Daily Routine (loosely)

Hey ya'll, I hope everyone has all they need during this loco time.

As promised, I will give you our daily routine. Keeping in mind that it won't necessarily work for your family but, it has done well for our family. Also, my homeschooling style and techniques, or method if you will, is based loosely on Charlotte Mason's methods, mixed also with several other things I've tried out over the years. Including several things I've seen from trusted homeschooling families. That all being said, there may be something in here that you can pick and choose from to try out. The family dynamic is so unique to each home so I will never expect that I have all the answers. Let's just jump in shall we?

I have 5 "special" subjects that I spread out during the week. That just means I do one of these per day. 5 subjects, 5 days in a week, one per day, okay let's move on. I'll give you the subject and then an example of what I choose to study during 4 weeks for that subject. I change the objects of the lessons every 4 weeks and that keeps my interest too. Number 1 of 5 is Geography. Right now they get a blank map every week and have to fill in all the states they remember. My oldest two can now fill in all the states and are working on filling in capitals. (keep in mind these are very short lessons 10 min tops). Number 2 is Composer. I choose a composer and we just play a song or two from them in the back ground during our painting time or during a car ride. On the specific day that we "study" about the composer I just read to them about that composer's life etc. Number 3 is Nature Study. We are studying land forms right now like volcanoes and mountains, bodies of water, and I have books in our home library they can look through. They draw pictures, we watch YouTube videos etc. Number 4 is Artist study. We have one artist per 12 weeks but we change up the painting we are looking at every 2 weeks. The first week we look at it and discuss it after, or just describe what we remember seeing. The second week we draw from the piece. Number 5 is Handicrafts. This term we are just doing things we have learned already and they can choose one to do during the times I'm reading to them, or during audio books. They can embroider, paint, or sketch, origami, card making, crafting etc.

The above are once a week subjects and last about 10 min. I add them into our morning time. We used to start school at 9 but it became clear to me that my oldest needed more time in the morning to get going and to get her chores done so we start now at 10 am. Here is a break down of a normal Monday..

• 10 am Prayer and Bible time (This term we are following the term 1 schedule on Ambleside Online A.O.)
• Hymn/Folk song (we focus on a new one of these every 4 weeks and we listen and sing them and learn the words. I choose from the lists on A.O.)
• Movement (outside if it's nice usually 20 min or so, if it's not nice they run stairs, or yoga, jumping jacks, you get the idea. 
• Artist study (I explained this above)
• Shakespeare (read some of the Tales of  Shakespeare play we are currently on and they act out each part with peg dolls)
• Wind in the Willows (the next chapter of the audio book while we eat lunch, then they tell about the chapter orally) 
• Little one goes to nap
• Trial and Triumph (inspiring stories about Christians through history) 
• Spanish story online (we do Spanish in some form daily)

Then children finish whatever independent work they didn't get to before school. Their independent work is 1. Copy work, they are currently copying passages from Ephesians, this helps with so many things, including learning sentence and paragraph structure, and their spelling has greatly improved too!
2. Reading (6 yr old reads 15+min/day and older 2 read 30 min at least) 3. Math, (I do Ray's Arithmetic with my 1st grader, but my older 2 are memorizing their times tables right now.) 4. Also on Mon, Wed, and Fri my 2 middle kids do Art for kids hub, I spend $5.99 a month on the app and it is a treasure!! They are bonding over doing it together and it has improved their drawing so much!

Basically we start the morning out the same each day with prayer and bible, hymn and folk song, then movement. Then we will begin whatever subjects I choose that day to do. All the books I read aloud they have to narrate. These are the current books and topics. Tuesdays it's geography, 50 famous stories, and flash card competitions (Spanish, states and capitals, math). Wednesdays is Nature study, Burgess Animal book, Just so stories, and they each have a book they are reading an narrating on their own. (1st grader reads a page and draws a picture about it, 2nd grader reads a page and writes 2 sentences and draws a picture, 4th grader reads 2 pages and writes at least 4 sentences and draws if she wants to.) Thursdays we do composer study, Island story for each of the middle kids, Abigail Adams, math, Spanish, independent work like the other days. Fridays are fun we read The Little Duke,(although we just finished this, I think we will start Johnny Tremain next)  This Country of Ours, and we choose one of the readings from the week to make a tiny drawing. We keep these tiny drawings in baseball card sleeves in a 3 ring binder I'll add a picture or two here. We learned it from a homeschooling family that just welcomed their 10th child! It really helps us to review and we do it after we add all the things to our timeline in the hall way. I can leave a pic of that too.

So, I'm not sure if this is helpful, I hope at least some of it is. We use the free lesson plans on Ambleside Online. I took years 1, 2, and 4 and just combined subjects I could and narrowed it down till it was doable for the time and people we have here, no stress and we all enjoy learning together. You don't have to know everything, just learn along with them. For example I never learned my times tables, and I am now!!

Many blessing to you all that follow after God. I am praying for this virus to pass quickly. If you would like me to go into more detail you can leave a message and I figured out how to set it up for you to follow me as well, If you want to. Thanks so much for reading.