5 Ordinary Homeschool Days - Friday

Yesterday I listed Landon's curriculum for this year, and today it's Kennady's turn in the spotlight with her Grade 7 curriculum. First, I need another cup of coffee!

In yesterday's Ordinary Day post, I explained that Landon and Kennady are working on Social Studies together. While Landon usually gets some extra reading or research assignments, Kennady is much more likely to actually help me out in choosing and preparing foods to try from the different countries. We haven't been doing this much lately, but I've still got a stack of recipes for us to consider. I've posted about what we've tried so far in the Eating the Americas series.

     
Kennady also gets to do the art projects that go along with Social Studies. A lot of those projects come from the book Geography Through Art, which is a favorite resource of mine.
    

   
After Social Studies, Kennady usually likes to work on her literature study. She is almost finished with Lightning Lit for Grade 7. We reviewed this awhile ago and brought it out to complete this school year. She likes to read, and she likes this curriculum so well that she told me very definitely that she wants the Grade 8 book for next year.

Math is her least favorite subject. No question about it. Because it's something she doesn't enjoy and finds difficult, we switch things up a lot and try things that I hope will add some kind of fun factor or reward for her. And I try to convince her to get it done in the morning so that it's DONE for the day. She doesn't always see it that way, but one way or another we are getting through it. She really likes the Life of Fred books so we have stuck with that for this year, and as things stand now we will stick with that for at least one more year. I feel that it needs something additional to reinforce, so I have worksheets from Math Mammoth to give her occasionally, and most recently she's been working on an online program called CTC Math that we are reviewing. Thankfully, she likes that quite well, so we may have another keeper there!

Engrossed in the math adventures of Fred

CTC Math

After lunch, one of the things that she and Landon are supposed to work on most weekdays is writing. They are using Student Writing Intensive from Institute for Excellence in Writing (see our Schoolhouse Crew Review of IEW).

Kennady is supposed to work on science far more often than she does. And I suppose I should have been sitting down with her and making sure it gets done. She has been notebooking her way through a book called The World of Animals. In hindsight, I should probably have had her skip through much more of the early chapters on protists and little creepy crawlies, and headed straight for reptiles, birds and mammals.

Kennady enjoys the Fine Arts subjects much more than her brothers, and regularly works on art lessons from the ARTistic Pursuits books. She is almost finished the Middle School Book One, and is currently taking a break from that to try out a new book called Construct that we are reviewing. She has also done quite a bit with Middle School Book Two and will finish that up next year.

She also practices piano and guitar, and takes lessons; and she is in a children's chorus that provides excellent vocal music instruction.

Like Landon, Kennady goes to the co-op gym class each week, and she is playing rec league softball again this spring, so she gets plenty of Phys.Ed.!

Thanks for joining me for this 5 Ordinary Homeschool Days series. I hope you've enjoyed a peek at what really goes on in our homeschool. Please leave a comment and let me know how our ordinary days compare to yours!

Visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog to see all the Crew bloggers participating in this "5 Days of... Blog Hop". There are more than 60 bloggers sharing on a variety of subjects. You might want to start by visiting the following featured blogs:
AnneMarie at Future.Flying.Saucers - Christian Worldview 101
DaLynn at For the Display of His Splendor - Diagramming the Proverbs
Marya at Suncoast Mama - Homeschooling Special Needs
Dawn at Double O Farms - Helping Your Struggling Learner
Gena at I Choose Joy! - Homeschooling Middle School
Monique at Living Life and Learning - Homeschooling with Lapbooks
Lisa at Farm Fresh Adventures - Our Favorite Family Recipes
Christine at Our Homeschool Reviews - Free and Frugal Homeschooling (with daily giveaways to enter!)

Don't miss a coffee break! Subscribe to Homeschool Coffee Break by Email!

 ©2006-2014 Homeschool Coffee Break. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://kympossibleblog.blogspot.com/

5 Ordinary Homeschool Days - Thursday

Got your coffee? I've got mine and now I'd like to share some of what makes up ordinary school days for Landon, who is in Grade 9.

