Our First Day

Today officially marked our first day of home schooling our boys. I am not counting last year, because although we read to the boys a ton, we didn’t really feel as if we could technically call ourselves home schoolers. We were more like not-schoolers, meaning that we were intentionally not doing Kindergarten or at least anything that looked like your typical Kindergarten. I had read some of Charlotte Mason’s writings and I agreed with her that Year 0, as she calls any schooling before 1st grade, should be savored while reading and spending much time outdoors exploring and playing. It’s like she read my mind.

For this year’s schooling I found my plan at Ambleside Online under Year 1. I have made some adaptations to fit our family’s needs but for the most part I am following the plan laid out for Year 1. Our daily schedule pretty much looks like this (sorry that I am not handy at making cool handy dandy schedules that look super purdy)-

First thing–quiet time with God: We purchased a special journal for K, our oldest son and I am quietly teaching him how to start his day in solitude with his Maker. This morning he drew a picture of two horses with baby horses in their bellies (complete with udders, lol!) and he told me that he drew them because he thought God would like the horses because He created horses. I just about melted with love and pride. He totally gets it.

Before breakfast-morning chores (includes making beds, getting dressed, and setting the table)

8:00am (or earlier on days that we have morning activities outside the home)-Circle Time: During Circle Time we memorize scripture (we have a family passage we are working on committing to memory right now), a manners study (don’t all folks need a little manners study now and then, I know I do!), reading a poem or two, learning to sing a hymn, and praying to start off our day right.

9:00am Outside play and Nature sketches: I like to let the boys get all their crazy energy out before we sit down to read. First we take their nature journals (only K and B have journals right now) and before they can play they have to find something outside that is living to sketch. Here is what they chose today…

9:30 Free play in the playroom while Mommy puts the baby down for a nap

10:00am Ambleside time reading our selected readings for the day and then having them narrate back to me what I read to them

10:45am-11:30am–free play inside and/or noon chores (setting the table for lunch, unloading the dryer, putting clothes away, folding towels, helping with lunch, sweeping)

11:30am-12:45pm—Lunch with Daddy and re-narrating the days stories to Daddy

1:00pm naptime for the littles and Free reading:right now we are working our way through J.R.R. Tolkien’s books. We are almost done with The Two Towers

2:00pm–Phonics, Copywork. and Math with K: It’s kind of nice to do this when everyone else is sleeping. For phonics we are doing the basics as K learns to read. For Copywork we are working on writing the letters Upper and Lower case perfectly, which is more difficult for a little lefty being taught by his righty Mommy than you can imagine, and numbers. I am going at K’s pace for this. For Math we are learning the monetary values of coins and then counting using the coins. Here’s an example of today’s copywork…

4:00pm–We switch this up most days. Some days we do our Composer study, some days an artist/artwork study, some days our nature study, some days free play. It depends on how the week goes.

4:30pm–clean up and afternoon chores getting ready for dinner, work on AWANA verses

5:30-6:30pm depending on the day–Dinnertime

6:00-7:00pm depending on the day–Latin with Daddy:This year we are just learning vocabulary. Today for instance, we learned the words for sailor, female teacher, and male teacher.

6:30-7:30pm depending on the day– finish clean up, brush teeth, put on pjs, take baths, etc.

7:30-8:30pm depending on the day– Evening Circle Time: During our evening circle time we review our day, practice our family Bible passage again, work on learning a praise song from church, and read our evening family devotion. Then we pray with the boys and put them to bed.

So that is our “usual” schedule. I am looking forward to this year and it may be that we have to tweak things a bit here and there but that’s okay. Today went fabulously well. The baby went down like a champ and slept the morning away. We got everything accomplished that we set out to do today and they boys are really enjoying it. I think we made the right choice for our family.