Education is a Life...Mornings

As I continue to meditate on Organized Simplicity, I find myself seeking more intentional schooling. I can look back over the conferences I have attended, webinars I have participated in, and books I have read I see that this is what God has been preparing in me for a while...intentional schooling! With that said, I thought I would share the evolution of our typical school day.

This is mainly what the later half of our week looks like. On Monday we host a co-op here in our home and I try to stick to the idea of the schedule but am realistic enough to know that things happen and that my schedule is meant to be my guide not my dictator. On Tuesdays we are out of the home for a different co-op and after school activities.

Mornings:

We begin our morning with dictation.
I use the Well-Planned Day for our choices.
I do love that planner!
After dictating the selection, we read over it again and punctuate the sentence.
This is where we briefly discuss grammar. We will get more grammar during writing.

This is my youngest's handwriting book.
He copies an English proverb in cursive and then practices saying & writing phonograms.

In order to give our hands a break, we switch gears and read aloud a lesson.

After our Thinking Toolbox lesson, we pull out our respective math lessons and work quietly.

Sometimes I will turn on a Pandora playlist depending on our mood!

Then on to my favorite subjects.
Honestly I could spend hours here and try really hard not to be overwhelming.
I let Tapestry of Grace "drive" the subject.

We read a variety of books and work in our Century Charts or History notebooks.
In this picture, my youngest is reading Story of the World while listening to the CD

Once again, Tapestry of Grace is my resource for Literature study.
I find that the pace is a little ambitious for our family so we do slow things down a bit.
Planning helps in this area.
I have also been having great success with the Go!Chart and like pulling this out on occasion.


Afternoons:
One area of weakness I have is science.
Knowing this about me, we have chosen to seek co ops that offer the sciences.
During the week, each one works on the reading and labs and/or activities are done in co op.
This has been a great help

This is the core of our year. We have languages, music study, art study, etc. but these are not daily activities and so they are interspersed throughout the week.
We also have books we read and our Bible study time before school or in the evenings.

Each year our typical day looks a little different as our needs and schedules change. Only recently have I been able to turn over the responsibility of driving the older ones to their work and activities. This has certainly helped to keep the atmosphere of our day in order. I try very hard to guard our calendar and truly pray over our long-term commitments. Each year has different priorities and goals. I am enjoying our mornings quite a bit more but a huge part of that is being prepared myself. It is not enough to say you want to live simplistically. I think the other part of that must be organization. When things become crazy I still have a plan. I still have a system that I can rely on with minimal effort. I am truly enjoying seeing all the threads of my life weaving together and am finding great peace in knowing the God has been the one behind it all. I am finding great joy in my mornings!

My take on the big "Math" puzzle

First of all, I must confess that I am no math whiz. I certainly see a need for math but it was not my favorite subject in school. Like all things, it is when we struggle that we learn the most. And so I thought I would share my thoughts from our journey.

1. Beginning Math Education - I believe in teaching math incrementaly and with mastery as its goal. When children are you they should be starting with counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, and then decimals. This will lay a strong foundation for higher level math.

2. Junior High Math - I think this is where we, as parents, can get ahead of ourselves. If our children have not mastered the basics anything higher than basic math will be a challenge for our children. This is also the time when we begin to feel the pressure to be prepared for high school math. We can get caught up in the idea of Algebra in 9th grade, Geometry in 10th grade, etc. that we neglect to see where our children really need to focus. I personally think spending time in the junior high level and reinforcing these skills is a great approach...especially for the math challenged. A spiral approach will help solidify any holes your child may have as well by continually reviewing a variety of topics while introducing new ones.

My personal math suggestions...
K Math U See Primer
1 Math U See Alpha
2 Math U See Beta
3 Math U See Gamma
4 Math U See Delta
5 Math U See Epsilon
6 Math U See Zeta
7 Saxon 7/6 or Saxon 8/7
8 Saxon 8/7 or Pre-Algebra*

* At this point, I would recommend researching which high school math programs best suit your type of learner. I do like the Math U See Algebra, Algebra II, and Geometry but would recommend adding a supplement to this.