I explained yesterday that Landon and Kennady are doing basically the same course for Social Studies, and that on most mornings, that is the subject we start with. We are studying the geography, cultures, and history of the Americas this year. Our main resource is the study guide Around the World in 180 Days. Obviously we're not going all around the world in this school year! We've stretched out this resource to provide us with a spine for studying Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia in previous years. Last year we studied the United States (with America the Beautiful from Notgrass), so even though I planned for us to cover the continents of North and South America this school year, it was with the intention of keeping the focus on all of the other countries of the Americas! So far we've covered all of South and Central America, and we are wrapping up the Caribbean islands right now. We will end the year by studying Canada, and only briefly review the USA.

Together we study maps, read about the different countries and cultures, do research on history and ancient civilizations (the Inca, Aztec, and Maya people), and sometimes add art projects or something similar. We've tried to sample foods representative of the different countries too. 

I have assigned extra research or reading to Landon, including these biographies of explorers and missionaries from YWAM Publishing.

After Social Studies, Landon likes to get his Math lesson done. He is using VideoText Interactive (see our Schoolhouse Crew Review of VideoText Interactive), and it is a great fit for him - and for me! Unless he has a quiz or text, he needs to watch the video lesson online, so he logs in and lets the video load up while he does something else for a few minutes. Then he takes over my (messy!!) computer desk for anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes to watch the video lesson and print out his daily lesson and worksheet. He takes the worksheet to his room to complete.

He might spend an hour or more on math, so often he just gets those two subjects done before lunch break.

After lunch, he usually works on some kind of writing assignment - he and Kennady are both doing the Student Writing Intensive from Institute for Excellence in Writing (see our Schoolhouse Crew Review of IEW). They enjoy watching the video lessons together and then can work on their own writing assignments. I wish Landon would work on Science four days a week, but that doesn't usually happen. We've admittedly had a rough time with Biology this year (what IS it with my kids and biology? None of them particularly like it, and the publisher really doesn't matter much. It's just not a favorite subject, and I guess that's okay.) but he will get it done. It might be the bare minimum for the required credit, but he'll do it. He has been using mostly Supercharged Science (I posted our second Schoolhouse Crew Review of Supercharged Science just yesterday!) but we've added a few other things as well. With the completion of the Biology credit, he will have met the requirements for science credits, because he did Classical Astronomy for high school credit last year.

He has one academic elective this year - Economics. He is using Simply Put: A Study in Economics, and it will be a half-credit course. We just received Micro Business for Teens to review, but I haven't had a chance to figure out exactly where it will fit into his course load. He does want to own his own trash removal business one day, so this should be a valuable resource! I'm excited for him to get started. (He doesn't know we have the course yet!)

Landon will also earn a half credit for Phys.Ed., since he is completing two semesters of our co-op gym class, and participates in other sports activities.

Finally, his involvement in Civil Air Patrol will be worth a full credit as well. Another homeschool mom with older students had written a course description and given it the title Aerospace Education and Leadership. Civil Air Patrol does encourage all kinds of learning. Cadets learn about the history of the Air Force, and about aerospace technology and rocketry. They participate in a physical training regimen. They are trained to play support roles in military exercises as well as in search and rescue operations. They are able to take leadership roles and learn respect and self-discipline. Oh yeah, and they start learning to fly planes.

First glider flight

The most challenging credit for him to earn may well be the required credit in Fine Arts. He might do the ARTistic Pursuits course in sculpture that we are currently reviewing.

What are some of the coolest elective credits for high school? Leave a comment and let me know! For tomorrow's coffee break in the 5 Ordinary Homeschool Days series, I will be sharing the courses Kennady is working on this year for seventh grade.

Visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog to see all the Crew bloggers participating in this "5 Days of... Blog Hop". There are more than 60 bloggers sharing on a variety of subjects. You might want to start by visiting the following featured blogs:
Dawn at Double O Farms - Helping Your Struggling Learner
Gena at I Choose Joy! - Homeschooling Middle School
Monique at Living Life and Learning - Homeschooling with Lapbooks
AnneMarie at Future.Flying.Saucers - Christian Worldview 101
DaLynn at For the Display of His Splendor - Diagramming the Proverbs
Marya at Suncoast Mama - Homeschooling Special Needs
Lisa at Farm Fresh Adventures - Our Favorite Family Recipes
Christine at Our Homeschool Reviews - Free and Frugal Homeschooling (with daily giveaways to enter!)

