A Good Day

It occurred to me a few days ago that most of you have no idea what we do all day long! Today went really well, so I thought I’d write it down for encouragement on the days when I want to pull my hair out, and so y’all can see a little of what our school days look like (when things go according to plan, which they almost never do). Also, the elements of our routine have been heavily influenced by the homeschool queen, Becky Pitcher, found here on instagram: @becky.pitcher

This morning was glorious, so the kids spent a lot of it outside playing in the woods by the creek. It was windy and cool, and the box elder tree in the back was practically snowing its little helicopter seeds. (I tried to call them fairies, but Emmett said, "Uh, I think they look more like helicopters." I guess I'll save that one for the girls.) When the kids came in, they brought me “samples” of ferns and poplar leaves, and those decorated our tables today.

The kids finished what they had left to do from their morning tasks (prayers, dress, make beds, brush teeth and hair, play the piano [we're not starting lessons yet; I just have them play and figure out how notes sound together]), and then we did our morning routine, which is still nameless. Morning Time? Gathering Time? Morning Devotional? We can’t decide what to call it, so I usually just call everyone together with, “Alright, come on in y’all! It’s time to do our stuff!” We obviously stand on ceremony around here.

Morning Routine

The bones of our morning routine stay roughly the same:

Monthly hymn

This month we’re learning Master The Tempest Is Raging, so we practiced singing that a few lines at a time while I played it (poorly) on the piano. At the beginning of the month, to put the hymn in context, we watched the Bible video from ChurchofJesusChrist.org and talked about the miracle of Jesus calming the storm. We also stop and talk about the language in the song so they understand what’s going on. Afterwards, the kids chose a couple more hymns to sing together that we've already learned. 

Prayer

Since Chad leaves super early, we do this later in the morning with just me and the kids.

Scriptures

Today we watched a couple chapters from the picture scripture stories on the Church’s website. Usually we read them together so we can stop and talk about what’s going on, but that book ALWAYS disappears! So today, we didn’t spend the time hunting for it and just watched instead. We save reading from the actual scriptures for before bed when we’re all gathered at the end of the day.

Articles of Faith

We’re memorizing them together. Troy and I are on number 5, Emmett’s on number 7. We usually review the ones we’ve already learned, too. When we finish memorizing these, we’ll move on to other scriptures.

Artist of the Month

This month our artist is Claude Monet. I printed a bunch of high resolution images of some of his paintings from online onto cardstock and put them in page protectors, piled them on the table, and the kids dug in and took turns looking at them while I read/talked about Monet and impressionism. We looked at a few of Monet’s water lily paintings, compared them (he painted them from the same spot in his garden at different times of the day/season, so the light was different, reflections on the water were different, etc.), talked about the difference between impressionism and realism, and why Monet’s art and techniques were so different from what was going on in the Academy of Fine Arts at the time. It was awesome! Totally my favorite part of the day.

Pardon the glare; page protectors :/

Lunch Break

During lunch, we listened to our current read aloud, On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and the kids had a break afterward.

Afternoon

After lunch we did history. We read about Egyptian mummies from Story of the World and followed up with a National Geographic Kids video on Youtube that talked about them a little more. I also brought out the little scarabs and jewelry box Mr. C. brought me from Egypt, and we talked about those in relation to the wrapping process and inlays in sarcophagi.

Next, the kids did their individual work, which is math, Explode the Code (phonics and spelling), and handwriting. E has a notebook in which I write down his to-do list of schoolwork. He can go through and do it in whatever order he wants. T just does as much as he wants to do. Having just turned six, I usually let him take the reins, but I also give him a one-page minimum from his workbooks. He typically ends up doing 3-5 pages from his math book, because it’s fun. Everything else, he usually does 2 pages.

T was done at this point, but I did a super short grammar lesson with E, which we didn’t finish because we’d had a long afternoon and by golly, it was high time for a break. So that was the end of our day. And it was great! They chilled with a couple shows and lots of lego building and wrestling, and then after dinner, they played outside while Chad mowed and hoed more planting space in the garden until it got dark.

Two things we didn’t get to today: narration journaling (in which the boys narrate to me some of what we talked about today, I type it up and print it out for their journals) and copywork (mostly for E, and usually from our read aloud, sometimes with a focus on the grammar he's learning). We’ll catch up on those tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s plan:

Morning routine.

Read a fable. The boys will narrate it back to me and tell me what they think it means.

Music Study. We’re using Maestro Classics and LOVE THEM. Tomorrow we’re continuing with Carnival of the Animals, taking three movements at a time. Afterward, we'll talk about what makes the music sound like whatever animal(s) it’s depicting.

Poetry Teatime. Our poet for the next couple weeks is Christina Rossetti, so we’ll have treats and read some of her poetry.

Science. We’re learning about gardening.

A craft. We’re making keychains for friends.

Come, Follow Me lesson.

Individual work. Including copywork and narration journaling.

So! Today was full. And wonderful. And difficult to attain. Not every day is so full, which is why we school year-round and take breaks when we need/want to. 

Let me know if you have any questions!