{This and That} :: Summer's End

Well, we are in our FINAL week of summer here. This break has flown by -- I have gathered some of the reasons why below! Now we are closing out our long break and putting final touches on our plans for a new year of learning together...

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First, the big news: I shared on Instagram a few weeks ago but don't think I shared here yet. We are so very grateful to be pregnant with another little Cruz! I'm almost at the half-way point and the kids can't wait to find out what gender this little tie-breaker will be. He or she will join us in January, God willing.

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A highlight of my summer was the week I spent on the East Coast for the CMEC Summer Retreat! It was so nice to get back to our large, in-person summer event after several years off for Covid.

(We hosted smaller, day-long "gatherings" last summer in three cities on the East Coast, and it was wonderful to meet so many mothers that way, but this format of two days of cohesive talks and immersions is really special.)

The event was absolutely beautiful -- the hosting and planning team did such a stellar job. The theme was "Our Constant Joy: Truth, Beauty, and Goodness in Home and School." I spoke on artist study, composer study, notebooks, and a Christian conception of beauty. Amy spoke on singing, recitation, and more. There was a resource fair, time for narration and discussion, and a fantastic dinner with live music and folk dancing.

I will admit: preparing for this event took just all my available energy in May and June. That was the peak of my first trimester nausea and fatigue, and there were many times I wondered what I had gotten myself into! (Do you have moments like that? I often do. I'm not sure what that says about me!) But honestly, I think the talks were all the better for my weakness -- grace abounds! And the worst of the symptoms passed in time for the event itself, which was a huge relief. It was so nice to be in the company of 160 like-minded moms and teachers.

And for the first time ever, I brought one of my children along with me -- my oldest daughter. She helped at the event, including manning some of the tables and holding lots of babies. ;) She also got to meet some longtime penpals.

We also got to do some sight-seeing since it was Gianna's first time on the East Coast, which was a treat for both of us. Amy and her daughter Grace played excellent hostesses -- we were so grateful for the time to be together with our friends.

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Thinking back to last year: a reader recently asked how our co-op went this past spring. I posted about our fall plans but didn't have the chance to come back and give an update.

Some subjects stayed the same and some changed. A peek at our timetable:

And some photos from our end-of-term celebration together:

We did recitations, a Shakespeare performance, folk dancing and singing games together, and a show-and-tell of paintings based on the Form 1 students' historical picture books reading (based on the CMEC programs). And celebrated with lunch together!

We are getting ready to start up again for the fall in just a few weeks. This term, we'll be taking our co-op indoors and switching up subjects again to take advantage of the space we'll be using. More on that later in the year!

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At the Summer Retreat, I mentioned that I print mini stickers of our artist study selections for my students to add to their TBG Notebooks after we have finished each one. I got lots of attendees asking for the details! 

So here's how I create them: I grab the images from online for the paintings, paste them into a Word doc, and print as many copies as I need onto 8.5x11 sticker paper from Amazon/Office Depot (usually used to make full size mailing labels, etc) -- like this. Then we cut them out! Very simple.

I also want to mention that at other times, I have printed our selections as 4x6 prints at Snapfish for my kids to keep in a personal photo album. (I actually am still doing that also since my older kids still want to add copies to their albums-in-progress!) Riverbend Press sells 4x6 sets of the term prints that are perfect for this for those who would rather not DIY and want a higher quality item.

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pre-reading almost always involves a snack for me as a pregnant mom! LOL

I told myself after I got back from the retreat that I would spend the final two weeks preparing our school year: finishing up necessary pre-reading, planning subjects like art and Italian, building our timetables, etc.

I still have a lot to do -- art and handicraft supplies need to be organized, Terms 2 and 3 still have some pre-reading left to do, etc. But it's moving along and feeling more likely I'll be ready to go next Monday! My boys are going to camp the second week of August, so we're actually doing a week of school and then taking a week off before beginning in earnest. So there are a lot of little things I can wait on during that "break week." I'm thinking of that first week as a "soft start."

The timetable is really the last necessary task, so that's my focus over the next few days. With so many students, it really is a puzzle, but once I get it laid out, I know I'll feel ready to begin. 