Don't miss a coffee break! Subscribe to Homeschool Coffee Break by Email!

 ©2006-2014 Homeschool Coffee Break. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://kympossibleblog.blogspot.com/

5 Ordinary Homeschool Days - Wednesday

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 Good morning! Grab a coffee and we'll start our ordinary Wednesday. Today I'm sharing a little about our scheduling and how we try to keep track of what we're working on.



A lot has changed in our homeschool from the days when the kids were little and needed me to actively teach every subject. Now that my students are middle school and high school age, they really are capable of doing almost all of the schoolwork themselves, and I am more of a facilitator and supervisor than a tutor.

We've tried several versions of schedules and assignment tracking, and this is how we've been handling it for most of this school year. The kids and I worked together to figure out a general schedule for each of them. We had to work around gym class on Tuesdays, and allow for a late start on Mondays and for Kennady's music lessons on Wednesdays. We also had to schedule the computer, since we have only one that is used for internet and most of the school-related things. Landon and Kennady both use web-based programs for Math and Science, so generally they can't both work on Math at the same time. We blocked out about an hour for each subject so we had a flexible but sort of predictable routine for each day.

The daily schedules are printed using the Homeschool Tracker Plus.

Sometimes it's hit and miss with whether the kids get up on their own in the morning, or whether I have to *ahem* remind them that they need to get moving. My goal is to have them getting up on time on their own, and finished their breakfast by the time class starts. They are both capable of that, but not consistent. It's one of our ongoing challenges. Anyway...

Except for Tuesdays, we start the school day with Social Studies. That is the only course that the kids are doing the same thing, and I am working with them, so it's best to start the day with it. This year we have been doing a survey of the geography, cultures, and history of the Americas - mostly South and Central America, since we did a full year of American history last year. We do a lot of the reading and discussion together, but there are also some writing assignments, art projects, and assigned books so that they can still work on Social Studies for that first hour or so whether or not we are together. Hmmm... looks like there were some kind of shenanigans going on during this particular lesson...


As you can see, breakfast doesn't nearly always get finished before school starts. Somebody was still working on their bagel or toast during class on the day I took this picture, and they didn't take the dishes to the kitchen when they were done either.





Next is Math for Landon - he likes to get it out the way early in the day. Kennady's schedule is pretty flexible the rest of the morning - literature, art, music, maybe science or math depending on when/whether the computer is available.

After lunch, they work on English together, and can spend the rest of their time working on any of their other subjects - science for both of them; economics for Landon; math, literature, art, or music for Kennady.

Since I want kids to learn time management, I have them keep track of their own time spent on school. They do a pretty good job of it, but do need reminders from time to time. They each have a small student calendar - the pocket size kind you can buy for very cheap. All they need to do is write down what subject they work on and the start and finish times for it. This way we do have a record of time spent for things like music practice. The other reason they keep their own record of time spent is that I require 5 hours of educational activity each school day. They need to work on math every day, but other than that, they have the freedom to decide for themselves whether they'd like to do three hours of literature or art at a sitting and then be pretty much done with that subject for the week, or if they want to spread their work out more evenly over five days a week. As long as they are working on it regularly and getting assignments done by deadlines (I do have a few of those!) it's okay by me. I read about this approach in an article by Andrew Pudewa (of Institute for Excellence in Writing) that appeared in The Old Schoolhouse magazine some time ago, and this has worked so much better for us than me setting arbitrary times that they need to work on certain subjects.

