This is a Weekly Wrap up from April 1-this past week. I am a bit behind  =)

It has been a very long time since I wrote a Weekly Wrap Up Post.  Wow.

Well, I can say towards the end of winter we finally found our homeschool groove, as I came out of the first trimester nausea and exhaustion.  Now we have a simple, and effective routine just like we had before, which means we are back to much smoother days!  *thank goodness*

You may remember me posting about struggling with a rut, which I don’t think was school related, but certainly affected our school time.  We (I) came out of that and whew, life is better!

What a School Day Looks like

As we finish the school year (we will be schooling until about July 1st I think, maybe not that long if I can really bust out some chapter books!), we are finishing strong.  We have recently stopped driving 35 minutes every Tuesday for gymnastics, so that has freed up an entire morning, and makes our lives less hectic.  We will continue extra curricular activities with swim lessons, but they will be closer to us!

All that to say, we don’t have specific days we are doing school right now, with this new change.  But I think we are mostly back to Wednesdays being cleaning/no school day, and schooling 3-4 days a week.

On days we school it looks something like this:

• 7am wake/breakfast/morning basket- morning basket includes: prayer, Bible, pledge, calendar, songs and finger plays (my son loves them), memory work verses and poems, possibly reading part of a read aloud depending on time
• 8 Begin morning chores- Lexie empties dishwasher, Mister helps with laundry, I load dishwasher
• 8:30-9:30 Depending on the weather the kids usually go outside for fresh air here, and then we begin school after that.  Sometimes it we go straight into school and they play outside afterward.  School begins with our Sonlight read alouds and history.
• 9:30-10:30 Toddler joins us for as long as she can be relatively quiet, but usually goes to IP during this time so Lexie can read aloud and focus on harder material
• 11:15 lunch
• 12:00 toddler down for nap
• 12:00-12:30 Lexie, Max and I wind down for nap with books
• 12:30-3:00 everyone is resting/napping (this actually is more like 1-3 by the time everyone has had their nap time books read)
• 3:00 up for the afternoon/nature walks/play in the woods/cook dinner/run errands
  • This is also when we go on nature walks specifically to support our science topic, read science books, cook and bake together, and

That’s a typical school day.

What we “do” During School Right Now (3.5, 5.5)

Right now school has been such a pleasure!  Lexie suddenly just started wanting to read everything.  EV * ER * Y * THING!  She picks up books and reads them-doesn’t matter the level; she asks for help when she needs it.  She reads words off the Netflix screen, she reads words off magazine covers, she asks Mister and Ila several times a day if they would like her to read them a book, and of course they do, so she does.

Our daily activities for school include:

• Morning Basket for everyone (see above)

Lexie (5.5 yo)

• Lexie’s All About Reading Level 1- either a lesson, reading from her readers, or reviewing fluency pages
• Lexie’s Copywork/HWOT/Journaling-
  • To make her copy work, I simply write it out on a lined dry erase board like this one while I am sitting at the table.  Copywork usually comes from one of the books she is reading and includes lots of quotes, commas, etc.  In the future, (read: after baby comes) I am planning a bit different set up for her to do more work independently, so I will probably have copywork printed out for her to copy from.
  • Handwriting Without Tears is really just her doing the pages on her own.  I tell her what page, she completes it and I make sure it is nice and neat.  Again, my plan for fall is that this will turn into her independently working on the next page from an assignment sheet without my help.
  • Journaling is me simply giving her a topic, which she writes on freely in her own style.  I try to remind her of capitalization, punctuation, and spacing, but otherwise it is her own thoughts, spelling, etc.
  • She loves doing ALL of these things
• Lexie’s Math- Saxon 1.  We pretty much just stopped doing the K book because it was too easy and although she still enjoyed it, I was bored (ha).  She really likes the Level 1, there are lots more sheets for her to do (which she LOVES) and she reads the directions to herself.  I check them and have her fix any mistakes or fill in any places she skipped on accident.  I feel like it is a great way for her to work independently, feel successful, and also learn about double checking work, etc.  We like it!

Max (3.5yo)

• Max is doing All About Reading Pre Reading, mostly because he always asks to do school and he wants to have activities like Lexie.  This is a PERFECT fit for us because it isn’t time consuming, and he really enjoys the games, they’re developmentally appropriate for him (mostly rhyming and logic right now), and did I mention he enjoys it?  We only do this like 1-2 times a week, depending on what he is in the mood for.

• More phonics- Mister knows his letter sounds, so sometimes we work on beginning letter sounds.  Yesterday, after we did a hands on activity and while Lexie worked on a few math sheets, Max sat in my lap and I drew pictures.  Beneath each picture I wrote letters- I asked him: what each picture was, what each letter was and its sound.  Then I asked what letter he heard at the beginning of the picture word (ex: what sound do you hear at the beginning of “flower?”)  He then gave me his answer and circled the letter.  He got every single one correct without any prompting from me!

• Math- Mister is tagging along with Lexie’s Math and so far he is doing great! He loves it, they take turns answering questions, and he loves the hands on activities.  This week he helped create a vehicle graph and answered questions about it.  While he is doing really well with his letter sounds and literacy development, math is really his thing right now!
• Other Activities- While I am working with Lexie on a reading lesson or giving instruction for her work, Mister really enjoys doing the Kumon workbooks and a Big Preschool activity book.  He has a book of all mazes and will literally sit there the entire time we do school and just do mazes.  Some days he just goes and plays trucks or looks at books, or plays independently with something else, and I am totally fine with that.
• Writing- some days I will write letters on a piece of paper and he traces them; other times he just doodles and tells me about his pictures.

They both love art, listening to read alouds, talking about history, and learning about the Bible.  This spring homeschool has become such a blessing again!  Somehow, we just found our groove for now … Yes, it is surely to change, but there is a season for everything. =)

What is best is that it’s all relaxed.  My word for the year began as joy.  And it definitely continues to be my word of the year.  😉  However, my mantra has become relax.  I can’t find the joy, or rather feel and see it in front of me, if I can’t relax.  And that’s just what we have done.

I don’t dread any part of our school time; I don’t wish that we were doing something different.  There is a peace about it, a joy in it, and we all love it!  Even Mister tells me, “Mama, I love learning time!”  And that’s just how it should be.  I can’t tell you how thankful I am for the friend that encouraged me to step back from everything, that introduced me to podcasts (I will do a WHOLE ‘nother post on those!), for my husband encouraging me to wake early in the mornings to start my day with coffee and Jesus … it has all just played into a perfect part of our day, of which the morning is school.

So.  until July when we are done with school and a newborn is in the house, I think this is going to continue working.

What does your homeschool with your littles look like?

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