the Y, or with Papa I don't use the computer for teaching anything, at this point Every fall, I send papa and kiddo on a long field trip and sleep the whole time they are gone :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TechWife Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 We do Bible, Math & Language Arts everyday. History on Mon & Wed - spending extended time so that approx. one week of work gets done in these two days. Science on Tues & Fri - spending extended time so that approx. one week of work gets done in these two days. Art - assigned at the beginning of the week and completed independently. In Language Arts, we do literature all year long and writing is covered in history & science. This year we are doing grammar for a little over 1/2 the year and then switching to vocabulary. In a few weeks we will start focusing on writing skills with The Elegant Essay, but it is not a full year course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissKNG Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 We do some school in the morning and some school at night after my small girl goes to bed. At night, we alternate math and history every other night then do our chapter book read aloud. Those things require the most concentration, imo, so we do those then. In the morning, both girls participate in Bible stories and picture book read alouds. And I work on science with my big girl while my small girl does her own thing for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
threeturn Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 In our home, when my dc were little, we didn't have "subjects." We just learned stuff. Sometimes it looked like Official School Stuff, sometimes it didn't. We learned about things until we were tired of learning about them, then we learned about other things. I LOVE this! We do math and reading daily. 10-15 minutes in our curriculums or through games. Some times we do handwriting. Most days I write what she dictates to me in highlighter and she just writes over my letters. We do FIAR in the afternoons -- almost exclusively conversational -- they hate to cut and paste and do anything like a worksheet. We cook and do art or science experiments based on our unit study. They love to put the story disk on the world map each day. We read books about things that interest us. If there is something we want to know more about, we find videos or interactive websites on the computer. We like to learn a lot through games -- we have a saints matching game and a continents matching game. The continents one is new, but we have played the saints one many times. I was amazed at how quickly my daughter learned St. Bernadette, St. Therese, and St. Thomas More among others. I have decided that if there is something I want her to know I will just make it into a matching game. As we turn over the cards I throw in little facts about the contents. :D We do memory work each morning right after prayers. They love to memorize poems but we also do phone numbers, address, Bible verses. We try to have tea time with reading about once a week or so -- seasonal poems or favorite picture books, real china tea set, some sweet we have made. I like to think that we are unlike school in that learning is something we enjoy doing together. I love the Sunday afternoons that my 3yo runs in the door and says, "Mom, we forgot to do school today!" Pam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.... Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 I think we qualify as the One-Room Schoolhouse model. My kids are very close in age and two of them are completely combined (except for math). We do school all day (until about 2) and work on our Read-Aloud before bed. I try to teach as much as possible (as opposed to independent work), because I noticed that my kids get a lot more out of it. I also try to create as many hands-on activities as I can because two of my kids are hands-on learners. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faithr Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 Unschool! Though over the years we have settled on some formal stuff because we learn it better that way (handwriting, math and Latin) but the rest is through read alouds (lots of 'em going on on any given day) and lots of time to explore interests and projects. Learning happens all the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommyfaithe Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 We homeschool....we do not school at home...so what we do kinda NEVER looks like school. When someone asks my kids about school, until they are about 3rd gradish, they just give a blank stare and look at me.... I don't unschool either.....sigh....so I don't fit into that pattern either. My life is very unpredictable due to our circumstances and dh's business....soooooo....we school when we can throughout the week...whether that is in the evening, in the morning, on the weekend etc. i have been known to teach a kid to read with foam letters on the bathtub wall or on the dust of a car in a parking lot. I drill my kids on spelling,Latin noun declensions, math facts, vocabulary words, parts of speech etc. as we go through our day. I never call what we do "school." I call it learning or lessons. What we do is not really school. It is learning and having lessons. We will have lessons on the couch, in the kids rooms as they play legos or color, in the car, on walks etc. We spend inordinate amounts of time talking, looking things up in books, on Google, at the library. We watch all sorts of videos, listen to all sorts of music, make all kinds of food, craft, study art, read Shakespeare, recite poetry, write notes to eachother in haiku for weeks. Now don't get me wrong, our life is not a pretty little Victorian picture with Mom all sweetened up wearing a gown and make-up with 3 little perfect darlings in frocks looking longingly up into her