Gearing Up! (or, The Post with Lots of Links)

It's been 6 weeks since Rachel joined our family, and almost 2 months since we've done any formal school routine. Talk about a long pre-spring break! So, next week, we dive back in to "real life" and get started back on track. I'm a little nervous, but don't have huge expectations, as we're out of practice and and have newborn thrown into the mix!

Over the past few weeks, I've been doing more organizational things to help prepare. I reorganized our school stuff, revamped the chore lists, and am spending this week doing the "great seasonal clothes swap" so that we're ready for spring (and summer)! It feels good to be getting all of that done so that I'll be able to focus more fully on school.

I played around with our school routine and bought a few new curriculum items that will hopefully enhance or improve some subjects. Here's what I hope for our basic day to look like:

We'll start with Bible around the breakfast table. We'll pray, read some scripture, practice our memory verse, and perhaps learn or practice a hymn! We're still using the Bible schedule provided in Sonlight's Core 3 Instructor's Guide, and will be using Hymns for a Child's Heart to learn some songs.

After breakfast, the kids will do a few morning chores, and then we'll all sit down together to read History (also Sonlight Core 3 - we have about 16 weeks left). After History, the bigger kids will go ahead and start their independent work, while I spend time with the littles reading some preschool stories (from Sonlight P 3/4 and P 4/5) and doing some fun activities. After we've read some stories, I'm going to do some one-on-one work with Joel (6) - mostly math (Math-U-See Primer) and reading, while Nathan spends some time on Reading Kingdom.

The bigger boys' independent work consists of Rod and Staff English and Reading, Math-U-See (Gamma and Delta), a Quiet Times for Kids Bible study, handwriting, and reading their Core 3 Readers. This can take them sometimes an hour or more, but that gives me lots of time with the littles!

After they're done, we'll take a mid-morning break until after lunch. This will let them have some time to play outside, or, if needed, we could run some errands or do a project - depending on how much time there is available! I gave up trying to do a "by-the-clock" schedule a few years ago, and instead just "do the next thing", stopping for important things like lunch and naps!

After lunch, Nathan and Judah take a 2 hour nap, so that is prime time to get some more focused work done. We'll do some Science (Apologia's Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology), and then I'll go over the bigger boys' independent work with them. Joel will be working on Reading Kingdom while I do that, and also just spending time entertaining himself quietly - a good skill to learn!

Along with going over the bigger boys' work, I'm also incorporating All About Spelling with each of them (yes, we switched spelling curriculum again! I'm hoping we see good results with AAS, I've heard nothing but great things!), as well as Writing Tales (a review for this is coming soon! So far, it's a keeper!). Ezra is also switching to Handwriting Without Tears after his former handwriting program was, well, reducing him to tears! That also requires some focused one-on-one instruction from me, so that will happen during naps, too.

After naps there's afternoon chores, and then the kids are free to enjoy the rest of the afternoon and evening!

On Fridays, there is no independent work at all, so we'll just have the basic Bible, History, and Science - leaving Fridays to be nice and open to whatever we want to do - field trips, nature hikes, library visits, science projects, fun things like that! I'm really looking forward to our new Friday plan - it's nice to have a set day to do school things that are more adventurous!

The plans look so nice and easy on paper! I'm hoping that they'll be able to flow at least somewhat like what I've written out... like I said, I'm keeping my expectations low to avoid disappointment or frustration ;-) Starting fresh is a nice way to fend off the mid-year doldrums that can pop up, and I'm ready and excited to jump back in to school! Hopefully, if you ask me in three weeks how it's going... I'll still have the same excitement!