It's so exciting to think of the weeks ahead with so many wonderful "books and things" ahead of us, even if there are lots of logistics to work out too.

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I had lots of tasks on my summer list that did not get done (once I found out I was pregnant, I put at least a dozen things on the back burner), but one thing I did do was prepare a new chore chart for the year. Little kids needed more responsibilities, some new "problem spots" in our home needed to be added to the routine, and my older kids needed their chores to be a little more flexible now that their schedule is more unpredictable.

(Did I mention my oldest got a job?! Actually he got two! Not sure which he'll keep for the school year, but he has been happy to have the extra hours during the summer.)

Another thing we are working on is a new menu rotation for fall. My 13yo daughter has also been organizing our most-used recipes into reference sheets for all of the young chefs I have in the house now. I'll share more once that project is complete!

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Two of my "little boys" received their First Communion last month! Gianna did their final preparation and my two older boys served the Mass. It was a special day.

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Another exciting change in our home is that with the mask mandate removed late in the spring, my two oldest boys have been able to participate regularly in in-person chess tournaments. They have been playing online chess for a couple years, but going to "real" tournaments has been super fun and built their skills in a new way.

with a chess-playing friend!

a "team" win for our homeschool - LOL

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I'll admit -- this has been an overwhelming summer in many ways! But I think I end up saying that every year somehow. I have come to the conclusion that my particular vocation doesn't lend itself to restful breaks -- ha! I am grateful for the work God has given me in this life and will head into a new school year relying on Him.

When are you starting school -- will you be back to it in August, like us? What have been some of the highlights of your summer? I'd love an update!

Our Weekly Checklist (and a bunch more organizational chat too!)

I have been working from a weekly checklist for several years now.  For a variety of reasons, it's suiting us perfectly in this season of life!  This year, I'm using pretty much the same template but I've adjusted it a bit to account for multiple kids in multiple levels and for growing independence for my two oldest.

I also rely on a few other items for keeping our homeschool organized: a Daily Schedule, a Weekly Planning Page, and a Chore Routine sheet.  I'm going to share them all here in case they are helpful to you.

Obviously, your schedule will likely look nothing like mine--it is very particular to our family rhythm.  But so many of you have asked what our school day looks like and for copies of our scheduling template, so I thought I'd upload a downloadable set in case you'd like your own versions to fiddle around with.  (By the way, when you open it in Google Drive or as a preview, the formatting doesn't come through correctly.  You need to download the file and open in Word to get the correct format.)

Brace yourselves--this is a long one!  I thought about breaking it into a series but then I figured I should just get it all out there now.  (And I have pregnancy insomnia to thank for actually making that happen!)  So grab a cup of tea and make yourselves comfortable. ;)

I described the basic set-up of our weekly checklist last year, and that remains the same:

:: Daily Work for the Bigs.  Each student has his or her own list of daily work at the top.  My older two kids (Year 4) do their daily work on their own.  Their responsibilities are listed in more detail on their personal assignment sheets (shared below)--for example, I list out there what "binder work" entails and how long they should spend on each item.  I don't need that level of detail on my list because they are the ones responsible for completing it.

:: Daily Work for the Middles.  Cate (Year 1) and Xavier (my kindergartener) do all their daily work with me.

:: Daily Work for the Family. And then there is the daily work we do together, including poetry, Italian, memory work (reading of the selections we're currently learning), and recitation (review of the selections we have learned in the past). We still use our Evernote "notebook" to organize our memory work, and poetry is part of our Morning Basket.

:: Memory Work.  I have our current selections (as well as our current read-alouds) in the daily work section too.

:: Weekly Work for the Bigs.  At the bottom left, I have the Year 4 assignments broken into two sections: what we do together and what they do on their own.  This is more productive for me than divisions by day because I appreciate the flexibility and because I really only need to keep track of the items I am responsible for doing alongside them.

