Our Homeschooling Day

I have really enjoyed doing a Day in the Life posting each year. This is really a perfect point in our school year to do so- we've worked out the kinks by now and eliminated or changed anything that wasn't working, but it also helps me to notice anything else that might need freshened up.


Ender is 7 this year and having a 1st/2nd grade year. Ezra is 5 this year and in Kindergarten. Ellie is 9 months old now and adds an interesting aspect to the day (mostly keeping paper and other goodies out of her mouth!


Each of our days is a bit different. Brian and I are both in client-based work, but my hours are set. His are set too, but it is a really screwy schedule rotating schedule that takes a full month to go through one round of the schedule. This actually allows one of us to be with the kids all the time, aside from a few days per month that our schedules overlap a bit. That's when my mom swoops in to save the day.


6:30/7:00 I am up and prepping for the day. I sometimes don't get this time on my own if the sleep is more important, but my day goes noticeably better when I do.


Ellie wakes between 7:00-7:30 and she has a bottle and breakfast. If she's up early we hang out in her room until the boys join us.


7:30 The boys get up. They have a "morning routine" that they are in charge of completing, including breakfast, brushing teeth, getting dressed and making their beds. I make breakfast for them about half of the week, and they do frozen waffles, pancakes or cereal the rest of the time. I try to make a big batch of waffles and pancakes ahead of time to freeze for the mornings I need them to be more independent. My morning routine involves starting a load of laundry, making sure the kitchen is clean after breakfast and cuddling the baby.

8:30-9:00 We aim to "start school" around this time. We don't have all day to school, so for now in this season we must start "on time" if we are going to get our state required hours in.


During this time the Ender works on anything he can do independently or with minimal supervision. I'm right there to answer questions or to listen to some reading, but mostly Ezra and I work together on phonics, reading and math.

Around 9:30 Ellie goes down for her morning nap and the boys and I get to work on the things we do together- history, science and memory work.


By 10:30ish Ezra is done for the morning and he gets to go play. Ender and I stay at the table just a little longer to work on Language Arts- we review spelling, writing rules (we're learning about punctuation and capitalization right now), practice copywork, etc. I also look over his work from the morning if I haven't already checked it and we talk about any corrections that need to be made.


By this time it's usually about 11:00 and Ender heads off to play too. Ellie is usually up by now and so is Brian. He takes over with the kids so that I can run on the treadmill, take a shower without interruption and get ready for work. Brian takes care of lunch time and supervising chores the boys are responsible for.


Early afternoon sees me at work for the rest of the day. I will be back out of the studio in time to help with bedtime.


In the afternoon the boys follow up on anything they need to finish. Ezra reads out loud to Brian, and both boys practice their memory work again. They usually do a short math drill on xtramath.org and Ezra usually plays a bit on starfall.com. Brian takes care of the kitchen and laundry on my long teaching days, which is such a blessing. Otherwise afternoons are pretty free for them to do whatever they'd like. A few evenings a week Brian manages the runs to soccer or baseball practice and church. I usually finish in the studio just as they are getting home.


At this point Brian heads to work if he is on-shift and I manage bed time with the kids then spend most evenings with Netflix and knitting if I do not need to follow up on any work issues.


If Brian is off-shift we tackle kid bed time together. Usually we both have a little bit of work to follow up on but then the evening is ours.

You can see our past years here:

2012

2011

I know our day isn't the norm for homeschooling families, but we make it work. 

How do you spend your homeschooling day?

Learning All the Time

After getting a bit of a head start on our school year by starting during the hot days of July we've been able to take some time off from the more structured bits of learning. While I think we all enjoy the routine of our typical school mornings (or else we wouldn't school this way!) it is nice to have the option to call a week "off" and pursue life and projects around us.

In the last week we: 

 

Had three soccer practices

 

Had two soccer games

 

Took a trip to the ballpark for September baseball

 

Spent an afternoon at the local art museum to learn about portraits, self-portraits, still life, and landscapes

 

Made a math facts lapbook (Well, Ender did. I mostly just printed it out for him and offered advice when asked.)

 

Picked hundreds of pears (to can later in the week)

 

Went rollerskating

 

Watched Daddy complete his first 10K

And I started back to work last week, hence the "off" week. 