I have to keep records too, and I make use of Homeschool Tracker Online for that. I bought Homeschool Tracker Plus many years ago, and I almost can't imagine using anything else at this point. I keep track of grades, assignments, resources used, time spent, and more. I have detailed course descriptions for the high school courses, and if I wish, I can weight grades for credit courses. I can produce my own report cards and transcripts. When it's time for our year-end portfolio reviews, I can print out the reading list of all the books covered in certain subjects. Probably the most useful feature is the reusable Lesson Plan. I entered all the assignments for Exploring America (Notgrass) years ago when my oldest student did it, and saved those as a Lesson Plan. When the next student came along to do that course a couple years later, I already had a Lesson Plan and with just a couple of clicks of my mouse, all the assignments for the course went into that student's assignment grid for the current school year. Homeschool Tracker also allows me to reschedule assignments, to copy a series of assignments in one step rather than entering all 36 chapters of a textbook separately. I also like the ability to print out the assignment lists or calendars for individual students or subjects. (There is a free Basic Edition of Homeschool Tracker; as well as the online subscription version I use, which is Homeschool Tracker Online.) 

With all the grading and record-keeping looked after (LOL I crack myself up sometimes! I have been having an awful time remembering to keep the grading current this school year. I will regret my procrastination when it comes time to do final report cards, I know!), it's time to go to Kennady's music lesson.  We recently switched her lesson time from 5pm to 3pm so that she would be able to get to softball practices and games which are also on Wednesday this season. Kennady is learning both piano and guitar, and has the same teacher for both instruments. She has a piano lesson one week and a guitar lesson the next.

Heading out the door with her guitar.

After her lesson, we head home and grab dinner. Most of the year we have a decent amount of time, but in the spring, we have to get her to softball practice or to a game. The arrangement we have right now is that I generally take her to Monday games and the hubby takes her to Wednesday games.

This is last year's team - she hasn't got her uniform for this year yet, and games
won't start until after Easter.

Wednesday evenings are also church activities. Landon and Kennady are both in youth group. Our oldest son and I are both youth leaders, and our second son works with the kids ministry. Following youth and children's activities, we now have a small church choir that Kennady and I are involved in. She sings and I am the accompanist.

This is a youth group picture from the fall when we had our youth carnival
to kick off the year.

How strictly do you follow a schedule in your homeschool? How do you keep records? Leave a comment and let me know! For tomorrow's coffee break in the 5 Ordinary Homeschool Days series, I will be sharing the courses Landon is working on this year for ninth grade.

Visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog to see all the Crew bloggers participating in this "5 Days of... Blog Hop". There are more than 60 bloggers sharing on a variety of subjects. You might want to start by visiting the following featured blogs:
Monique at Living Life and Learning is sharing 5 Days of Homeschooling with Lapbooks, and yesterday she explained how to use lapbooks to teach History.
AnneMarie at Future.Flying.Saucers - her Christian Worldview 101 series is a great primer on the importance of worldview.
DaLynn at For the Display of His Splendor has a neat approach to grammar and Bible study with her series on Diagramming the Proverbs
Dawn at Double O Farms - Helping Your Struggling Learner
Gena at I Choose Joy! - Homeschooling Middle School
Marya at Suncoast Mama - Homeschooling Special Needs
Lisa at Farm Fresh Adventures - Our Favorite Family Recipes
Christine at Our Homeschool Reviews - Free and Frugal Homeschooling (with daily giveaways to enter!)

Don't miss a coffee break! Subscribe to Homeschool Coffee Break by Email!

 ©2006-2014 Homeschool Coffee Break. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://kympossibleblog.blogspot.com/

5 Ordinary Homeschool Days - Tuesday

Tuesdays have a lot going for them. They really do. But precisely because they've got so much going on, they usually wear me out. I am generally more exhausted at the end of an ordinary Tuesday than any other day.


First things first - coffee. It should probably be in a travel mug today, because I will be on the road a lot.

I get up at my usual time in the morning (just after 6am) and see my oldest out the door for work. Not long afterwards, I see my hubby out the door for work. Then I have some time before making sure the kids are up and ready to start school, but for the past couple of months, once I get them started I leave to drive my second son to work.

So Landon and Kennady need to work on schoolwork that they can do without me being around. This isn't usually a problem, and Tuesday mornings are a good time for Landon to work on math, and for Kennady to work on literature or music.

