Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Officially Homeschooling!

Since our homeschool charter school began it's school year yesterday, we did too! Which means I am now a homeschooling mama, not just one in training;) I hesitate to say "here's what we're doing" because I know it will change, especially in about a month when our fall extracurricular classes begin, but here's what we've been up to.


After breakfast, we clean up the kitchen, I get my second cup of coffee (essential!), my binder with the weekly schedule, and the morning basket. I just about made myself crazy trying to figure out how to schedule the week and year, and I reserve the right to tweak it, but I finally settled on giving each day of the week a focus, if you will.

Monday: Virtue
Tuesday: Faith
Wednesday: Poetry
Thursday: Art and Music
Friday: Nature

Basically, we do our morning basket stuff, and there are additional things thrown in that have something to do with the day's focus.

First, we say the day's prayers: a morning offering, the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be. Then, we read a story from Kindergarten Gems (and I'll probably switch off with Kindergarten Stories and Morning Talks, as well), and then do some reading from a book related to the day's focus. Today, for example, was Faith, so we read from The Saints Tell Their Stories. Then we read from The Children's Book of Faith and heard about Daniel in the lion's den, and then we got to our read-aloud, Charlotte's Web. Both Cate, my Kindergartener, and Owen my 3 year old, listen to all of those together. Then Little Man goes to play with cars or trains, and Cate does some more work. We have been doing a few minutes of math (skip counting, telling time), and maybe some copywork. That's it for the morning! I'd say all of that is about half an hour.

Later in the day, while I'm making dinner, Cate chooses some books to read aloud to me. Yesterday, she decided on Berenstein Bears:) Little Bear and Frog and Toad are favorites as well, because they're so funny. Of course, we also read just for fun during the day, and before bed, I read from another chapter book, a harder one than she can tackle on her own. Right now we are enjoying All of a Kind Family. 


That's how things are going so far! 

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