 

 

 

Today we are continuing our spontaneous learning by:

Making bookmarks (now that we have TWO little readers, we needed several more!)

 

Reading together- this is one part of our "regular" school day that isn't often skipped, even on our "off" days.

 

Quizzing math facts with the aid of that new lapbook

 

Prepping for some family art time this evening when I'm finished teaching in the studio.

Watching this video:

 

 

Loving this Monday morning!

School Resources: 2012-2013

Jamie invited us today to write about our plans for the upcoming school year so I thought I'd share what we have planned so far. I have to say- I am so excited to get started on these plans! I will have a Kindergartener and a second grader this fall- it's hard for me to believe that Ezra is old enough to join us for school already!


I've written in this space before about how I started planning really early this year in order to have those plans in place before Ellie was born, and I got about 90% of the way there. Our book list was selected, general plans were laid out for usage and I got about half way through setting up daily plans before the baby arrived.


Kindergarten

Ezra turns 5 mid-summer and though he'll be a young Kindergarten student we're going to go ahead and start lightly, keeping his age and maturity in mind. In our home Kindergarten is all about learning to read, learning to form letters and developing a relationship with numbers. We definitely explore topics of interest in other subjects, but that is not the goal of our year.


The Three R's by Dr. Ruth Beechick: This is the basis of our Kindergarten. I take a lot of ideas from this book in how I teach and I have to say- this book is invaluable for those wanting something a little different than a daily boxed program. It does require more work from the parent, but if you're like me (I love the planning almost as much as the actual schooling) it doesn't seem like work at all.


Victory Drill Book: Aside from the name (which makes it sound like you are relentlessly working your little one on phnics) I really love this book and use it primarily as a resource for myself. This book has list after list of words broken into groups by phonics rules. As we learn new rules for reading we play games with the words on those lists, we practice writing them, spelling them with the moveable alphabet, and once it seems like he has the rule mastered we "speed read" through 1 column at a time.


Explode the Code: Because Ezra loves to write, we used Get Ready for the Code and Get Set for the Code this past year and we will continue this year with Go For the Code and then on to ETC book 1. I wouldn't use this as our sole phonics resource, but it is a nice reinforcement for the learning we do with the Victory Drill Book.


Handwriting Without Tears: I really love this curriculum for encouraging my older son to actually practice some handwriting without complaining. It was a huge success for him last year so I'm introducing Ezra to it this year as well. Of course Ezra really loves to write already, but this curriculum will help us focus on correct formation in a little more formal way. Ezra will be using the orange book this year.


Math: This is where we off-road a little. For Kindergarten I don't use a formal math curriculum. my boys love to draw so we keep a math journal to practice the concepts we learn about through the year, but otherwise we play lots of games, count real money, tell time on the big clock in the living room, learn to count to 100 and then to count by 2s, 5s and 10s. We learn basic addition and subtraction with transformer toys (or whatever seems handy at the moment) and we eat a lot of math-related snacks. :)



Other: Ezra will also start to study the piano this year as part of my music studio (We use Faber and Faber's My First Piano Adventures for this age), there will be plenty of free art time (and a little bit structured), and he will join in on Ender's literature, science, history and geography plans as much as he'd like. We will a bit of informal narration this year also so that he understands the concept before starting first grade.



Second Grade

Ender will be 7 this fall (which I can hardly believe!) and doing second grade work for the most part. Because of his late birthday he would be in first grade in our school district so there were some subjects we put off starting until January last school year in order to be sure he was ready. He will start the school year by finishing those texts and then moving on to the next level.


Ender's resources for the year are a little different. One of the things I so appreciate about homeschooling is that we can truly work in the way that is best for our family. I really enjoy planning our own curriculum in subject areas and would feel really limited by a boxed curriculum and I love that there are resources out there that help me to plan in a way that feels right for us. That being said, many of the resources I'm going to list here aren't directly for Ender, but for me in order to help us have the kind of school year we want to have.


All Through the Ages: I use this resource to fill out our history and science book lists after I decide our course of study. This year we are studying the pioneers and westward expansion plus a unit on elections for American History. For World History we'll be doing a unit on explorers and navigation before taking a tour through the ancients.


