Schooling with Littles :: Independent Work

I've been writing a series on Schooling with Littles.  I shared our Daily Schedule, and now I'm working through how I manage our three learning blocks:  Morning Basket, Naptime School, and Independent Learning.

I'm going to touch briefly today on the final block of our learning day: Independent Work.  This includes the daily subjects not in our Morning Basket and not handled during Naptime School, so it's basically a catch-all for everything else.

:: Math Work

:: Independent Reading Assignments (coming to me for narrations afterward)

:: Piano Practice

This work does have a home in our daily schedule: after lunch, while the little kids play.  I'm making dinner during this time, so I'm free to hear narrations, and the littles are all playing together, so the big kids can step away to finish up their math worksheet or get some piano practice in.  Really, though, since these don't involve me, we fit them in whenever we prefer.  So if the kids have a little free time before breakfast, one might work on a math drill page while the other practices piano.  I do restrict when I can hear narrations, but if the kids don't mind waiting to narrate, they're free to get a head start on their reading too.

For math, I go over their work for the day during naptime so they know which problems they're required to do on their own.  For piano, they know they need to fit in 15 minutes daily.  For reading: on Monday morning, I make a stack of their books for that week, and the children choose which books to do on which days.  At this age, they're able to finish them on just Monday and Tuesday--as they get older and have a heavier load, this will comprise a larger chunk of our school day.  And scheduling weekly makes their reading time variable.  So if we have a day at home on Monday, they might get through a big stack of readings.  That frees up Wednesday for meeting a friend at the park and Thursday for house-cleaning.  Or if they're sick on Monday, they can rest and do their reading another day without our falling behind the schedule.

My long-term plan is for their list of Independent Work to get longer at about the same time I start needing more one-on-one schooling time with my next few children.  So their independent reading time will increase and their time spent self-teaching math will increase over the next couple years.  (By the way, have you been following along with Brandy's tips for moving children toward independence?  I'm taking notes!)

So that's our school day!  In the next couple months, I'm going to try to tackle some of the questions I hear regularly: How do you keep the little ones busy?  What do you do with your preschooler? How do you keep your learning materials organized?  Let me know if there's anything in particular you're wondering about and I'll be happy to share.

Schooling with Littles :: Naptime School

I've been writing a series on Schooling with Littles.  I shared our Daily Schedule, and now I'm working through how I manage our three learning blocks: Morning Basket, Naptime School, and Independent Learning.

The second prong of our current school routine is Naptime School.  

I know that Quiet Time is a non-negotiable for most homeschooling mothers.  It's a time for everyone to get a breather, for little ones to nap, for big kids to rest and recharge, and for moms to decompress and refocus.  When my oldest children were young, naptime was my sanity.  As an introvert who is overwhelmed with the noise level here on a daily hourly basis, those pauses in my day were essential.  As much as I absolutely love the toddler stage, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only mother who has counted down the minutes until those toddlers head up to nap. ;)

But when my two oldest started Year 1, I thought about how to fit in even the small amount of schooling first grade entailed.  An hour a day sounds like so very little when it comes to schoolwork, yet it can seem like so much when you feel like every minute of the day is filled with just keeping small people fed, clean, and happy.  But my first-graders were definitely eager for a bit of formal schooling, and I wanted for them a full feast of learning daily.

I had two options:

:: Try to school when the littles were awake, then spend naptime enjoying a quiet break as usual.

:: Save school for when the littles were napping.

And despite my initial reluctance to let go of naptime as Quiet Time, the first option sounded like adding more chaos to my day, not preserving what little calm I had.  I imagined myself barking at the toddlers to Be Quiet! while I tried to read history or teach a math lesson.  My big kids would feel that stress and might resent the little ones for interrupting our school work.  The little kids would see that Mommy was constantly trying to keep them busy so I could handle the big kids.

So back to that second option: what if, instead, I gave that "Quiet Time" to my children and to our homeschooling relationship?

So that's what we have done, and I can't imagine doing it any other way now.  When the little kids are awake, we do our Morning Basket together, we do chores together, and I have time to get a few things done while they play with their older siblings.  (Another benefit of saving school for naptime--the big kids are free to play with their baby siblings when they're awake.  That time is precious.)

