On schedules

Inspired by a conversation I had earlier.
I am a big fan of schedules- not just for homeschooling, but for sleeping and eating for children.
There are a few reasons.
First- I think it's very important with multiple kids to have sleeping and waking times together. This means that most of the time it's quiet when one child wants to sleep and it's OK to be noisy when they want to. They are usually into playing at the same times, as well.
Second- kid free time is very important to me. I love my little ones dearly, I do. But I very much value that after bedtime I can count of doing grown up things- chores that are more time consuming or dangerous with running toddlers around, quiet mama reading, knitting, and other decadent activities. I also value time with my husband where we don't have to focus on being parents, we can instead focus on being each other together. Enough said on that.
Third- I like knowing when to expect them to be rested. I can commit to activities and projects out of the home with a reasonable expectation of them being well rested, well fed, and ready to play or focus, whatever the situation warrants.

In other news- we FINALLY finished lesson 100 of the Ordinary Parent's Guide! It took so long due mainly to all the just plain reading we've been doing, but I am determined that we will finish phonics this year. Sweet Pea is doing an awesome job reading- tonight we started a Magic Schoolbus book together and she managed most of the words by herself, becoming mainly tripped up by names. Yay, Sweet Pea!

Daily reporting continued

We are enjoying First Language Lessons. Sweet Pea did Lesson 10 today- very exciting to write and discuss her own special name. :)
Earlybird Mathematics is going well as well. She's half way through lesson 18 and was very disappointed to see that the book is almost over- until I told her we had another one to do next.
Writing with Ease- what can I say. Sweet Pea doesn't hate it, but I'm beginning to. It just moves so slowly, and seems overly simple. We'll continue slogging through for now- but it's seeming less and less enticing day by day for me.

Spelling test #1

And I'm pleased to announce that Sweet Pea got all the words right!

Daily Report

This week is going well. Sweet Pea had her first spelling lesson with real words as opposed to sounds.


We're preparing for mental math in Singapore. Sweet Pea was initially unsure of why I wanted her to do it this way, but now it's clicked.


And we did Alice in Wonderland. Sweet Pea was intrigued by the Caterpillar.

Daily Report

Singapore Earlybird 2 A Lesson 15- complete! We stretched this one over two sessions to allow for some hands on modeling of the concepts.
First Language Lessons Lesson 8 complete! Sweet Pea still perfectly remembers the poem she learned.
Writing with Ease- we doubled up lessons today because we didn't finish last week's lesson, so we did week 3 day 4 (Rumpelstiltskin) and then week 4 day 1 (Alice in Wonderland) today.
Sweet Pea wrapped all this up with some cursive practice. Since we're using the workbook pages with Writing With Ease and those are in print I've decided to start giving her regular, short practice sessions on cursive again.

Note to self:

A new puppy throws the best laid plans to the winds. Housebreaking + homeschooling= this should be interesting!

Daily Report

We skipped Miquon today to instead work more on Singapore. Lesson 15 is now 1/2 way done. We could have done it all today but I'd rather give it a little more time to sink in.
Spelling Workout- we did the first part of Lesson 6. Sweet Pea has her first 6 spelling words! Let's hope that this goes well.
Writing With Ease- day 3 of week 3 done. Story this time was about Rumpelstiltskin.
History and science tomorrow or this afternoon? We'll see.

Daily report

Today we finished Spelling Workout Lesson 5.
We did First Language Lessons lesson (that looks weird) 7.
We finished Singapore Lesson 15- Sweet Pea was very excited to color in the areas- coloring lessons are her favorite.
We did Writing With Ease Week three day 2.
The gist of all this is we were behind after our trip last week and Labor day, but we are now caught up!
I'm planning extra science and history this week or weekend to get caught up there as well.
I'm so happy with how this year has begun and I can't wait to go through all my plans with my darlings!

Art work!

This is the inside of Sweet Pea's mouth. Or so she says.



Our new car.


I saw this and pointed out that it's inaccurate as a clock- and Sweet Pea informed me that's how clocks in Strawberry Land look. Backwards numbers and all. I stand corrected.


I just liked this one.

Labor day

Will be a normal school day for us. Dad has to work, so we'll make up for some of the missed time last week.
Fun!
I have a bunch of new drawings from Sweet Pea that I will post, probably tomorrow.

Curricula review time!

Now that we're getting a feel for what we're using, how it fits, and what we like.

For Math: we're continuing with our tangrams- still a win! Singapore- still a win. Miquon- Sweet Pea is enjoying this a little less right now, although I'm not sure why. Some of it the way that they are introducing addition- sliding the blocks and then sliding numbers. We'll see.
For Reading: I have to admit that we are in a McGuffey slump. We are doing the Ordinary Parent's Guide regularly, and while I can't say that Sweet Pea really LIKES it, it's short and effective. We are not using Hooked on Phonics any longer, unless I feel like Sweet Pea needs reinforcing or if she wants to read one of the stories.
For Language Arts: I like Spelling Power. It's pretty independent and so far all review. Sweet Pea enjoys it and is working steadily. Writing With Ease- this one is tougher. I like it, and I like it a lot. Sweet Pea on the other hand does not enjoy it quite so much, mostly because it's work. It's probably one of the more academically challenging things she's doing right now. We will continue to do it, and be grateful that it's short. First Language Lessons is a much bigger hit, on all sides.
For History: Story of the World is a hit. The activity guide is a bigger hit. I'm not sure how much is being retained- and that's the big benefit is the history rotation. There's no pressure to pund all the finer points of ancient history into my little one's head- it's just an introduction.
Latin and all others: I must confess that we are not yet doing any extras. So far we are doing our core, and regularly. Once we're more settled we'll add in the electives.

Week 2

Week 2 is going very well.
We are on Lesson 2 of Writing with Ease, Lesson 14 of Singapore 2A (Earlybird), Lesson 95 of the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, and lesson 4 in Spelling Workout. Today we began the first chapter in Story of the world- we learned about nomads.
Tomorrow we are going on a field trip all the way down to the Twin Cities, so we may do some car-schooling.
I'll try to post some pics of Sweet Pea's work later!