face and the hazy lense on the camera. Life is lived here...hard and fast. We are not trust fund kids. We come from very poor people...and we strive to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps...nose to the grindstone....keeping ourselves far away from the public dole. I want to give my children high aspirations. College forthem is the American Dream. it is their ticket out of the inheritance of poverty. Husband and I worked very hard to pull ourselves out from the burden of poverty, but these children will not have a trust fund to live off of...and they know it. They need to be self made, self taught and self motivated to achieve beyond what we can offer to them. I have a sort of sequence that I like to follow and books I like my kids to have lessons from. I like SOTW, so we read out of there at least once a week. We find places on our wall map, color the pictures, discuss the events, narrate, draw. I try to find read alouds that go with the time period and those become bedtime reading, I like the Apologia series of science the upper levels) so my kids start those at 12ish. BUT, my dd spent 4 months on Module 1 because she wanted to read more about each scientist....so we read, and experimented, and read some more. I really like Christian Light Reading, Math and LA. This helps me to streamline my planning and gives me some goals to attain. We do most of it orally until levels 400 or 500 depending on the child. I have a set of skills I would like my kids to possess before they go on to college. I want them to be able to diagram complex sentences....if anything, it WOWS! their English 101 teachers and they stop wondering if that homeschooled kid is educated...:D I want me kids to be able to communicate well in writing. This includes spelling and grammar. I want my kids to be literate; to be able to discuss the Great books as well as contemporary best sellers. I want my kids to be able to discuss history, and current events....and understand the connections and repetitions. I want them to understand politics, economics, how to balance their checkbook, how to save money, how to invest and how to stay out of debt. I want my kids to love mathematics and see how it relates to them and the universe. I want my children to be loving and kind, benevolent to each other and to those in need. I want them to love Jesus and follow in His ways, not man's interpretation of His ways. I pulled my older kids OUT of the rat race, out of the public agenda, not to repeat it, not to remake it in my home, but to offer them more....to offer them a freedom to discover who God made them to be and not to be pushed into some artificial mold that was put there to keep them in line. Providing this has been a challenge throughout the years. I am constantly second guessing my methods and constantly researching educational theory, curriculum development, teaching strategies, etc. but in the meantime, the kids need to be cared for and the lessons taught. I learn and change, the kids learn and change, we evolve, mature, move into new interests, make new friends, develope new interests....life happens. I want my children to think independently, to act in strength and honor, to do hard things, to work hard, play hard, love hard, live well, continue to study hard. I want them to be fulfilled adults that follow their dreams and make an impact on the world around them....even in small quiet ways. Homeschooling has become a lifestyle for us. It is not an interim plan to get the kids up to snuff so they can enter the Public Schools (This is for us, if it is your goal to help your child re-enter the PS, then disregard this statement .) It is not my intention to keep my kids home because it is easy....this has been the hardest thing I have done in my life. It is not my intention to fill my kids with head knowledge without wisdom, nor is it my intention to have my kids filled with street smarts without book learning. Homeschooling, a home based business, home prayer and worship, a home based lifestyle has been our journey so far. Some of my children are now adults and have gone out into the world to seek their own lives. They are really cool adults. They are not afraid of trying new things. They are comfortable in their own skins. They know how to defend themselves and those who may need defense. They are self-teachers. They had their ups and downs like all kids. They are not perfect humans who never felt discouraged or lost, or had their self-esteem crushed by the thoughtless actions of other people (or their own stupid choices.) BUT, they are well educated...despite my many major freak outs that they weren't on course or "where they should be." Our days vary in the number of lessons or chapters we read, or pages we write. I try to keep us on a reasonable schedule because I find my little ones need a routine, but our routine is flexible. I don't allow outside commitments to get in the way of my commitment to my children, my husband or my home. Right now, I volunteered to raise these children that the Lord so graciously entrusted into my care. That is my priority. I have to work to help support our business, but I can be flexible there as well. I can look at curricula, teaching methods, lesson plans, etc. and see how they will fit into our lives. if they make sense to US, then we fold them into our day. If not, no matter how good it looks to me, I know it won't work, so I just don't go there. So all that to say, yes, I guess you could say that we homeschool in a non-traditional way. Faithe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
