How Our School Day Looks Monday-Thursday
(as of March, 2011)
In our school, we currently have a 7th grader (my 13-year-old), a 3rd grader (my 9-year-old), and a kindergartener (my almost 6-year-old), with breaks provided by my almost 2-year-old. Of course, those grade levels are sort of silly. They're all over the place in the level they're actually at in each subject.
9:00 After a couple of odds & ends chores, we head downstairs to the school/craft room and begin "The Basics". For the next two hours, the kids work (with varying times and degrees of oversight from me) on Math, Language Arts, and Foreign Language.
11:00 We wrap up our morning work with Geography, one of our favorite subjects. We pick an area of the world to study in an atlas or other book, read, map, learn a geography song if applicable, and then head to the computer to YouTube anything interesting we came across. Kids love it; we have so much fun while learning tons about the world.
11:30 - 1:00 Lunch Break. After a quick, 10-15 minute, pick up (housekeeping), we have lunch and exercise time. I usually start making lunch while kids do the quick pick up. Then I exercise while they eat. While they eat, they have free reading time. Then they head outside (when it's excessively cold, they stay in and do exercise downstairs) while I return phone calls if necessary, and have my lunch.
(On Wednesday, we shake things up a bit by skipping the quick pick up, eating quickly to be done by just a bit past noon and heading out for a nature walk. When we return after an hour or so, we replace the usual hymn with a poem or two and then do a "nature study" or "natural history" lesson by looking up interesting things we found. At 2pm we work on our nature notebooks.)
1:00 We go for a walk, get the mail, get fresh air. By 1:15 or so, we're back in and begin our afternoon with a hymn. Then we gather in my room so I can rock my baby while doing our Weaver Bible Lesson. We read and discuss the lesson, probably one of my favorite times of the day because of watching the connections the kids make. I may say a bit about our Social Studies / Science topic. Then I assign writing and research for the afternoon.
2:00 Time to Write. Olders have assigned writing related to Bible or Social Studies / Science, 6-yo has free craft time, and baby goes down for nap.
2:30 6-yo to rest. Olders spend till 4pm completing Social Studies or Science research and/or project work, and Music Practice. If all work is completed early, they are allowed constructive free time for quiet crafts or projects.
