School?

I guess, since we are homeschoolers, and I did start this blog to help encourage other homeschoolers, that I could do a little blogging about what we're actually doing regarding school.

Well, we are having a good time. We are very laid back, but still get everything in I feel we need to cover. I do want to work on all of us getting to bed and up in the mornings at a more set time, but we'll get there. Gotta start with myself first before I can start on the kids. If mom has no discipline it's kind of hard to instill discipline in the kiddos, huh?

Anyway, here's how our days usually look:

-Bible story/discussion (20 minutes)
-Math (30 minutes)
-Let the three younger ones go play off some energy while Baby Girl does Spelling and English. (30 minutes)
-Boys come back and do English together and then each of them read to me out of their Abeka readers (we just happened to be blessed with a lot of these books and I thought they would be a good way for the boys to improve their reading a little each day). Baby Girl does her writing while the boys are reading. (20 minutes)
-Princess does her reading lesson with me. (5-10 minutes)
-On Mondays and Wednesdays we do History. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we do Science. (20-30 minutes)
-Last, but CERTAINLY not least, I do Five in a Row with Reece Cup and Princess while Baby Girl and Handsome work on Beyond Five in a Row. (30-60 minutes, depending on what each set of kids are doing that day).

We've done some copywork for handwriting practice, but I haven't found just the right thing yet. I'm thinking the three little stooges would love Draw, Write, Now so we may look into that.

In total our days can usually be finished within 3-4 hours for book work. Library days, park days, playing board games or visiting with family or other homeschoolers... that's all extra.

This works out really well for us. It's only taken me 6 years to get just the right pattern down! So to those newbies out there, don't get discouraged. Just keep working until you find what works best for you and your family.

I'll try over the next couple of weeks and take one thing at a time that we use and give you my thoughts, opinions, and experience with them.