Back to (home)school 2011

We finally got our new school year started last Monday, only a week later than I had planned. The week after Labor Day turned out to be a busy one, so we had to push it back. Last year, we started on September 13, so we really aren't behind at all. (at least I've been telling myself that to make me feel better).

We've made some changes to our days this year. The biggest one being the curriculum. Last year, we used My Father's World. I had three different levels going-K, 1st, and ECC (4th and 7th). It was CRAZY trying to keep up with everything. I loved the K and 1st, but the ECC was a challenge. It was a little too hard for Cheyenne and not quite challenging enough for Dakota. I was looking for something that would make it easier to include everyone and more of a unit study approach. This led me to The Weaver curriculum from A&O. I'm using it as our base curriculum and adding in Singapore Math for the younger three and Life of Fred Fractions for Dakota. I'm doing MFW 1st for reading with Landon (although I will be taking it slow. It moves pretty quickly). I'm starting Sierra out rereading the last several stories from the MFW reader and then we'll go from there depending on what she needs to work on.

Here are a few highlights of our week.

We start the morning together with prayer. I wish we would have done this last year. We take turns so everyone gets a turn about once a week.

Then we say the pledge and do some warm-up exercises to wake us up. The person who prayed is also the leader of the warm-up.

Next is our Bible lesson. This week, I've been doing the reading but I plan on having them take turns later on in the year. (don't they look excited?!)

After the Bible lesson, I send the older two off to work independently on Penmanship, spelling, writing, tae kwon do practice, etc while I do math with the younger two at the calendar.

Once we've finished that, I get Landon and Sierra going on things they can do by themselves. Penmanship, memory verse work, journal, etc. While I go over math with the older two.

We break for lunch around 1:00. They usually go outside or play inside for 15-20 minutes before lunch. Then after lunch, we finish up anything that was left from the morning, do science/social studies, art, or local field trips/errands. If
there is time after they've finished their work and before we have to leave for evening activities they can watch TV, get on the computer, or go outside.

I'm still tweaking the schedule here and there to try to fit everything in, but so far it's going okay.

Here are a couple of my favorite activities from this week:

We talked about the Tower of Babel this week. Sierra and Landon were to build a tower out of legos. Since we had discussed that the Tower of Babel was most likely a ziggurat, Sierra chose to make her lego tower one too.

Another day, we talked about building on the rock vs building on the sand. Landon and Sierra's job was to build a tower as high as they could get it on the carpet and then on the table. They discovered they could get it much higher on the table because it had a good foundation.

All in all, it was a pretty good week.

I'm linking up the the TOS crew (not)Back To School blog hop. Can't wait to check out how everyone else is doing with their new school year!