They are supposed to get started on writing too, if they have time. You guessed it - they are not always all that diligent without someone here to look over their shoulder. In any case, when I get home, I make sure they do get a bit more schoolwork done before we break for lunch. Lunch is never a relaxed affair on Tuesdays - unless it's a snow day. That's because Tuesday afternoon is our co-op gym class, and it's about a 45 minute drive from here. Plus I usually pick up a friend's kid(s) on the way. For sixteen weeks each semester, we meet at an indoor gym in town and the kids have Phys.Ed. class for an hour and a half. The classes are run by the Gym Committee from our homeschool fellowship, and are very well organized. The kids enjoy the time with friends and playing team sports (well.... some sports more than others. My kids are NOT fans of soccer!), and one of the things this mom loves is that I can drop them off and go do errands or whatever by myself! Woot!! Sometimes I hang around and chat with the other moms; sometimes a few of us go out for a coffee together; often we go our separate ways and pick up groceries or do errands in town. It's a great deal for me, because we live out in the country, so I need to make the most of trips into town.







When gym is over, we head home, with maybe a quick stop at the library on the way, but we don't have much time to waste. At home, the kids shower and I try to relax for a little bit before getting dinner ready. Tuesday is a good day to have dinner in the crockpot, or to eat a leftover smorgasbord, so I try to plan for that. After dinner, we hit the road again - and we go right back to town, not far from where we'd been for gym class! We pick up Landon's friend most weeks and I drop those two boys off at Civil Air Patrol. Sometimes I have to have them there by 6pm if they have Drill Team practice. If not, they start at 7pm.

getting ready for CAP on dress blues night

 Then I drive downtown to drop Kennady off for her choir practice. She has to be there by 7:15 so the timing usually works out well. Once she is signed in at practice, I head over to my choir practice, about 10 minutes away, and you guessed it - it starts at 7:30. I have to make sure I watch the clock and leave my practice a couple minutes early so that I can get over to CAP to pick all the kids up. Kennady's practice is over at 8:45, but fortunately another mom helps me out by signing her out and dropping her off at CAP.

By the time we are back home again, I am ready to drop!

Which day is the usually the busiest in your homeschool? Leave a comment and let me know! And please stop by again tomorrow for another coffee break, and I'll share about how we try to schedule our days and keep track of what we're working on as I continue with the 5 Ordinary Homeschool Days series.

Visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog to see all the Crew bloggers participating in this "5 Days of... Blog Hop". There are more than 60 bloggers sharing on a variety of subjects. You might want to start by visiting the following featured blogs:
Marya at Suncoast Mama started her Homeschooling Special Needs series yesterday with 7 reasons why you should consider homeschooling your special needs child.
Lisa at Farm Fresh Adventures is sharing Our Favorite Family Recipes, and she got my attention right away with a recipe for Australian Damper Loaf which looks delicious!
Christine at Our Homeschool Reviews is writing about Free and Frugal Homeschooling, and she has giveaways each day!
AnneMarie at Future.Flying.Saucers - Christian Worldview 101
Dawn at Double O Farms - Helping Your Struggling Learner
Gena at I Choose Joy! - Homeschooling Middle School
Monique at Living Life and Learning - Homeschooling with Lapbooks
DaLynn at For the Display of His Splendor - Diagramming the Proverbs

This post is also linked to the A Day In Our Homeschool Round-up (February 19, 2016) on the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog.

Don't miss a coffee break! Subscribe to Homeschool Coffee Break by Email!

 ©2006-2014 Homeschool Coffee Break. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://kympossibleblog.blogspot.com/

5 Ordinary Homeschool Days - Monday

Welcome to (what I hope will be) 5 Ordinary Homeschool Days!

My goal this week is to give you some idea of what homeschooling most often looks like at my house here in Realsville. Here in my real world, we are sometimes tired and often disorganized; we have fun but we can also get frustrated; we have lesson plans and a schedule, but they have to be very flexible because seldom are two 'ordinary' days or weeks exactly the same. So over the past couple of weeks, I've been taking notes (and pictures) to combine into what an Ordinary week might look like. Ironically, this week and the rest of April are probably the least likely to be typical because of all the crazy things that are going on - my hubby travels for work around this time each year, softball season is starting, one of the older boys has a different work schedule this week, and we have a choir trip coming up too!