How to Teach Spelling: This is another "list" resource that breaks down words by spelling rules and also gives suggestions for appropriate grade levels for learning the rules. Again, it does require some work on the front end for me, but once I set up our lists and approach for the year all I have to do is open and go. :)


Explode the Code: Ender knows his phonics rules very well and reads fluently, but he really likes these books and he asked to keep working in them this year. We're picking up with book 3 and we'll go forward as much as he likes.


Writing With Ease: I find this to be such an easy way to work on writing. Narration is the natural precursor to putting your own thoughts on paper. We don't use the workbook, but we use the principles and apply it to our history, science and literature readings. We will also add dictation in the second semester.


First Language Lessons: We will begin the year by finishing level 1 and then move into level 2. These lessons are short and to the point, just like Ender. That has made it a success for both of us- no busy work.


Saxon Math: We started Saxon 1 this past January after using a different math curriculum and Ender *loves* the repetition of Saxon. I didn't personally enjoy the books when I was being homeschooled myself, but I don't think I would have enjoyed ANY math text as a student. The important thing is that it works for Ender and he never complains about getting out his math work. We'll finish up Saxon 1 and head into 2 as soon as he's ready.


Geography: We're using the geography concepts from The Core by Leigh Bortins to work on learning to map the world one continent at a time. We'll also do some map work around our history work.


Science: Again I create my own book list, but our intention is to cover plant and animal life this year with a bit of geology thrown in for my rock-obsessed boy. One of our primary texts for the year is One Small Square: Backyard, which will be used for a few weeks each season so that we can see the differences each season brings.


Literature: I'll be reading aloud longer works of fiction, but I've also planned a unit on poetry and a unit to introduce Shakespeare using books by Bruce Coville.



Handwriting: Ender is going to use the blue HWOT book for printing and then work on learning italics with Getty Dubay as he transfers over to learning cursive. While I love HWOT to teach printing, I don't like the look of their cursive quite as much.

Planning (part 2)

So when you have that whole nesting thing going on and can't actually do anything about it?

 

Plan the next school year.

Seriously- plans are made and books ordered.

 

I've done as much in Baby Girl's room as I can do without moving, lifting or bending in ways I shouldn't. Everything that can be washed or cleaned or prepared for her arrival has been, well... washed, cleaned or prepared.

 

So in the evenings when I have that urge to work on just about anything I've been focused in on finishing up school plans for this next school year. I had always intended to at least have plans written out before Baby came so that I wouldn't have to scramble to figure things out in May/June in order to start the year in July, but I didn't think I'd have everything done down to the week.

And trust me- these plans will change to some degree as we start to live them in July. But this next year is planned as a continuation of last year, not as a separate entity, so many of the things we began this year will flow into next year. It is so nice to know what is working and to be able to stick with it!

 

New This Year:

1. Adding Ezra as an official student. It's really just a formality with a little more work for me (since I have to actually track his hours and keep a portfolio for him this year) because his work will be remarkably the same as it was this past year. His main job is to go about the business of being a 5-year-old boy, but he is also very different than his brother and has been begging for his own handwriting book and to learn to read and to "PLEASE have a math journal!"

Who am I to say no to a request like that?

2. Focusing a little more on science and history for Ender. Our primary concern for first grade has been fostering mastery in handwriting, reading and math. Without those three things it's really difficult to move forward in other subjects, so that has really been the focus of the year. We do also read about people and within history and science topics, but it's been very informal and the first item marked off the list if time ran short on a school day.

I'm changing that this year, planning a few weeks to introduce and explore new topics in history and science followed by "time off" to allow us to follow whatever topics Ender finds particularly interesting,

3. And of course- Baby Girl. That's going to be a new one on all of us, and I'm looking forward to it!

4. A change in math program. We switched in January from Singapore to Saxon and Ender has been one happy math student since then. I *never* thought I'd use Saxon, mostly because I used it as a student all the way through school and as a seriously non-mathy gal just the cover of the book gives me shivers. For my very mathy son? Love at first sight. It makes sense to him with very little instruction from me and the workbook pages get right to the point.

Same as Always:

 

1. Sticking with the narration and copywork suggestions from Writing With Ease. We don't use the workbook because I like to use whatever literature, history topic or science topic we are currently using, but I'm easily able to keep up with choosing copywork for Ender. I plan to add some dictation in the second semester as long as Ender shows he is ready.

