One Homeschool Day–Back to School Edition

School is back in full swing and I decided to share our first day back to school (August 18) with you.  Act excited, wink.

4:00am, the husband gets up to get ready for work.  His lunch and breakfast were prepared the night before, so all he has to do is remember to eat the breakfast and take the lunch.   At 4:00am, this can be harder than it sounds.  I roll back over and sleep another couple of hours (score!).

8:00am, I’m up showered, dressed and waiting for the beloved coffee pot to do it’s thing.

Coffee in hand, I meander out to the sun porch to spend time in the scriptures.

8:30am The kids are awake and have had their morning milk, it has the same affect on them as my morning coffee does on me.  Then they  both get dressed and ready for the day.  Olivia feeds the dog, while Lindsey tends to her morning trash detail.   I work on sorting the laundry, again…it’s job security I tell you.

Time for school work to start!  I just love my cute new classroom clock, so you’ll see it throughout the rest of the post, grins.

We took our “first day of school” photos, complete with gratuitous fake smiles.

We then worked on getting the girls familiar with their new student planners and got them filled in for the upcoming week.  Friday afternoon they will update their calendar for the next week.

Olivia started working on her writing, while I went over Lindsey’s language arts with her.   You can tell she was deeply in thought on this one (and that wasn’t a posed photo, she really had that look on her face while looking up words in the dictionary).

Somewhere around here, I swapped out a load of laundry.  By the time I was back Olivia was ready to start on her language arts.  Both girls are REALLY liking Learning Language Arts Through Literature so far.  By the time I had Olivia started on LA, Lindsey was ready to start math.  Finishing up math led her into her handwriting, and Olivia of course did her math after LA.

Lunch break!

The girls fixed their lunches while I swapped out another load of laundry.  Then I fried myself of couple of eggs and added some fresh tomatoes out of the garden.   This was a super yummy lunch for me!

11:30am (I forgot to photograph the clock, tsk tsk) we were ready to dive into our chemistry & physics.   We read our textbook, and a couple of extra library books on matter.   Then we worked on our first experiment of the year. 

If you look closely at the bud vase below, you’ll see a blue marker line.  This showed where the water level was before we inserted the rock (the white lump in the bottom).   We were learning about the displacement of matter when another object is introduced to the matter.

I did find it a bit disconcerting at this point when I heard the 8 year old say “So when do we get to blow up stuff?”

Schools out!

With our academics out of the way for the day, Olivia went to work on her piano DVD curriculum.  She’s learning to play “Let It Be” of Beatles fame.

Lindsey curled up in her room to read, waiting for her turn at the piano.  (I’m still folding laundry folks.)

3:30pm Time to head out to ballet.  The girls have lessons for an hour every day this week and next..

5:15pm We’re back home from ballet and I’m ready to make dinner out of these lovely acorn squashes from our garden.  

At this point I totally forgot to take photos for the rest of the evening.  I washed and cleaned the seeds from the squash and then sliced them into fry size pieces, drizzled olive oil over the fries and then put a heavy sprinkling of parmesan cheese and garlic powder on as well.  Baked this at 425 for about 30 minutes will I fried up some chicken breast tenders (rolled those in nutritional yeast and used coconut oil to fry).   This was a really yummy, filling meal!

By the time dinner was over and the kitchen was cleaned up it was close to 7pm.   The husband who had worked until 5:30pm, took a shower and collapsed on the sofa with the newspaper.   The girls played Little House on the Prairie and I sat down with my new book “The Storm Inside” by Sheila Walsh. 

Around 8:30pm the girls and the husband all headed to bed.  I sat up for another couple of hours reading and listening to a Joyce Meyer CD.  I’m so glad I found all my teaching CD’s when I rearranged the house.  I’ve missed Joyce’s in your face teaching.

Somewhere around 11pm I went to bed.  Only 5 hours until the alarm clock goes off…gah!

Linking up with One Homeschool Day and the Not Back To School Hop.

One Homeschool Day–March Edition

This month I’m sharing a typical Wednesday in our world.   This has been our one unchanging day for the last 6 years.

The husband of course is up and out the door early.  I slept in until almost 8am.  Then I got up and moved out to the sun porch for my morning quiet time.  The fresh flowers add a nice touch to the morning.  These did not come out of our snow covered garden, but rather are from the girls ballet performances last weekend.

 
Lindsey is my early riser, and was up by 8:30 and I nudged Olivia out of her bed shortly there after.   We aren’t big on breakfast early in the mornings.  So, this mornings breakfast for them was warm chocolate milk (gag).

Once the morning routine and chores are completed we get started on our academics.  Both girls tackled handwriting first to give their brains a little extra wakeup time.

Per Olivia’s request, we have moved math to the front of our day, instead of the end of the day.  This seems to have been a good move for everyone.   Olivia works independently on her math while I work with Lindsey.  Below is a rare occasion, ME in a photo.