And then when my youngest three are settled in their beds and my preschooler takes a book and lies down for her rest time, it's my chance to sit down with just my two oldest.  I can read without raising my voice over a toddler tantrum.  I can use both hands (very rare around here!) to draw in my nature journal or pull down the atlas for some mapping.  We can have Grand Conversations without being interrupted.  We can spread our books or art supplies all over the table without little hands grabbing.  We can think.  It's still a calm time in our day.  It's not quiet, and I don't have it to myself, but I can really enjoy the children's learning in a more leisurely way than I could otherwise.

So contrary to what I thought a couple years ago, there are ways to forego Mommy's Quiet Time without losing my sanity. ;)

(Let me just add: I do get quiet at other times of the day.  We have worked at sleep routines, so my children all predictably go to bed by 8 and wake at around 6:45.  That leaves me two hours of time in the evening to work on projects and rest, which I might normally do during naptime.  I also have the early morning hours if I don't choose sleep or run instead, so I could always push up my wake-up time to get an early start.  If I were running on completely empty, I'd have to reassess and might choose otherwise.  Still, when school has to happen, I'd rather do it and enjoy it during the calm moments of the day and make that time up in another way.  But that's just how I operate.)

That's enough of the why--now on to what and how...

What Naptime School looks like for us, with two second graders and a preschooler who tags along at the end:

:: Scheduled Readings - these include the readings from our weekly assignment sheet that we do aloud together, along with accompanying narrations (daily)

:: Math Lesson - my sit-down time with each of the children to go over the day's assignment so they can work their problems on their own later on (daily)

:: Binder Work - includes copywork in both cursive and printing (daily), mapwork, timeline, map memory work (weekly)

:: Hands-on Activities - art projects, handcrafts, nature journal, drawing lesson (all weekly)

:: Italian - teaching new topics, conversation, playing games (daily)

:: Read-aloud or audiobook - from our free reading list (daily)

:: Finish Morning Basket work from the morning (as needed)

I have written these in order of priority--I try to have the readings and math done before my preschooler joins us, as she's very happy to sit in on the rest.  As I noted in the schedule, this block ends up being about two hours long, which is how long my babies nap for.  I usually get those first two tasks done in about an hour.  When we have a lighter day of assigned reading than usual, I pick one of our longer activities (an art project, for example) to follow or we listen to an extra chapter in our read-aloud.

Next time, I'll hit on our last learning block: Independent Work.

(Looking for the rest of the series?  Here it is!)

Schooling with Littles :: Our Morning Basket

Like I mentioned last time, I'm working through a little series on Schooling with Littles.  Yesterday, I posted an overview of our daily schedule.

Our schooling routine basically has three blocks: Morning Basket, Naptime School, and Independent Work. Today I want to talk about Morning Basket, our version of Circle Time. I've written about it in bits and pieces over the past couple years, but the Morning Basket is what I call our family work.  Although it starts in the morning, it usually continues into the afternoon.  And it's not actually kept in a basket--more like a half-shelf on the bookcase by the dining table.  But I borrowed the name years ago from the always-inspiring Jen, when my oldest two were preschoolers and it actually was done in the morning, out of a basket.

I'm only teaching one grade formally (my two oldest are in second grade, and my next won't start kindergarten until fall), so ours is quite simple to put together; I don't have to juggle a large age range yet. My goal during this learning time is to hit some of my second graders' scheduled assignments while involving the littles as well.

Some of our Morning Basket stays the same year in and out. Some of it changes by term. And some is month-to-month, as the liturgical calendar changes or as we switch out learned memory work for new selections. So it's in constant flux, but the rhythm remains the same.

Since we do this work while the littles are alongside, I have a few requirements before I schedule an activity for the Morning Basket:
:: it must be able to be done with a little background noise from the toddlers
:: it shouldn't require lots of sitting-still or hands-off time (and if I can do it with a baby on my lap, even better!)
:: it should be naturally interesting to my little ones
:: it shouldn't involve narrations (I don't like for my children to be interrupted while they're narrating)
:: it must be able to be paused at a moment's notice

That last one is important. We begin our Morning Basket work during breakfast (pro tip: read while they're eating!), get as far as we can, and finish up the rest in the afternoon. Some days baby is happy with breakfast in her high chair and we get through it all without interruption. Most days I stop halfway, send the kids outside to play, and then I finish up later on while the littlest is napping.