2. Using our own book lists for science and history topics and literature. I've looked at many many book lists and packaged curriculums and I just can't find precisely what I want. I don't like to be told what to read or do each day (and in fact I'll probably NOT do it just because I was "supposed" to...) and I truly do enjoy building the plans myself. I know many families love to be able to "open and go" with a program, and I do something similar- I just happen to build those daily plans myself.

3. Keeping our daily rhythm. Our morning includes time together and time working alongside each other on our individual projects. It works well for us so why change?

 

Planning

I *heart* school planning.


It is one of my favorite parts of homeschooling to be honest. I love planning our trajectory for the year and then breaking it down into achievable pieces. I love watching the plans play out through the year too, but it's the anticipation that comes with those brand new plans that I so enjoy.


Phase one consists of gathering ideas. I look at a ton of curriculum online, I check out what other people with children in that particular grade are doing and get a giant list going of materials that have a possibility of working for us. Basically, I induce curriculum fog upon myself and when I'm good and muddy about all the choices out there I sit back for awhile to think.


Phase two consists of writing down goals for the year. I take all that muddiness in my brain and clarify what is important to me and my husband, what I know my kids love, and what developmentally appropriate skills they need to obtain by the end of that grade.


I've been hanging out with these goals for several weeks now, tweaking anything that didn't seem quite right, and flat out eliminating some of them that I finally decided didn't fit with our overall homeschooling goals. I think they're set now, and I'm ready to move on to phase three.


Remember phase one where I looked at a million and one books to see what was out there? Phase three is defined by culling that giant list. I eliminate anything that doesn't fit with our goals or educational philosophy. And then comes all the outside factors, and this is the land I'm currently living in:

Does this material best help us accomplish our goals?

How does it fit in our budget?

Can this material be used again with the next child?

Will my kid(s) enjoy using the material?

Am I interested in this material because it looks like "another good thing" or because it will truly add value to our homeschool that I don't have anywhere else?

It's a bit of a jigsaw puzzle really. I'm trying to decide which curriculum is a must budget-wise and then the rest is a bit of give and take- if I buy a certain curriculum I may not be able to afford another curriculum, and I always want to make sure I'm getting what will truly help us most. I'm fortunate to have access to a truly awesome library system and I take full advantage for our literature, history and science book lists so that I ony have to buy spines that we'll be using for a full semester or year.


And when I make the final decisions on curriculum I'll get to the truly fun part- dividing our year into four 13 week quarters (leaving 4 weeks unplanned to account for unexpected time off or rabbit trails), then dividing the work down into weeks.


I'm really liking the look of our plans for next year so far, and as soon as I get some decisions made you know I'll be sure to share!

Spring Birds, Part II

We tried a second version of the Spring Birds this week, this time with oil pastels and watercolors. Above is Ender's orange bird, and below is Ezra's red one:

Ender recently started to keep his colors a little bit more separate to avoid the "preschool brown" that happens when all your paints mix together.

Ezra? Not so much yet, but his most frequently chosen colors are red and black, just like he picked here.

Born to Play

Another violinist in the family...

He has asked to play the violin for so long "just like Mama", and a few weeks ago we tried it out...

Turns out, he's a natural. I really should have listened to him when he first started saying that he wanted to play the violin instead of piano. After just a few weeks he's positioning and playing like this instrument is his long-lost love.

America

Perhaps this is the last snow for this year? Or maybe it's just wishful thinking...

We picked up a few books about North America at the library last week as part of our continent studies and we've been reading about The United States first.


So You Want to Be President? is a cute book that includes lots of little facts about the presidents (who was musical and who wasn't, how many presidents were named James, the pets presidents have had, etc.) and it's been a great introduction to the names of our former presidents. Next year we will study more about the presidents (specifically the first three or four) as we learn more about early American history.


We also read America as an introduction to some important concepts and symbols in America. We learned the words "constitution" and "democracy" and learned about the American flag.

Of course, we had to make our own:

We used oil pastels for these projects, which are fast becoming the boys' favorite drawing medium. They are still learning to keep their fingers/hands/arms off their drawing unless they *want* it to smudge, but the bold colors are so much more exciting than regular crayons! We also invested in some 9 x 12 paper a few months ago and we're loving the larger size! I'm considering ordering even larger sizes for next year since this bigger size has provided an opportunity for bigger and better art work. Maybe some 18 x 24?

Where are your studies taking you lately?

