Week 5

Well, I have failed this week and took zero pictures!  So, instead of sharing pics from our week, I thought I'd share our schedule and curriculum.

We start our day between 8:45-9 in the living room with our new activity trays.  We have a daily folder that the kids count the days of school, the weather, etc.  There are also some review sheets in there but we haven't started them yet.  I then read a devotional entitled Indescribable , which is about God and science.

Next, we start history.  We are doing Year 1 of The Good & The Beautiful's history course.  It has activities for all ages and goes from creation to present day, stopping at different topics along the way.  We are currently in the Middle Ages.  Science comes next and it is also from The Good & the Beautiful.  We are doing multiple science courses because there isn't one year's course, you pick and choose.  We are finishing up Arthropods this week and will start Energy next week.  After science, the younger 2 get a quick break while the twins and I do extra work on science, if required, and Spanish.  We are using Easy Spanish but we aren't loving it.  It seems kind of random so far. 

We bring the other two kiddos back and have either art or Bible next.  We are finishing up our drawing book and our Bible study book from last year.  We also do an Artpac that has more activities, besides just drawing.  THere is also a famous painting card we look at each week.  We finish our morning with read aloud.  We are currently reading Half-Magic and it is a huge hit!!!  It's a very simple, lighthearted book and we laugh so much!  We then break so I can get ready to make lunch.

After a lunch break, which varies in time depending on when we finished up our earlier work, we start our independent and one on one work.  Lily and Hunter have assignment books where their work is listed out. 

I start school with Nathan first, most the time.  He is working on handwriting (a tough one for him), Right Start math and Barton for language arts.  He will start book 4 this week.

Samuel and I work on handwriting (he resists cursive but I have a transition book this year where we will be slowly starting work on that), CLE math (same as Hunter has used for years) and Barton for language arts.  He is on lesson 4 or 5 of Book 4.

Hunter is usually next even though it's out of age order.  He does cursive on his own--his handwriting is excellent but he struggles to read cursive.  He has math on his own and with me...we're using CLE but taking time out to focus on facts and really understand division.  He then does Barton with me.  He is in Book 5.  We also do First Language Lessons and a 6 Trait Writing workbook together, although he may start doing workbook pages on his own.

Lily has a lot of independent work.  She does her literature work, currently on Tuck Everlasting.  She has cursive, even though I gave her the option to quit because she doesn't need it.  She enjoys it, I guess.  Her math is Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra, which has been going well until this last lesson!  We may need to revisit that one.  Her writing is Writing with Skill and it's mainly independent.  Grammar is half and half done by herself and with me.  We're using Grammar for the Well Trained Mind. 

I like all of the items we're using for afternoon work.  This schedule is opposite how we used to do it but I'm really liking this change.  Once Nathan finishes with me, he's done for the day so that's nice.  No electronics until 4:00 (or when Lily is done if after 4) so they have to keep busy other ways!!  :)