Our Schedule

It has been nearly three weeks since we started official school. As I suspected, the schedule I had carefully planned went right out the window from the first day! Yesterday seems to be typical of the pattern that's working for us:

5:00 J up for his "Resting and Reading" time. (Yes, he voluntarily gets up in the dark. He doesn't get that from either side of the family.)

6:00 I peel myself out of the bed (I am NOT a morning person) and get breakfast for everyone. We've starting doing our Bible lessons during breakfast so that Daddy can lead them.

After Daddy leaves, we do our house chores which also involve meal prep. J is involved in both the cleaning and cooking. One day his wife will thank me.

Whenever the chores are done there is free time until lunch. J watches a video and I work on the computer. Yesterday we went to the library. After lunch (and its subsequent cleanup), we start "school."

At first I tried to do school while sitting on the couch. J's body interpreted couch sitting as an opportunity to turn upside down, slide off, land on the floor and then whirl around the room. That was not conducive to lessons.

I set up a quick school area in the basement to signal to J's body that it needed to sit still and be ready to learn. It seems to be working. We stay there until we've finished our subjects. We're almost done refinishing the basement, hence the taped but unpainted wall.

Yes, I have to sit on a small chair. No, I don't like it.




Here is what we studied yesterday:

• Introduced our new author by reading her bio and some of her books.
• Worked on several types of nouns (e.g., common, proper, abstract, concrete, collective, and compound).
• Read from an encyclopedia on the human body as an intro to the different systems. The specific topic yesterday was the brain and how it controls all the many areas. J is still questioning why the left brain controls the right side and the right brain controls the left side. That concept is blowing his mind. (Sorry.)
• Spent 40 minutes outside working on the flowerbeds to get them ready for the winter.
• Math is from Verbal Lessons. J is doing VERY well with this.
• Fire Safety week is this week. We'll be visiting the fire station on the 4th. We drew floor plans of our house and J indicated the escape routes.
• J is VERY familiar with the continents and countries. Very. He knows more than I do. Don't tell him. He answered some worksheet questions for the different continents that I'll put in his portfolio for the state.
• We did so much art last week with the Impressionists that I'm waiting until tomorrow to start our next artist: The Limbourg Brothers. Don't worry--I've never heard of them either.
• And last, drum practice. At some point I'll try to post a short video of his drum lesson.

We're still working out the details, but things are going very well. Our schedule suits our personalities and our responsibilities. It's always adjustable as circumstances change. That's one of the wonderful things about homeschooling.