A Place to Learn

Our official start date is the week of labor day.  I plan to use that week just to celebrate school, do some fun little projects, introduce the books to the kids, and begin a couple of our books that have much needed introductions. I  honestly have a problem!

I have boycotted our cluttered dining room as a schoolroom.  I have demanded above demands for a shed to school in our backyard. Please look, couldn't you just imagine a learning sanctuary in one of these (with AC and electric, of course).


My demands were not given into though.  I have hit a truce with my dh that for this year, we will  convert a bedroom into a schoolroom. Well, I have been pining since June, with a completion date of September.  Although we are only a third of the way into August, the future homeschool room does not look as though it will be move in ready by September.

I do not know what to do.  I know I can make the dining room work in a pinch, but I cannot wrap my brain around it to get things ready.  I am so overwhelmed with the crowded conditions that I am afraid I will not be able to start on time.  I guess all I can do is pray!

I started this post about a month ago.  My dining room is a mess, but we are getting it done.  September is coming to an end, and that bedroom is not close to ready.  My husband made a comment that he has until December to finish the new room for us to even move out of the potential school room.  See "potential" is now sneaking into my vocabulary.  Seriously, He will then have the other room move in ready for school? What January?  Hmmm, I am having a baby in January.  There is no schoolroom set up in January, so what February?  So I am going to set up shop in a room that we can only use until June.  February to June, 5 months.

I think we are stuck at the dining room table eating around all these books. please tell me I am not the only one?
~trish

Our 2012-2013 School Year - Routine

I feel horrible for not being more interactive and at the same time, I have been extremely careful in controlling my personal distractions.  I just do not want to be a mom that homeschools only to have something to blog about or seem to get  it all. So I have taken to my speech to only air my advise with "in my humble opinion", because seriously, who am I to know.  I might have 4 kids, but I have only been parenting for 8 years.  I have not even completed the task of raising a single child.  So sure, in 10 years, maybe I can speak with a bit more real world experience and a glimpse of the whole picture.  really?  I am not really going to know how it all works out until I am probably 90 years old and seen how the accumulation of all of my efforts and decisions blossomed into reality. Besides, I feel like a dipstick in the pursuit of what works for us.

So we are 3 weeks into our school year and we are just now finding our groove. Our biggest accomplishment is our routine.  I am invoking a little bit of Fly Lady on them.  Each morning they are required to get dressed, make beds, and together sort and put away one basket of laundry, before breakfast.  Sadly as basic as this sounds, this folks is monumental!

The other thing we swapped was when we did our subjects. I tried starting right out in the morning with independent work first.  Well, 2 year old and 4 year old would invoke chaos! Then the 1st and 2nd grader would manage to spread this work out over the entire day, so history and science was a bust.  Now we do our science and history in the morning all together and then during quiet time for the littles, they somehow manage to swiftly get their independent work done.  Also, I am really only doing science and history 1 time a week and on the other days we do random cool, because we stay home kind of things.

Our Basic Weekly Routine
Monday - Well honestly, it is just a free-for-all on the our together homeschooling.  This could be unstructured bike ramp building with dads tools or a mud bath the went bad in the back ditch.  Seriously, it is more of my recovery time from dad junking up my routine all weekend.  Did I mention I am pregnant.

Tuesday - This is our no school day!  HaHA!  We start our morning with a homeschool gymnastics class and follow it up with picking up our books from the library, and then lunch, and on to my chiropractic appointment.  I had a huge sense of guilt over all this car time and no "school time" that I went to Sam's and got the  4 subject grade level workbook for each kid.  I just ask them to do one page of each subject for the day and my bad homeschool mommy guilt subsides.

I don't even check it, but I will say I have had to improve on my  mommy what is this word spelling  coming from the back seat.  Our how about describing in detail how to alphabetize with out sitting side by side with the paper in front of you.

Wednesday - Okay, a sense of get on this hits me first thing in the morning.  So we get our little fly routine done and we sit together and get our Science worked on with a bit of reading out loud, exploring library books, and some sort of something cool.  We might spend about 2 hours total.  We also have AWANAS at church that night too.

Thursday- Trying to keep ourselves moving along, we spend our mornings reading and doing our History lesson.  Usually this is where the mess comes in.  Last week, we learned about what history is and archaeology, then followed it up with making a timeline for each kids.  Plenty of photos and glue sticks.  What a great project to use up extra photos that did not make it into the scrapbook.

Friday - Alright, I am whipped and tired.  I did a Ladies Bible Study the night before.  We move our afternoon independent work to the morning.  Around noon, we should have some friends show up and we all chum around for a play date.  I am thankful to get through another week.  By late Friday night, a sense of guilt once more hits me and I realize I had better reserve the library books I need in 2 weeks or I will never have it in time.

Our afternoons run the same, typically. We eat lunch and then I send my 2 yr old to bed.  We clean up from lunch and get the books out.  The 4 yr old gets the big pre-k book out and at random works on several pages of her choice.  This is her 20 - 30 minutes of school, I give a her a 5 minute warning with this is your last page and then send her off to nap.  During that time the 1st and 2nd grader work independently on math and spelling. The grammar and writing we work on together. The 2nd grader reads alone and the 1st grader and I read together.

I will layout our curriculum next time.  I must continue to say that I am so content with Susan Wise Bauer's techniques and developed path. I probably would not consider myself a highly disciplined homeschool mom. And I am completely aware that I am very relaxed, but I have found that her method is fool proof.  I am astonished at the capacity they are learning and retaining, with minimal prep work on my part. MINIMAL!

Until we meet again.
I do have to share, I am still in the first trimester exhaustion phase, even though I am 6 months along. I look forward to the things I will have the energy to partake in their studies.
~trish