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Spring Birds

Ender has been fascinated with birds over the last few months, so when I saw this project on Deep Space Sparkle I knew it was perfect for us.

We're planning to try this project with various materials, so for our first version we used crayons and marker before cutting out our birds.

Then came the difficult decision of what kind of background to draw...

Ezra's bird

Ender's bird

Next up, trying the bird project with pastels and watercolors!

Playing Catch Up

I had fully intended to participate in Project Simplify when it was announced a few weeks ago, but I realized on the first morning of the project that I just can't. This week and the next 3 are full to the brim with studio work during the week and family life on the weekends, and I just don't have spare time. And a bit of me felt really guilty over that because it's the season of spring cleaning and I'm ... not. I usually do, but the studio recital is early this year and I'm on a maxed out student load, the gray and cold of winter still isn't gone (I know it's only March, but still!) and my mind is buzzing with the next 18 months of studio planning.


A teenaged student showed up for her lesson a little early and caught me with the next 3 years spread out over my desk with highlights and scribbles and post-its and said, "You have to plan that far ahead???"


Yep. Because there are facilities to rent and I have to be able to seat a LOT of people. And there are Christmas recitals and composition recitals and composition books to have printed in time for people to purchase- and it's just me running the whole show.


And somehow I forget that this period of 6 weeks knocks me flat, even though it has every year for the last 9 years. I was totally surprised by it this past week, but I think fires have been put out and we're ready to get back to normal minus the guilt I'm choosing not to have over the boys not really having school for awhile.This is why we school year-round, right? So we can take time off when we actually need the break! So we'll consider this an extrended spring break. We will still read every day, Ender is still reading to me each day, and I'm sure a few schooly things will creep in, but mostly we're going to do whatever keeps them busy, happy, and me a little less stressed. Nothing really planned, no units or projects (unless they are completely independent).


**And to answer a few questions, yes- I'm going to post the rest of our continent units soon. I posted Asia and Australia last fall and we've since covered Antarctica and Europe and a bit of South America (though that's on hold temporarily.) I will try to post those in the next few weeks since I know you guys are either started planning or going to be soon! I'm planning to put up South America and North America after we finish the units and make adjustments to the plans. I only want to put up material we actually use!

** Yes, I'm still participating in MMM, but I'm pretty much cycling through the first week's worth of self-made clothes. Pics to come sometime soon...

Geek

Geek is an oft used word at our house, always in a positive way. We are geeks about Joss Whedon and would attend Comicon every year if we could. We are both movie geeks (though Brian's geekdom goes back way farther than mine), I'm a knitting geek, he's a baseball geek, I'm a music geek, he's a serious scifi geek.


For us being a geek involves being deeply involved long-term with a topic and constantly learning and exploring more about it. We know that people don't get it or they only get part of it (some people understand the knitting but not the comicon geekdom but some people *really* don't get knitting or baseball...)


Ender is really heavily into dinosaurs right now and is becoming quite knowledgeable. After he explained the difference between a few dinosaurs to Brian over the weeekend Brian told Ender it looked like he was becoming a dinosaur geek.


Ender: What's a geek?


Brian: It's our tribe, son.


We seek to raise geeks- kids on the exciting journey to find their strengths and build expertise on topics they love. We don't really care what kind of geek the boys turn out to be as long as they find a subject that engages them. Maybe it will be dinosaurs long term for Ender, maybe not- but these smaller experiments with long term projects are preparing him for the day when he meets the topic that will engage his mind for years.

Now You're a Boy

We took a "listen and look" walk yesterday. It was windy, but sunny and quite silly to see the world in a state of half-winter.

There were many shouts of "iceberg ahead!" as we ran into big mounds of snow left from the blizzard about two weeks ago.

Ezra insists on having a hood on outside at all times now. Maybe after being bundled up in the bitter cold for a few months he finally got used to having something on his head?

I asked Ender what we should look for to know if it was spring yet and after he answered he asked Ezra for an idea of what to look for. Ender soon realized that Ezra didn't know- it was all new and exciting information for him! Ender quickly took over, telling Ezra about buds, when the flowers would show up, warmer weather, rain, planting . . . And when Ezra said he was sad because he didn't know all those things, Ender put his arm around him and said,

"That's okay. You were just little last year- but now you're a boy and you can do the same stuff as me."

