For some reason, I get a lot more email about this blog than I get comments, and I have gotten several emails lately about what a “typical” school day looks like at our house. Well, let me just start by saying that no two days here are exactly the same. But, we do have a flow to our days that makes them somewhat predictable. I have a daily schedule of tasks for each child, and I let them choose the order in which they may be done, within reason. Obviously, we do our best to keep within Charlotte’s guidelines of short focused lessons, between 10 and 15 minutes per subject so the child will stay attentive to what needs to be learned.
We usually wake up around 7:30. We tidy up rooms, get dressed and eat breakfast. Most days, if the weather is nice, we take a walk, or play outside for 15-30 minutes. I find that outside time helps us break away from temptations like the TV or computer, and gives us a some fresh air and a clear head. We usually arrive back home and get to business around 9:00 AM.
First up is “circle time.” We read a Bible story and a proverb or a psalm. We also read a poem, and review our artist and print for the current week. I ask the children (after the initial introduction, of course!) who the artist is, the name of the print, and anything they can tell me about it. Typically, we have our composer music playing in the background. If I happen to have a book about our current artist or composer, I read a small amount from that as well. Circle time is roughly 15-20 minutes.
We take a small break after circle time and I get everything situated for each child to move onto the next lesson, which is math (usually). If Super-boy is working on a new math concept, I sit with him and teach it (with manipulatives), and he works on a few of the problems with guidance. After he understands the concept, the following days he does his math independently while I do math work with Diva and Monkey. I try to keep math to 10-15 minutes tops. Sometimes that means he does the even problems on the page, and sometimes he does the odd, or we pick a selection from the page to finish.
We read one of the AO selections after math. Again, 10 minutes or so and a narration. He gives oral narrations, acts out narrations with toys, or draws them.
We work on Phonics next, for 5-10 minutes.
If we have another AO reading, we do that next, with narration. If it is a geography reading, we do mapwork etc.
Copy work follows for another 5 minutes or so. Lately we have been working on cursive handwriting.
That concludes the academics for what is regularly scheduled on a daily basis. We rotate music, art, science, PE, nature study, Spanish, Health etc. We listen to composers for music, as well as play the recorder. This year we will be learning hymns and folk songs as well. For art, we study artists, obviously, but we also draw, paint, sketch and model with clay. I try to schedule fun science experiments a couple times each term. The kids love them! For PE, we play a variety of playground and sports games, participate in sports clinics, go roller skating, hiking and Super-boy plays basketball with the Boys and Girls Club. For nature study we walk around and observe nature. We color bird notebook pages, we draw in nature journals, we read about what we find. Spanish has been the most hit or miss for us. I picked up “Phrase-a-Day Spanish” this year, so hopefully that will get us into at least 5 minutes a day of easy vocabulary. For health I pick two topics a year. I am required to cover it under Maryland law. Last year we did the food pyramid and tooth care, compete with a “field trip” to the dentist! :-)
I find movies about things we are reading. We cover Shakespeare, so we were able to watch a few child-appropriate films for that this past year. We take trips to the zoo, the aquarium, museums and so on. The AO books/living books are so amazing, they don’t need much else.
This is really a bare bones sketch of our day, but it’s a very full curriculum. We are done with school (most days when they don’t dawdle and waste time) by lunch or just after. Three hours has been plenty of time. Now, I will have two full time students this year, but I think with scheduling and a plan of action I can still juggle them both in the same time. Super-boy is doing a lot more of his work independently, including some of his readings. :-) Only time will tell!