Here's a snapshot of our Morning Basket plans for this month:

Religion (daily)
:: Seasonal Reading - February is traditionally the month of the Holy Family, so we're focusing on the litany of St. Joseph.  At the end of the month, we'll start our Lenten readings--more on that as the season approaches.

:: Feast Day Reading - from our two-volume set of Saints for Young People for Every Day of the Year, which helpfully follows the traditional calendar (as we do)

:: Scheduled Reading - one page weekly from Robert Hugh Benson's Old Testament Rhymes (our other scheduled religion readings are more involved, so I save them for later on in the day, but these are short so we can do them all together)

Calendar Work in English and Italian (daily)

Memory Work (daily) - includes review of that day's items from our memory "notebook" as well as our current selections:
:: Hymn - "Pange Lingua Gloriosi"
:: Folk Song - "California, Here I Come" and "I Love You, California"
:: Bible - the Nunc Dimittis and the Magnificat
:: Poetry - Christina Rossetti's "Rushes in a Watery Place," "Hurt No Living Thing," "Fly Away Fly Away," and "What Do the Stars Do"

Italian (daily) - We cover new concepts, games, and conversation later in the day, but we do our Italian memory work with the littles:
:: Rhymes - "Batti, batti le manine," "Questo e l'occhio bello," and "Capra capretta" from Filastrocche Italiane
:: Songs - "Testa, spalle, ginocchie, i piedi" and "Sei papere" from Teach Me Everyday Italian
:: Series - "I Get Ready to Go."

Poetry (daily)
One or more poems from Christina Rossetti's Fly Away Fly Away Over the Sea

Art Study (weekly)
Albrecht Durer's"Self Portrait in a Fur Coat" and "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse"

Music Study (weekly)
Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and "Symphony No. 9"

And bonus: my next daughter will be starting kindergarten in the fall, and I think the Morning Basket work (which she already joins us for) plus a bit of math and reading practice now and then will make for a perfectly lovely kindergarten year.

Next week, I'll talk a bit about Naptime School.  (ETA: Here it is!)

Schooling with Littles :: Our Daily Schedule

This will be the first of a few posts about homeschooling with lots of littles in the house.  I have had several emails recently on this topic that motivated me to add more details here about how it looks in our family.  Right now, I am homeschooling only one grade (second) but have four other little ones to care for at the same time (ages 5, 3, 2, and 1), with another baby due in May.  I think that in many ways, it's much more difficult to juggle many different grades at once than it is to juggle many littles underfoot!  But having a house full of small people does have its own challenges, and I hope to share a bit about my experiences here on that topic.  I'm no expert, but I am in the trenches...and let's hope that I'm getting something out of my time there! ;)

two of my current toddlers in all their adorableness

Today, I simply want to share our daily schedule as an example of one way school can happen when there are littles involved.  In the next week or so, I'll go into a bit more detail about the core parts of our schooling schedule: Morning Basket and Naptime School.  I also hope to hit a few other topics, including how to take steps toward a routine and how to "keep toddlers busy," so if there's anything you'd like me to talk about, please let me know--share a comment or email me. :)

Before I get to the nitty-gritty, a few caveats:

:: A "daily schedule" is a bit misleading in that several days we don't follow this schedule at all: one day we're out all morning on our nature outing, another afternoon we're gone for piano lessons, etc.  As I have mentioned before, I schedule our school on a weekly basis.  So we have daily subjects that I aim to hit four days a week, and then we pick and choose on a daily basis from our weekly assignments.  By the end of the (perfect) week, everything on the checklist should be checked off

:: I'm assigning times to our routine, but there are only a few items that actually have a set time here: wake up, naptime, quiet time, dinner, bedtime.  The rest depends on daily tasks, moods, and so on.

:: This is what works for us.  I'm not suggesting it's the only way to do things nor am I suggesting you try duplicating this approach.  Take this post in the spirit of one homeschooling mom offering up her schedule as one way of organizing a school day.  .