It's true- last year Ezra was two, hitching a ride with Ender and I as we went outside to explore, but this year he is three and he wants to see and find and know for himself.


I'm so excited to be able to add this little boy to our outside adventuring!

Have you been out adventuring yet this week? Take a trip out, even if it's snowy and cold, to find out what is going on out there!

Bringing Winter In

We've been working our way through the winter craft list. My boys are kings of scissors and glue during this season! Basically I printed a bunch of things for them and they have free time in the morning to make whatever project they'd like. Ezra cuts very well for his age so he's able to do most of these projects on his own, but some 3 and 4 year olds would not quite be ready for this with their own skills, but you could still cut for them!

Here are some of the crafts currently on the school table in some state of progress:


Snowman Dress-Up

Make a Penguin

City at Night

Snowman Card

Handprint Wreath


And of course there is the entire winter section at The Crafty Crow that I haven't yet dived into...



We also have a few more wintery foods in the works this week:

Peppermint Cocoa

Snow ice cream

Pioneer Woman's Mac and Cheese

Popcorn + Marshmallows =

YUM!

Okay, so maybe melting marshmallows and butter to make sticky popcorn isn't the healthiest thing to eat, but it seemed to be the perfect way to pass the time on a{nother} very cold snow day.

We received another 12+ inches of snow on Tuesday and spent much of yesteray huddled together watching movies and reading books in between the handful of students that were brave enough to venture out for lessons. The popcorn and mug after mug of hot chocolate certainly helped our moods!

Saturday = Art Day

Saturdays are the only day of the week where the adults don't work and the whole day is truly our own.

I usually spend Saturday mornings catching up on housework while Brian and the boys run errands, but in the afternoons we have fallen into a routine of making art of all kinds.

The boys were gifted some paint by number boards and Ender spent a long time hunting numbers down.

We also experimented with mixing yellow, blue and red tempras to give us secondary colors for finger painting. Ezra had never done that lesson with us, and it was fun to watch Ender get so excited to share his experience with Ezra. Ezra guessed that all the mixes would result in more red since red is his favorite color. Ender would put his hands on hips, shake his head and say, "you can't get red from that!" in his fake exasperated voice.

We also experimented with painting with cotton balls. Ezra figured out that you can rub the paint on like a paint brush and even mix colors on the page instead of in the tray...

And Ender was quick to use the cotton balls to make dots on the page as well as toothpicks for lines and "coloring", which he decided didn't work very well.

What have you been making lately?

Celebrate Winter: Marshmallow Men

Part of celebrating winter here means pulling out a few special activities that we only do a few times a year. One of our favorite activities to pull out every few months is building with marshmallows and toothpicks!

It is interesting to see how much the boys' building skills have grown after a few months away from this particular activity.

This is an easier activity if you use stale marshmallows- you can get them to stand up very easily, and build pretty tall structures, but when I asked the boys, Ender said he didn't want to do it that way- he wanted to eat them when he was done, of course!

Snow men laying on their beds....

Um, Ezra eating the snowman's head...

Take a picture of my snowman before I eat it!

 

A Day with Us

Jamie invited us to write about a day in our homeschool life, so we thought we'd share.


Our homeschool includes Ender, a 5-year-old kindergartner, Ezra, a 3-year-old who wishes quite desperately to be in kindergarten like his brother, and a combination of me, my husband and my mom working together on these days.


As you can already tell, our schedule is a bit less traditional than many homeschoolers. I work full time as does my husband, but I am fortunate to be self-employed as a music teacher. I was able to work this year's lesson schedule to leave our mornings and weekends open. I am considered the primary homeschooling parent in our family, partly because I take care of the planning, but also because I am with the boys for the main component of our homeschooling day: the mornings.

While we value parts of a few different styles, Ender's Kindergarten year has been a fun mix of Charlotte Mason, Project Based Learning and some good old free time to explore. I "planned" our year

around a few things:

Always have a chapter book going

Leave room for their ideas

Do the basics every day and do them well- these include memorizing, reading, writing, and math.

Early Morning

Our mornings start early, primarily because Ezra wakes early. He is up between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. every morning no matter what so I try to rise ahead of him to get a shower in and have a bit of time to pray and read while it's quiet. Once Ezra is up we eat breakfast together, then he gets dressed and helps me with a few things around the house.