For readings, the first bubble is for completing the reading and the second is for narrating it.  (You can see that some readings only have one bubble--this is because they aren't responsible for narrating those.)  For non-reading assignments like Latin, Grammar, and so on, the number of bubbles corresponds to the number of days per week each is scheduled.  So as you can see, we do four days a week of Grammar/Dictation, two of Latin, and one of Written Italian.  And you'll see on the bottom that they also do Written Italian once on their own.  (The first might be a guided assignment with me and the second might be copywork, for example.)

:: Weekly Work for the Middles.  I do all Cate's Year 1 readings aloud, so hers are listed in one box.  I also have there "First Communion Basket" with four bubbles, which means that I choose a book to read from daily from a basket I have of her First Communion resources.  (More on that when I get around to sharing my Year 1 plans.)

:: Weekly Work for the Family.  This includes all our Keeping, as well as music study, picture study, etc.  At the bottom of that left column, I have our Morning Basket readings listed since we do those as a family too.  I aim to read one of those per day, and they are not narrated.

The older two have their own weekly checklist to work from (shown above).  Each week, I cut and paste that "Year 4 Assignments - Independent" section onto the little half-sheet and print it for them.  Everything else stays the same week to week.  The top details their daily tasks, including the work for their morning block.  They do those items four days a week, leaving the fifth for a morning nature study outing.  The top also has their chore checklists--they each have a "Bathroom/Other" and a "Floors" chore scheduled daily.  In the middle are their weekly assignments.  They are responsible for about two readings daily.  The Keeping we do together, but I like them to have it printed there so that they begin to take ownership.

At the bottom is the scheduled afternoon block, which they do during the babies' nap while I'm working with the middles.  Each day has a certain schedule because I need them not to interrupt during that block, so I have it all laid out there for them and let them move through it on their own.

I'm going to share now our Daily Schedule so that you can see how all of this looks in practice:

On the left is basically my schedule, and on the right is my two older kids'.

We only use this schedule four days of the week.  One of those days we have our homeschool park day, but luckily it's in the morning, so it basically just shifts our usual backyard time to the park and we're home in time for naptime lessons.  And one day a week we don't follow this schedule at all: we meet up for a nature study outing with friends in the morning and then spend naptime working on our nature journals and listening to an audiobook.  But as Brandy would call it, this is our "average day chart." :)

In truth, our days are not on so strict a timetable.  We have hard stops like naptime and our afternoon play time, but we make lots of adjustments.  I do find the daily schedule useful laid out in this level of detail for a few reasons, though:

:: When the baby comes, I can just hand the kids this chart and let them direct themselves. ;)
:: It keeps me beholden to time limits on our subjects so that we are hitting all the items that I want to over the course of the week.
:: I know that all I have scheduled *can* realistically fit into our normal day.

Each week I also print out the following:

I am loving this simple Weekly Planning Sheet that keeps me accountable to doing some pre-week planning.  At the top are all the items I need to do each week to ensure smooth school day--you know, so I don't realize on Monday morning that the kids don't have new math drills, I forgot to pre-read a couple books, and I haven't a clue what we're doing for Italian.  I print this on Friday and aim to hit all the items by the end of the weekend.  It's working great so far.

In the middle is the Weekly Meeting section, which we haven't begun in earnest yet.  We have been doing all the items, but we haven't been doing them in as organized a fashion.  I really want to take just twenty minutes or so each week with my Year 4 students to sit down and touch base regarding their school assignments, including the topics I have listed there.  This is a habit I want to begin starting in Term 2.

And at the bottom is my weekly menu.  I have pretty faithfully written weekly menus for years now (it keeps me sane to know what's for dinner in advance), but now that the kids are helping more in the kitchen, I take some time to go over the menu with them too.  We plan breakfasts and lunches and consider any prep work they'll need to do, and then I plan the dinners on my own.  It's great to have it all in writing.  (Not that it keeps me from getting the "what's for dinner?" question dozens of times a day.  Ahem.)

And last but not least, this is our current Chore Routine that hangs on the fridge.  It includes tasks for me and my three oldest (9, almost-9, and 6) and is color coded.  I listed it by day number rather than day of the week in case we miss a day--we just do the next one, and day 5 ends up being on the weekend, no problem.  The kids do their "Day 1" chores on Monday and continue on from there.

