Our Basic Day

I had a great question on my last post regarding how I set up our day, and how we school. It's interesting, because while we have a basic plan, it's fluid and always changing. For example, Reagan is a daydreamer (he comes by it honestly) and has a hard time getting his Math done. It's not that he doesn't understand it, it's that he doesn't focus on it. So I've had to set up a new plan. He gets 1 minute per equation, and anything he doesn't finish will have to be competed during his free time. Suddenly he's getting a lot faster!

Basically this is our day

7:00 am kids up, morning hygeine, before breakfast chores

7:30 am breakfast

8:00 am after breakfast chores, free time

9:00 am family prayer

9:30 am morning walk

10:00 am snack/start school

11:30 am stop school/before lunch chores

12 pm lunch

12:30 pm after lunch chores/free time

1 pm school

2:30 pm stop school/free time

3 pm family afternoon prayer/free time

4:30 before dinner chores

5 pm dinner

5:30 pm after dinner chores/free time

6:30 family scripture reading

7:00 pm evening hygiene

7:30 pm pick up house

8:00 pm family reading (we finish The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe tonight)

8:30 pm family Rosary

9 pm bedtime

We really do manage to do our schoolwork in 2 and a half hours a day. If he doesn't, then he has to complete it in his free time. Free time is also generally when we do Science experiments and crafts, since I want them to continue to remain fun, and not work.

Every other Mon. morning we go grocery shopping, which I consider to be educational.

Thursday mornings we have playgroup, which the kids need for social time. Okay, I need it too. We don't do our morning schoolwork on Thursdays, but we still have our afternoon time. We do school six days a week. We skip Saturday because that's the day we go to Mass in the evening, so it is our day of rest. I avoid laundry and unnecessary schoolwork, and the kids don't have to do school.

We cover Spelling, Reading, Grammar, Science, Math, Religion, Spanish, and Piano. Not to mention the huge amount of Home Ec. he gets. Now that the weather is good we're outside discussing games, and having races. So, that's Phys. Ed., right? We don't do all of the subjects every day, but Math, Spelling and Reading are our staple subjects, the one's that are done almost every day.

I'm currently using Catholic Heritage Curriculum and there's a lot I like about it. I think next year I would really like to find another Science program, one that's a little more extensive. I'm not really a Science person, and want to make sure I'm covering everything.

What I really like about homeschooling is the ability to tailor it to meet my child's needs. I can stop whatever we're doing and address an attitude issue. I can take time to acknowledge when my child is frustrated and figure out another way to come at an issue. I can chuck a text that simply isn't working and find something new.

I believe that public school teachers would love the chance to be able to do some of the things that we do. The system simply isn't set up to work that way.