Ender joins us around 8, eats breakfast and gets dressed. We go upstairs and they brush teeth together before we head into the school room (also upstairs) together.


Learning Together

We start our learning together on the floor in a sort of modified circle time. Ezra listens in while Ender and I talk about days of the week and check the calendar. Next we work through our daily basics starting with reviewing memory work. Currently we have one longer Scripture passage or poem we work on all month long that Brian and I choose for our family, and then Ender also memorizes 1 or 2 verses each week for Sparks. We review these verses using the method described at Simply Charlotte Mason.

We read together next and each select a book. The book I choose is usually on a topic I'd like to introduce or something related to the season. Sometimes they really take to a topic and it leads to days and days of projects and discussion, and sometimes we talk about it just that day and move on to something else the next. 

We spend the next 30 minutes working on our other basics: 10 minute short lessons on reading, writing and math. Ender reads aloud to me for either 5 pages (since he's 5 years old and that connection makes sense to him) or 10 minutes, whichever comes first.


Next we spend 10 minutes on hand writing. The only thing that is consistent every day is that he must write his full name every day. Some days he asks how to spell words he's interested in and I just keep an eye on his formation, about twice a week we use copy work, and about twice a week he does a few pages in Explode the Code. I keep this part short too, no more than 10 minutes.

I present a new math lesson to Ender most Mondays and then we work together on the skill through the week. I don't push ahead unless he's ready, but if he asks for a new lesson before the next Monday I let him move on as long as he's confident in the current lesson. This is mostly manipulatives, except for about 3 times a month where I have him practice writing a few numbers.

And where is Ezra during all this?

Chances are good that he's making *something*. Ezra got the artistic streak from me and spends this time working at his own little table coloring, painting, cutting, gluing, or whatever it is that he's interested in.


Project Time

After we get our basics in, Ender is ready to start making things too. We call this part of the morning project time. Sometimes they work together on a craft, sometimes they are off chasing their own ideas. Lately Ender can be found pouring over lego diagrams and following the directions to the letter (he's such a black-and-white thinker!) Ezra has been building a lot lately as well, but he can easily spend an entire morning at the craft table making things.

Me? I'm usually in the rocking chair working on my own project (knitting) and making notes about what the boys are up to.


We take a break mid-morning for a snack and a chore or two and then head back to a group project. We've been learning about the continents over the last few months- the people who live there, the animals, the kind of land and weather- and that has been really fun, but the boys think up projects that become our family project as well. Sometimes a little question leads us to looking up books on our library website, spending time online looking at pictures of animals or looking up the answer to a question or we take advantage of Netflix streaming and watch a video about something we're interested in.

Afternoon & Evening

At 11:45 it's time for lunch and to get ready for the afternoon. I start teaching between 12:45 and 1 p.m. Monday-Friday, so my mom picks the boys up around 12:30 to head over to her house to play. My mom retired from teaching at a Montessori school in 2008, and her house is a fabulous place for the grand kids! My boys have the advantage of hanging out with her until their daddy (Brian) finishes work around 5:30 p.m. They meet up to go home with him and Brian takes care of the evening hours. The boys play while he makes dinner, and after dinner Brian manages the brushing of teeth, baths, asking Ender to read to him for 10 more minutes and the evening read aloud. I teach away during these hours in my studio.

I'm finished teaching in time to be a part of the evening read aloud and bed time routine most nights, but two nights a week I'm either teaching or in rehearsal until 9 p.m. and Brian handles those evenings.

Math Experiments: Capacity

Welcome to our lesson on capacity! We read the book Capacity** together and gathered containers together to compare capacity. We decided to use only clear containers so that we could see the water very clearly.

First, the boys filled each container with water. Ezra used a 1 cup plastic measuring cup that we usually use in our rice sensory box, and Ender used the small pitcher we usually keep in the fridge so that they can pour their own drinks. We had a sponge and a towel on hand just in case of spills!

Ender estimated which glasses held different amounts of water from greatest to least, and we lined them up in that order.

Ender poured each container into a 4 cup measuring cup and measured each amount to see how his estimations worked out.

We learned that "tall" doesn't necessarily equal "most".

** We love this series of math books by Henry Pluckrose. Our library has most of them and they've been a really fun way to introduce new concepts.