A lot of organizational talk, I know!  Let me know if you want to chat about anything in particular.  You can find the bundle of downloadable templates here.  (And remember, as I said at the top: You need to download the file and open in Word to get the correct format.  In the preview and in Google Docs, it will not format correctly.) 

Happy Planning!

First Grade in Our Home: Chores!

As I mentioned previously, our "handcraft" for this term is a new set of household chores. :)  With the baby coming, I have been working on training the children in several new weekly and monthly cleaning tasks. No lovely product to display except for a cleaner home, but my children know they are genuinely helping out the household and are learning valuable manual skills.  My daughter in particular has started to take a real interest in doing her chores carefully and to take pride in a job well-done.  And my son is able to use his boy-energy in a positive way to benefit the family.  So this has been great work for them, and it's definitely essential to the proper functioning of the home since I'm almost nine months pregnant now and not quite able to do all that I usually do. ;)  For the most part, I try to take Charlotte Mason's advice of giving them only tasks that they can "execute perfectly" and then putting in the time needed to train them properly so that thorough and satisfactory work will be the result.  This has been a slow (and sometimes frustrating!) job at times, but it is now bearing very good fruit.

And I'm sure this is obvious to most moms, but I finally got around to writing down the steps for each chore and boy, it is sure nice not to have to repeat myself over and over again!  Their daily chores are all posted on the wall, step-by-step, so they know when they have completed the task and when they have only half-finished.  (That said, they still make mistakes because they forget to refer to the lists, but I still maintain that having it written down saves my time and voice. ;))  Now I'm working on typing up their weekly and monthly tasks, including the new ones I've added over the last few weeks.

My older two also help me with spring cleaning or other special cleaning projects that arise.  For example, during Holy Week, we do a thorough cleaning of the house (our religious spin on Spring Cleaning).  They make a list of all the chores they do that week and we offer these little extra sacrifices to God for various intentions--it's a nice little tradition, and it sure does lead to more cheerful helpers!  And right now, I'm on a bit of a nesting kick, so we're cleaning all the tile grout throughout the house, washing windows, and cleaning out clutter.  Some chores they're excited to help with (my daughter has been begging to wash windows for weeks)...and the others are assigned to children in time-out. ;)  Unlike our routine cleaning, for these kinds of seasonal chores, I don't bother spending much time training the children carefully--I just throw various tasks at them with the trust that their attempt with at least be better than not having done it at all!  In addition to that, I have started to let my daughter help me with some of the baking and food preparation, which she loves.

Here's a list of what Vincent (6) and Gianna (almost-6) help with at this point in case you're looking for ideas for your own littles:

Daily

Before meals: make lunch; set table with dishes, waters, and food; help younger siblings to the table and serve them

After meals: clear table of dishes and food; wipe down table; vacuum under table; straighten dining room; help younger siblings wash up

Laundry: Collect laundry from around the house; move from washer to dryer; remove from dryer; fold and put away all laundry

Bath time: Hang up towels and wipe down bathroom floor after bath time

In the evenings: Straighten house before bedtime, including toys, books, and laundry

Outdoors: Put away all backyard toys before coming inside; wash up and change younger siblings into clean clothes

Weekly

Gather library books to return

Wash library books and shelve in our bookshelves (yes, we do wash our library books! :))

Mop all floors

Dust all surfaces within reach

Wipe down kitchen appliances

Wash tables and chairs

Check stock and fill all paper products throughout the house: paper towels, toilet paper, diapers, wipes, etc.

Put outdoors clothes in laundry at the end of the week

Wash sandals

Help bring in and unpack groceries

Monthly

Wash leather sofas

Wash baseboards

Wipe down light switches and door knobs

Wash inside and outside toys

And here's an idea of what my 3-year-old daughter does:

Helps set and clear table

Folds small towels and rags; matches socks

Helps put laundry away

Helps straighten house before bed

Dries floors after mopping

Wipes down children's table and chairs

Helps gather library books to return

Helps fill paper products throughout the house

Helps with dusting/washing throughout house

Next on my training list: emptying the dishwasher and wiping down the bathrooms. :)  If anyone has other suggestions to add to the chore lists, please do share.