When do you get up & wake the kid/kids & what you do from there. Do yall actually sit at a table & do nothing but hours of lessons or is it more carefree.Is this done every day,EOD or just on weekdays..........do you take off in the summer ??? or maybe a week or two from formal lessons when you feel like it. I want to know what the average day is like & how much time you spend where you life is divorced from you & your devoted to nothing but lessons.
I have a 3 yo so I am not much help-- he is very driven and needs to keep busy. Right now our "school" consists of 1. A writing board he can draw shapes and I draw letters and have him repeat them. 2. A pair of safety scissors that I let him cut up scrap paper with. 3. LOTS AND LOTS of books that we read together. 4. My dh 's hammer and tape measure. The hammer he pounds the snot out of everything with-- not sure what he learns from it, but it does help him sleep better at night! =) and the tape measure is math at this point. We measure everything and learn counting, recognizing numbers and so forth with it. As far as time spent I do it until he is bored with it and we move on so hmm about 35 seconds if I am lucky! Just kidding. Really most of my friends that homeschool older school age children are all done by noon and start around 7:30-8 am. M-F Even the ones that have 7-8 kids are done by noon. And everyone usually takes the summer off.
Forgive me for not typing it all again... I need to go to the store. I just recently gave a day rundown in the thread at: http://www.homeschoolspot.com/showthread.php?t=1434&page=1&pp=10&highlight=Sami A couple of other people did there too. Hope it helps.
We normally don't go by the clock as far as when to start. My son is only in kindergarten so we still have a little flexibility, I don't know but I assume this would change later down the road. We usually start school about 1 hour or so after Trevor wakes up then we go for about 1 1/2 to 3 hours depending on whether something new is being introduced or not. Mostly we're done in less than 2 hours. We don't do school at the kitchen table we are blessed to have an extra room which is set up just like a classroom. This works great for us because Trevor is easily distracted. We do a variety of things in school to make it fun. We use the ABEKA curriculum and I follow it pretty closely. We do take summers off. Charlie
ok, now that I'm home... Here's the stuff that wasn't in the other post: Well Sami wakes up at the Crack of Dawn and I'm NOT a morning person. I'm somewhat aware that she is up and I try to wake up, but I'm slow moving. She is expected to accomplish a list of stuff before I rejoin reality. She knows that she is expected to pray, get dressed, brush her hair and teeth, and do her challenge box first thing every morning. Most mornings she accomplishes all that and then asks me when I get up when exactly I will start waking up before the sun comes up. At 7:30 another little girl I babysit arrives and we all have breakfast. The Girls play for a bit and then the other little girl watches movies while Sami does the morning stuff (About an hour and 15 min.) I do whatever we didn't finish that needs to be formal, or answering science type questions in the afternoon during the other girls naptime. We don't take Saturdays off or the summer but we do take a week here or there if one of us is sick or we have company from out of town or we decide to take a trip Or even if we are exceptionally grumpy that day. Trips, grumpiness and Company mean we do only 15 min. of reading and that's it. We don't use the kitchen table much. Sami has a pink Princess student desk in her room and she sits there for writing and math worksheets (when we do worksheets which is rare) reading is done where ever, art gets spread out on the living room rug, Science is usually done at MY desk so we have the computer (and the experiment class is at a school), for math I use a curriculum that is mostly oral with fingers and toes for minipulatives (no counting on fingers allowed though!) So we do math wherever... often math is when we are standing in line at the electric company or the grocery store, doctors waiting rooms etc. I think I said that we have music in the car. Storytime (Me reading to her) Is in her bed at night. We have some "Learning Videos" and computer games as well. I treat them the same as videos like Cinderella or Finding Nemo and she often chooses the educational stuff over the fun only stuff for her limited TV and computer time. So to sum up... we have school all over the place! So she is in Kindergarden and we probably have 1 hour or so a day tht I'd say was "Formal" Lessons. One of my goals in HS her though is to teach her to always incorperate learning into everything she does, it should be a normal part of the day everyday, like eating or taking a shower. I'm not quite an Unschooler since I have no qualms about doing formal lessons when they are needed and there are lots of specific things I will make her learn (not child led). It just dosn't feel like school at my house. I hope to keep it this way at least up to 4th grade level or so, maybe longer.
RB, there's a thread called "How many minutes do you spend...." or some such in the Homeschooling forum. I described my "typical" (roll eyes!) day there. I'm too lazy to do it again! To sum it up, up at 6, breakfast with Daddy and clean up, school about 7:30 until 11:00 or so, lunch, silent reading/read aloud, school until about 3:00.
there is a website you should visit, to help you see all kinds of stuff about getting started to home school. its A to Z home's cool if you do a search on homeschool it should come up in the zillion catigories, I tried doin the direct link but it didn't work, Its early and my eyes cant foccus yet.
http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/methods/Classical.htm I've been reading parts of that site for a week now.Think I'll read some more from it tonight.
Folks what is it called charolette mason that has all classical approach. Look that up RB. You can get most of the books at the library for it.
Charlotte Mason and Classical are different, but do have some similarities. Many people use a combination of the two.
Isn't CM a philosophy ??? I was reading about it alittle last night & figured it was alittle too vague.Meaning no set curriculum. It's kinda funny how folks that are dead had the same ideas I have except they give them fancy names.I plan on doing what works.to adapt.I don't think I'll be using anyones curriculum alone. But we're not ready for that yet so I've got time to read up. Seems abeka & Alpha Omega are the biggies right now. I'm assuming most folks are eclectic with their teaching & the materials they use.
Well, Jeannie gets up around 8:30 now. I let her wake up and eat until about 10. We do our work until about noon or 1p.m. Sometimes we'll need to finish something that evening. Tuesday she has gym, Wednesday she has cooking and art, Friday she has swimming and Saturday she's got soccer. Sunday is Children's Church.
I think CM does have a site list of books to use per year. I think it also has ideas for things to go with it. I will ask a friend of mine.