At any rate, here is what Monday should look like, and what today should look like.

Let's start off right, with a cup of coffee!

Mondays can be my favorite day of the week because I think of it as a new start. A whole new row on the calendar, and new checklist of things to get done during the week. However, Monday doesn't always feel like a fresh start first thing in the morning. Here's the background: Landon and Kennady have part-time jobs as scorekeepers in their dad's hockey league, and those games are played on Sunday night. As in, late enough on Sunday night that they usually don't get into bed before midnight. Because they are growing kids that need their sleep, and because we don't have to start school at a certain time or catch a bus, our standing plan is to start school about a half-hour later than usual on Monday mornings. Maybe an hour if it was a really late night. In the real world, it's actually pretty hard for them to remember to reset their alarms (like they wake up to their alarms anyway - HA! I'll get to that on one of the other days in this Ordinary week!) so they just leave them off; and it's also pretty hard for me to watch the clock and make sure they are up in time to start school. So the Late Start Monday is often later than we'd like it to be.



Once we are ready to start, we can usually be pretty productive though. History/Social Studies is the first hour block on our daily schedule, but since we start late most Mondays, I try to have something for that subject that doesn't take as long, or have them work on something on their own. Sometimes we'll skip Social Studies on Monday altogether and just head straight to the next thing on the schedule. That's Math for Landon, and Literature or Fine Arts for Kennady. Landon is using VideoText Interactive for Algebra, so he spends part of his math time each morning at the computer watching the lesson and printing his worksheet. As long as Kennady doesn't need me, that's a good time for me to get to a household chore or two, such as laundry.



Despite having breakfast later, the kids still want lunch at the same time. But I try to keep lunch break a little shorter on Mondays because of the late start. Rarely does that work out, but I can dream. Lunch is usually something simple like sandwiches or quesadillas. Landon and Kennady don't often agree on what they'd like for lunch, so on Mondays and Tuesdays I tend to stay away from things like mac & cheese where it's easier to make a larger quantity.

Getting back to schoolwork after lunch break isn't always the easiest thing in the world either. And I tend to be distracted by whatever I'm doing (like reading blogs or email, or checking Facebook. Oops.) so I'll procrastinate on reminding them that lunch break is over. What has helped me is having a weekday alarm set on my phone for 10 minutes before school time, since I don't always look at the clock. After lunch, we usually work on Science and English. Kennady especially likes to practice piano on Monday, when the older boys aren't home, so she gets in some extra time there on Monday afternoons.

Sometime between 3 and 4 o'clock, the kids usually finish up for the day, and can have some TV or video game time before dinner. Starting this week, Kennady will have softball practice or a game on Monday evening, so dinner has to be early enough to get her out the door on time.

new softball cleats!

After dinner has been cleared away, we hope we have some time to relax in the evening, whether at the softball game or at home. And probably it's a good night for milkshakes or hot chocolate.




Coming up in this week's 5 Ordinary Homeschool Days, I'll share a bit more about our daily schedule, how we try to keep track of everything, and the curriculum we're using. What's ordinarily on your homeschool schedule for Monday? Leave a comment and let me know! And please stop by again tomorrow for another coffee break!

Visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog to see all the Crew bloggers participating in this "5 Days of... Blog Hop". There are more than 60 bloggers sharing on a variety of subjects. You might want to start by visiting the following featured blogs:
AnneMarie at Future.Flying.Saucers - Christian Worldview 101
Marya at Suncoast Mama - Homeschooling Special Needs
Lisa at Farm Fresh Adventures - Our Favorite Family Recipes
Dawn at Double O Farms - Helping Your Struggling Learner
Gena at I Choose Joy! - Homeschooling Middle School
Christine at Our Homeschool Reviews - Free and Frugal Homeschooling
Monique at Living Life and Learning - Homeschooling with Lapbooks
DaLynn at For the Display of His Splendor - Diagramming the Proverbs

Don't miss a coffee break! Subscribe to Homeschool Coffee Break by Email!

 ©2006-2014 Homeschool Coffee Break. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://kympossibleblog.blogspot.com/