debbielong Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 This is our eighth year of homeschooling and each year has looked different. The first year, I had an academically-inclined first grader, a quiet 4-year-old and a 1-year-old who napped on a schedule. That year, I did a WTM approach with the first grader in the afternoons while the baby slept and the 4-year-old played. As the middle child got older, it became (excruciatingly painfully) obvious that she was NOT designed to thrive in a classical environment. We became more MOntessori-ish/CM/about as unschooly as I could get. This worked for us then. As the oldest approached fifth grade, it became (excruciatingly painfully) obvious that we all needed to resume structure and we developed a routine (not a schedule). Now, I have one third grader and he likes being on a schedule. So, we do math for a half hour then science for a half hour then we move to the couch and do read-alouds and history and ....you get the picture. The beauty of homeschooling is you can do what works best for your family. Sometimes the process of getting to that point, though, can be a little rough:). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidsnbooks8 Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 We homeschool....we do not school at home...so what we do kinda NEVER looks like school. When someone asks my kids about school, until they are about 3rd gradish, they just give a blank stare and look at me.... I don't unschool either.....sigh....so I don't fit into that pattern either. My life is very unpredictable due to our circumstances and dh's business....soooooo....we school when we can throughout the week...whether that is in the evening, in the morning, on the weekend etc. i have been known to teach a kid to read with foam letters on the bathtub wall or on the dust of a car in a parking lot. I drill my kids on spelling,Latin noun declensions, math facts, vocabulary words, parts of speech etc. as we go through our day. I never call what we do "school." I call it learning or lessons. What we do is not really school. It is learning and having lessons. We will have lessons on the couch, in the kids rooms as they play legos or color, in the car, on walks etc. We spend inordinate amounts of time talking, looking things up in books, on Google, at the library. We watch all sorts of videos, listen to all sorts of music, make all kinds of food, craft, study art, read Shakespeare, recite poetry, write notes to eachother in haiku for weeks. Now don't get me wrong, our life is not a pretty little Victorian picture with Mom all sweetened up wearing a gown and make-up with 3 little perfect darlings in frocks looking longingly up into her face and the hazy lense on the camera. Life is lived here...hard and fast. We are not trust fund kids. We come from very poor people...and we strive to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps...nose to the grindstone....keeping ourselves far away from the public dole. I want to give my children high aspirations. College forthem is the American Dream. it is their ticket out of the inheritance of poverty. Husband and I worked very hard to pull ourselves out from the burden of poverty, but these children will not have a trust fund to live off of...and they know it. They need to be self made, self taught and self motivated to achieve beyond what we can offer to them. I have a sort of sequence that I like to follow and books I like my kids to have lessons from. I like SOTW, so we read out of there at least once a week. We find places on our wall map, color the pictures, discuss the events, narrate, draw. I try to find read alouds that go with the time period and those become bedtime reading, I like the Apologia series of science the upper levels) so my kids start those at 12ish. BUT, my dd spent 4 months on Module 1 because she wanted to read more about each scientist....so we read, and experimented, and read some more. I really like Christian Light Reading, Math and LA. This helps me to streamline my planning and gives me some goals to attain. We do most of it orally until levels 400 or 500 depending on the child. I have a set of skills I would like my kids to possess before they go on to college. I want them to be able to diagram complex sentences....if anything, it WOWS! their English 101 teachers and they stop wondering if that homeschooled kid is educated...:D I want me kids to be able to communicate well in writing. This includes spelling and grammar. I want my kids to be literate; to be able to discuss the Great books as well as contemporary best sellers. I want my kids to be able to discuss history, and current events....and understand the connections and repetitions. I want them to understand politics, economics, how to balance their checkbook, how to save money, how to invest and how to stay out of debt. I want my kids to love mathematics and see how it relates to them and the universe. I want my children to be loving and kind, benevolent to each other and to those in need. I want them to love Jesus and follow in His ways, not man's interpretation of His ways. I pulled my older kids OUT of the rat race, out of the public agenda, not to repeat it, not to remake it in my home, but to offer them more....to offer them a freedom to discover who God made them to be and not to be pushed into some artificial mold that was put there to keep them in line. Providing this has been a challenge throughout the years. I am constantly second guessing my methods and constantly researching educational theory, curriculum development, teaching strategies, etc. but in the meantime, the kids need to be cared for and the lessons taught. I learn and change, the kids learn and change, we evolve, mature, move into new interests, make new friends, develope new interests....life happens. I want my children to think independently, to act in strength and honor, to do hard things, to work hard, play hard, love hard, live well, continue to study hard. I want them to be fulfilled adults that follow their dreams and make an impact on the world around them....even in small quiet ways. Homeschooling has become a lifestyle for us. It is not an interim plan to get the kids up to snuff so they can enter the Public Schools (This is for us, if it is your goal to help your child re-enter the PS, then disregard this statement .) It is not my intention to keep my kids home because it is easy....this has been the hardest thing I have done in my life. It is not my intention to fill my kids with head knowledge without wisdom, nor is it my intention to have my kids filled with street smarts without book learning. Homeschooling, a home based business, home prayer and worship, a home based lifestyle has been our journey so far. Some of my children are now adults and have gone out into the world to seek their own lives. They are really cool adults. They are not afraid of trying new things. They are comfortable in their own skins. They know how to defend themselves and those who may need defense. They are self-teachers. They had their ups and downs like all kids. They are not perfect humans who never felt discouraged or lost, or had their self-esteem crushed by the thoughtless actions of other people (or their own stupid choices.) BUT, they are well educated...despite my many major freak outs that they weren't on course or "where they should be." Our days vary in the number of lessons or chapters we read, or pages we write. I try to keep us on a reasonable schedule because I find my little ones need a routine, but our routine is flexible. I don't allow outside commitments to get in the way of my commitment to my children, my husband or my home. Right now, I volunteered to raise these children that the Lord so graciously entrusted into my care. That is my priority. I have to work to help support our business, but I can be flexible there as well. I can look at curricula, teaching methods, lesson plans, etc. and see how they will fit into our lives. if they make sense to US, then we fold them into our day. If not, no matter how good it looks to me, I know it won't work, so I just don't go there. So all that to say, yes, I guess you could say that we homeschool in a non-traditional way. Faithe This is great. Thanks for taking the time to post this.:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhaddon Posted January 8, 2011 Author Share Posted January 8, 2011 Thanks Faithe, that was a great post :) I almost completed a degree in elementary education before becoming frustrated w/ the school system in its entirety. So, sometimes it is hard for me to accept that school can be any other way. My children have started going into where we have all the school stuff set up in the evening and begging to do things and I found it odd, however they are more night owls. This is even on the weekends. I have started sending them outside to be with daddy more often during the day. It seems when they wake up they have so much play energy it is hard to focus them. I have thought about switching our times. It is also hard on us b/c my husband works a lot of hours in the summer when the weather is good and fall. He gets home after dark, or we are working outside putting up hay or in the garden until after dark so bedtime is always late and they seem to be set in that pattern. In the winter my husband is usually laid off and they want to catch up on daddy time and help him do everything he does outside. We are shortly getting ready to start maple syrup and I know that will take up a lot of time and they will want to be outside helping tap/collect/boil down. So I guess I was hoping I wasn't the only one that had a difficult schedual to work around and for someone to tell me it was ok to do "evening/night school" We also plan doing "school" all year with breaks when we need them. And for me to not do a formal math, spelling, etc. lesson every day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallorie Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 In our home, when my dc were little, we didn't have "subjects." We just learned stuff. Sometimes it looked like Official School Stuff, sometimes it didn't. We learned about things until we were tired of learning about them, then we learned about other things.:) This is my goal. It sounds so simple, but yet, I feel like i'm having a hard time achieving it, to a degree. My kids are "de-programming" from their school days, and in a lot of ways, I'm having to "de-program" as their mother. I'm starting to realize that my goals starting out were not my own, I had picked up other peoples expectations along the way. Now I'm learning what my goals are for my family, and they look a lot like Faithe's. This is a huge year of change for us, and I feel quite blessed to be on this journey. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GypsieFamily Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 We were very formal and structured when we started. Now, three years on, we are not. We are traveling australia in a caravan, so travels and learning about the history, geography, science of the place we are in is the priority, for example, in coober pedy, we focused on opals. In Central at Ayres Rock, The Olgas and Kings Canyon it was about geology, Aboriginal culture and the Australian desert environment. We use flashcard videos I made to quiz ds9 and dd8 on maths facts (+*/-) and dd5 on phonics. We also use lfc videos. They are done only in the car. We use webster's and play phonics games with dd5. We all listen to a lot of audiobooks as a family, and dd8 and ds9 read 6+ hours a day. In the evening if we aren't too tired dd8,and ds9 do cw, spelling and Latin. We figure that they are much better off learning through travels and play. When they are older, and we aren't traveling, it will be different. For the next few years, it wont. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloggermom Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 You may want to look up on the forum about using a Loop Schedule. It has worked wonders for my family. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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