:: As you're reading, feel free to sprinkle this record liberally with "break up squabbles," "get children in and out of time out," and "spend time dealing with a tantrum."  I think it would be hard to find a home dealing with so many personalities that doesn't devote time to child-training on a daily basis.  But I don't actually schedule those kinds of events. ;)

:: I'm sharing our complete daily routine rather than just our "school" schedule because as you'll see, school happens in bits all day at our house. 

~~

So what a school day looks like here:

6:45am - Children up!  Kids read books together--bigs often read picture books to littles.  They often trade off 20 minutes of piano practice during this time.  Breakfast, prayer, morning chores, and computer time for me.

8am - Morning prayers with the children.

8:15am - Breakfast for the kids.  I start Morning Basket work: calendar, memory work, poetry, a bit of Italian.

8:45am - Breakfast clean-up.

9:15am - Kids head out back to play.  I keep the baby entertained indoors for a couple hours while doing chores, school planning, household tasks, computer time.

11:15am - Kids come inside and get washed up.  Big kids start on their math warm-up while I read a few picture books to the littles and give the baby her naptime bottle.  Tidy up.

11:30am - Naptime School.  Naps for my youngest three (ages 1, 2, 3) and rest time for my preschooler (age 5).  Big kids and I sit down with some of our weekly books and see what we get through in 45 minutes.  For example, we might read and narrate a chapter from Our Island Story, half a chapter from Mother Mary Loyola's First Communion, and two short chapters from The Kirbys' The World at Home.  Then I might read a few pages from Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales, one of our free reads.  My preschooler looks at her own book lying down next to us or listens in, as she prefers.

12:15pm - We go back to our math.  I set up one child at the dining table and one at the kitchen table.  After teaching each his or her lesson, I go between the two while I eat lunch and they work.

12:30pm - My preschooler joins us.  She draws while we finish up math.

 12:45pm - We go back to the rest of our Morning Basket work if we didn't finish it in the morning.  For example, we might have a bit more memory work to finish and artist study to do.  We also do "binder work" (copywork daily, mapwork and timeline weekly).  We play Italian games and do a bit of conversation practice, listen to a chapter of our current audio book, and do another weekly assignment if we have time--maybe a drawing lesson.  My preschooler joins us for all of this.

1:45pm - Babies are up from naps.  I send my preschooler up to entertain them while the big kids and I finish up any other schoolwork, put things away, and make lunch.

2pm - Youngest three come down from nap.  Lunch and drawing at the kitchen table.  Baby has lunch and her afternoon bottle.  I get dinner started.

2:45pm - Tidy up, then "Quiet Time," which is actually anything but quiet (we should probably change the name of it now that it has morphed into its current iteration).  All the children head into the living room.  Littles play together.  Big kids read a couple of their school assignments for the week and come to me in turns to narrate while I make dinner, handle kitchen chores, etc.  For example, they might read a chapter each from The Burgess Book of Animals, Children's History of the World, and Heroes of God's Church, stopping between each to run in and narrate to me in the other room.  They also keep an eye on the littles, including the baby.  When they're done with any school reading, they can choose from their free reading selections.

4:00pm - Playtime for all in the living room.  Big kids trade off practicing piano if they didn't have time in the morning.    

4:30pm - Clean up and dinner time.  Then the kids do their after-dinner chores.

5:30pm - I finish the dishes, clean the kitchen, and then putter around with my own projects while my husband either gives the kids their baths or plays a board game, bocce ball, or wrestling.  You know, Daddy stuff. ;)

6:30pm - Back downstairs for Family Rosary.

6:45pm - Tidy the house and head up for the bedtime routine (brushing teeth, evening devotions, a couple picture books if there is time).

7:30pm - Bedtime for all the children.

My husband and I spend the rest of the evening however we please: watching a show or movie, reading, writing a blog post, working on crossword puzzles.  I luxuriate in the all-kids-are-asleep quiet. :)  I have a strict 10:00 bedtime that I always usually follow.

So that's how we fit school in our day.  My main principle is to have a basic family routine with a couple daily learning blocks, and we do what we have time for day by day.  This kind of flexibility has allowed us to stay on schedule with no trouble at all for the past couple years.  And as my children get older and their schoolwork encompasses more of their time, I hope to move them toward a high degree of independence.

Tomorrow, I'll be back to share a bit more about our Morning Basket work!  (Update: Here it is!)