Once both girls have finished their math we move to spelling drills and our Word Roots.   No photo was taken, my bad.

We’re studying the Civil War in history.  Today’s lesson was about the weapons that were used during the war.  We did some oral reading and the girls worked on items to add to their lapbooks.

At 11:30am we took a break to go run errands. We ran by the library and bank first and then headed to the church clothes closet to drop off donations we’ve been collecting.  That’s a LOT of collecting right there.

After running our errands we came home and had a warm bowl of soup for lunch.  The girls then moved on to their independent work while I worked on some housework.

Lindsey is typically the first to get finished with her independent work.  Piano is always the last thing on her list to do each day, so I know she’s finishing up when I hear her start playing a tune.

This is usually where Lindsey’s day starts to be more fun.  She is incredibly imaginative and you’ll find her reenacting things she has learned or read about.  Today I stumbled across her as she tried to rock her baby to sleep…they were waiting for her “husband” to return from the war.   A bit later, she’d taken up her own weapon and moved to the front lines.

Olivia prefers to do her independent studies in her room.  She’s pretty good about staying on task, but does get quite comfy while working.  Piano is usually last on her list too.  She’s a more advanced pianist, and I love to listen to her play.

Once all of the school work is completed the girls will often play together, or go out and romp with the dog.  However, today Olivia worked on  some clothing for her stuffed animals, and Lindsey worked on the daily Sudoku puzzle in the paper.

By 4pm, the husband has arrived home and we get ready for our family meal time.   Today I’ve fixed fried pork loin, baked sweet potato fries and a nice salad.  Looks good, huh?

As you can see below, Olivia doesn’t eat salad or sweet potatoes, so I’ve also included corn for her.

After dinner we have a 90 minute window for everyone to talk, read the paper and relax for a while.  Then it’s out the door to Awana for the girls.

I drop the girls off at Awana, and then I head to the grocery store for my weekly shopping.  I find that Wednesday night isn’t very crowded and I can usually find meats on clearance.   The hubby has praise team practice on Wednesdays as well, so we’re all in and out at different times throughout the evening.

By 8:30 the kids are in bed.  By 10pm the husband is headed to bed.  At 11pm, I’m finishing up this post so it’ll be ready to go live tomorrow. 

Linking up with the March Edition of One Homeschool Day.

One Homeschool Day–February Edition

This month I’m showing you what our typical Tuesday’s look like (specifically February 18), for now.  We’ll be wrapping up basketball in 3 weeks, so the calendar will thin out a bit then.

Lindsey, as usual, is up by about 7:15 and that’s when I stumble out of the bed.  Olivia is the last to get up, sometimes sleeping until 9 or later.  This particular morning she was up by 7:30.  After a quick breakfast the girls make their beds and get ready to start the day.

8:30 First we work on our Bible verse for the week.  We’ve been working on Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Then we moved on to spelling drills, followed by Word Roots and Reading Detectives.

By 10:00 am we were cold and moved up to the sun porch to work on history.  We’re studying the War of 1812, so today we focused on Francis Scott Key and the “Star Spangled Banner”.  I have a really cool pop up book about the “Star Spangled Banner”, so we used that in our studies.

I also had each girl sing the song start to finish.   Olivia has such a lovely voice!   Lindsey can hit noises only little animals can hear, ahem.

After we finished up our history work, it was close to noon, so we took a lunch break.  We had fluffenutters and Cheezits for lunch.  Nothing fancy here ya’ll.

Math was first on the agenda after our lunch break.   Olivia had an online video to watch during her lesson, and Lindsey learned how to measure perimeter.

Lindsey finished up her math first and then she went on to her daily list (piano, spelling, reading, math facts, Awana verses).  And yes, that is her pajama’s midway through the day.

Once her list was finished, it was on to Lego’s.  These have been a huge hit in the house this week.  Funny how toys go in cycles like that.

Once Olivia finished up her math, she moved on to her independent list (Awana verses, piano, spelling and reading).  She likes to read and work on her Bible verses in her royal room.

1:00pm Olivia worked on her diorama for co-op.  It’s based on Call of the Wild, and I think it turned out lovely, although the hot glue gun was killed in the process.

By 2:00 pm, the girls had finished up their school work and chores.  They spent the afternoon playing with Lego’s and I tried to work up a plan for next year’s academics.

By 3:30 the girls are getting into their leotards and working on their buns.  4:00 pm until 6:15pm is ballet.

After ballet we come home and grab a quick snack and let the girls change clothes.  Then we’re back out the door for basketball practice from 7-8pm.

By 8:15 we’re home, with a $5 take out pizza for dinner.  That’s right folks, I don’t always have a yummy hot meal waiting on the troops.  Shocking I know.

By 8:37 pm the kids have had dinner and are preparing for bed.  By 10:20 pm I’ve finished writing this post and am now heading to bed myself.   Sweet dreams!

Linking up with One Homeschool Day!