Lancelot Acres

All about homeschooling...and our daily routine

I thought I'd post about our current homeschooling routine.

We use Christian Liberty (CLASS).  DD5 started Kindergarten in May this year.  I started her a bit early as I wanted her to get through regular and advanced Kindergarten and still start 1st grade next fall (with the PS schedule).  We shouldn't have any trouble meeting this goal, unless we run into school problems when the new baby comes along in October.

We look to finish our regular Kindergarten at the first of December this year.  I think this is great timing, as we'll have a few weeks off while waiting for our Advanced curriculum to arrive.  I hope to start the Advanced in January (when there is nothing else to do because of the weather).  I'm not sure when we'll finish Advanced K, I'll have to wait until I see the workload before I work up the schedule. 

I'd like DD to have most of next summer off if possible, but that only gives us 6 months (Jan to June) to finish a 9 month curriculum.  If it's all a repeat of regular K, then that shouldn't be a problem, but we'll just have to wait and see what we are dealing with.

I am pretty happy with CLASS so far.  It is a lot of workbook type lessons, but that seems to work for DD.  Sometimes it gets to be too much writing, but most of the time it works out fine. 

I did drop the 'Studying God's Word' subject, as it was just too deep for DD5.  The first story was about Cain and Abel and mentioned the word MURDER more times than I could cut out (I skim over strong words).  The second story was about Noah and how God KILLED everybody else in the world.  I just thought it was a bit deep, so we dropped that one for now.

We currently do Math, Phonics, and Handwriting 4 days per week.  It takes us about an hour to an hour and a half (on a bad day) to finish these three subjects.

We do History and Science once or twice per week (if once, we just do both lessons on that day).  The day/days we do these subjects, we school for about an hour and a half to two hours, depending on the lessons / projects involved.

After her lessons are done, DD always does a 'fun' activity.  Arts and crafts or coloring or dot-to-dots, or mazes.  It just depends on her mood and what our plans are for the day.  Sometimes we spend several hours scrapbooking or stamping or something similar.  Soon we'll start making Christmas gifts in our 'extra' time.

The CLASS curriculum doesn't include 'Art', 'PE', or 'Music'. 

For art, we do a lot of different projects. 

For PE, DD plays outside or dances to a video, or jumps on her trampoline.  A walk is also great for PE.

For music, we really haven't started anything yet.  Any ideas would be helpful.  We are discussing Piano lessons, but finances are dictating and it's on hold for now.  We do sing everyday for school (Thumbkin and the days of the week/ months of the year, etc).

DD wants to take Ballet, so I will check around for that and see what prices are, it might be on hold as well.

I'd like to sign DD up for Brownies (or Daisies?) this year as well.  She was too young last year, so we had to wait.  I think she'd really enjoy the learning involved there.

We are also looking into 4-H.  I'm not sure how excited I am about that.  I don't like exposing our animals at the fair.  There are a lot of still exhibits though, so that could be fun for DD.  I'll see what she thinks about it...she will be old enough to show an animal next year, so we'll talk about that too.

We just joined a homeschooling group and we have our first 'meeting' (a cook-out) on Aug 24.  I hope that goes well and that we can set up some kind of play date/ lesson for our age group, weekly or bi-weekly.  I think DD would benefit from that type of socialization/play.

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Our day usually goes like this:

4:30ish DH gets up and ready for work

5:15ish DH heads to work

8/8:30ish DD and I get up and shower, do hair, teeth, breakfast, morning chores and DD watches a TV program.

9:30ish DD gets her breathing treatment (Nebulizer rental is up soon, so we'll just do the inhaler).

9:45ish we do our studies.

Usually in this order:

Math (4 times per week)
Phonics (4 times per week)
Handwriting (4 times per week)
History (once or twice per week)
Science (once or twice per week)

Misc (crafts, coloring, etc) (4+ times per week)

11:30 or noon we have lunch and then run errands or play outside, play games or watch TV or Mommy takes a nap, or ???.  It just depends on our daily plans.  The library is a weekly event and a visit with my parents happens two or three times.  DD spends the night with them once a week, usually on Monday nights (so we take Tuesday off from school).

I think we may go to the movies today...DD has her surgery Monday and she is really nervous about it and cries daily.  It'll be a nice reprieve for her.

5ish DH gets home and works outside...chores, projects, whatever.  DD and I sometimes join him, sometimes not...it depends on if supper is already cooking or if I have a lot of prep.

6/6:30ish we have supper.

DH often goes back outside until about 8PMish.  I clean the kitchen and straighten house, maybe finish laundry if it wasn't finished earlier.  DD plays outside or plays with her toys.  Sometimes she watches TV...she loves the nature programs in the evenings and often asks to watch the 'poisonous snake show'.

8ish DH comes in and gets on the computer, reads, or watches TV until bedtime.

9/9:30ish DH and DD bedtime.

I don't have a bedtime right now...I am suffering from insomnia so I'm up a lot at night.  When not preggo, we usually go to sleep at the same time. 

OK, off to start our day (I was up early and now I have to get DD going).

Untitled Comment

{ 10:34, 2006-Aug-10 } { Posted by ElCloud }

Sounds like you have it pretty well planned out. :-) I've never used CLASS, but I have a friend who does. We mostly use unit studies and literature-based curriculum. :-) I hope you pass your 3 hour sugar test.

April