our homeschool 101

Today Yesterday was the first day of public school in our city.  I felt a little out of sorts not getting my kids up early, packing lunches and taking our traditional 'first day of school' photos.  I  even half expected a truant officer to come knocking on my door asking where my children were and why they were not in school . . . even though I turned in all the necessary paperwork for competent private instruction.  I might have even experienced a moment of panic after I signed on to facebook and saw the photos and read the stories of all the kids in their new clothes and backpacks heading back to school.

Then I looked in on my sleeping children all nestled into their beds, enjoyed a leisurely cup of coffee and bowed my head in thankful prayer for His plans for our family to be 'different.'  Or, as my friend Ceesa says "to go off the grid."

We spent our day at a church friend's backyard pool with our second family (Ceesa's) who are also choosing to school at home this year.  What a great start to our new adventure!

So . . . when DO we begin our homeschool? 

Thursday.  Nice and slow and easy.

Method

We are going to be educating in a Charlotte Mason'ish manner, with some classical nods and traditional fares thrown in for good measure.  I think most people would call it eclectic; we call it 'us.' 

Math

~ Maddi will be using Teaching Textbooks, pre-algebra level.

~ Ellie and Ben will use Math Mammoth, levels 4 and 2 respectively.






Science

~ Maddi will work her way through Apologia's Creation through Physical Science

~ Ellie and Ben will be introduced to the subject by participating in Maddi's labwork and using a couple of fun unit studies here and there.

History/Geography/Bible

~ All three kiddos will participate in learning about history, geography and the bible by utilizing Simply Charlotte Mason's module 1; Genesis - Dueteronomy and Ancient Egypt.  We will use the sugested curriculum guide and move through the unit using living books, suggested readings and activites.

Spelling/Grammer/Vocabulary

~ Maddi will use Wordly Wise 3000 level 8 and a daily online grammer prompt.

~ Ellie and Ben will each work through their own levels of Spelling Wisdom, complete daily copywork and utilize daily online writing prompts.

Art/PE/Music

~ Maddi will continue with weekly guitar lessons, self taught art through Drawspace and PE through family activities and a membership to our local YMCA.

~ Ellie will resume piano lessons, her third year, with Pam Gaulke.  PE through family activites and games and Art through online prompts and local mini-classes.

~ Ben will follow suit with Ellie with our PE and Art ideas, and is interested in beginning percussion lessons.  Oh. My. 

Daily Together Time (water cooler talk)

~ We plan to begin our day looking through and discussing several 'for this day' online one stop shops such as:

24 hours in pictures

Astronomy picture of the day

Botany picture of the day

Daily global prayer prompts

This day in history

A word a day

National Geographic photo of the day  (we will change our computer desktop photo to this picture and discuss or use as a writing prompt - when appropriate)

~ All of these daily prompts are intended to develop and strengthen family discussions, narration practice (for dinnertime discussion when the hubs gets home) and writing prompts. 

Literature and Writing

~ I believe we based our curriculum decisions and homeschooling style with these two subjects in the forefront of our minds.  We want our children to develop a deep love and respect for classic literature and feel it is very important to expose them to a large variety of literature. 

The kids will all receive reading 'lists' and books chosen from this resource, based on Charlottle Mason's literature philosophy.

In order to foster a solid foundation of comprehension, narration and writing, we will rotate having the children complete 1 of 3 options when they have completed a book. 

1.  An oral narration of the summary and prompted question / answer session covering key points, character development and story time lines.

2.  A written report either prompted in 'book report' form or free-style writing in a comparison side-by-side writing style.

3.  A Power Point or other multi-media presentation covering the main parts of the book.

Downtime/Play/End of day

~ Yes, a plan for this too.  Lots of lots of this.

School begins on Thursday . . . . and the story will continue.