In addition to our normal school load, this year the children are participating in a local Classical Conversations Group.
Here’s a few pictures from one of classes.
Each week they have a devotion, learn 8 events from the timeline of world history and cover topics in American history, English grammar, Latin Grammar, Science, Math and the Fine Arts.
Math- learning to count by 3′s.
I just posted this on a homeschooling board but am re-posting it here for myself.
My first grader’s Daily Schedule: (Nathan)
6:30am Wake up & go downstairs with Daddy. Breakfast and free play, watch cartoons, etc. until 8:30am
8:30am Head upstairs. Make beds, get dressed, brush hair, neaten & tidy rooms.
9:00-9:15 Work on Handwriting lesson. If finish early, do a few pages of Logic from Critical Thinking Co. book
9:15-9:45 Right Start Math (which is mostly games, so fun! usually 1-2 lessons)
9:45-10:00 Phonics (one page of Explode the Code)
10:00-10:15 Break- play time with toys or use the computer to play a few games on starfall. (Mary is doing Spelling & Writing at this time)
10:15-10:45 Sit with me on the couch while we read our history & literature books- living books/picture books from Tapestry.
(one day a week there is a Geography lesson from 10:15-10:30 so history is backed up until 11:00. For that we do 1 weeks worth of lessons from Daily Geography and it takes about 5 minutes. Mapwork is done with Tapestry, during our History slot.)
—through a lot of this we often have classical music playing in the background. This year we are focusing on Vivaldi’s “Seasons” so that is usually what is playing.
10:45-12:00 Recess! Almost always playing outside in the backyard.
12:00-1:00pm Lunch. While they are eating lunch we…
–play their Suzuki music
–play & sing aloud to our Wee Sing America selections
–Review our Classical Conversations memory work
–sometimes, if we have time, we do our other memory work (Bible verses, poetry from last year) and a lunch devotion from Step Into the Bible.
1:00-3:30 Quiet Time
3:30 Get up- bathroom, drink, small snack
4:00-5:00 Science (Tuesday & Wednesday), , Piano Lesson (Thursday) and on Friday we have a Tea Party. We read a little bit from our Manners Book and talk about what we learned that week. If we have unfinished work, we’ll work on that after the tea party. If not, they’ll go ahead and go outside for free play.
5:00-6:00 Play outside
6:00-6:45 Dinner & clean up
6:45-7:30 Complete any unfinished work from the day. Family Devotions & Read out loud to Mom for 10-15 minutes.
7:30-8:00 Get ready for bed.
Other Extras-
Grammar- we use First Language Lessons so we work the quick, oral lessons in whenever we finish something early and have an extra 5 minutes.
Poetry- we LOVE poetry in our house & read it aloud whenever we get a spare chance in our days.
Classical Conversations- On Mondays the above schedule is scrapped because we have CC in the mornings. In the afternoons, from 4:00-5:30 we do phonics, math & handwriting.
Nature Study and Drawing/Painting Lesson- we are using the “One Small Square” book and have our own square staked and roped out in the backyard. My husband is good at drawing & painting so he usually takes the children out to the square on the weekend. They spend some time observing their square and talking about it and then usually have a drawing or painting lesson on the deck- usually painting something from their square and adding it to their nature journals.
Picture Study- I won a Picturing America grant a few years ago so we have some beautiful works of art available to us. I’ve got 6 pieces picked out this year. I display them when they coincide with our history topic so we do a picture study lesson when it goes with our history lesson and we do it during the history time slot.
August 16, 2011- Lyra started walking!
Finally! At 16 months old, Lyra started walking! Although she is my second latest walker, she is definitely my fastest walker. The other kids went slowly from crawling to walking, with a lot of slow toddling in between. Lyra went to bed on Thurs. 8/15 still crawling 95% of the time. She took a few random steps here and there but was by no means walking. She woke up on Fri. 8/16 and was walking everywhere! In one day she went from not walking 95% of the time to walking 95% of the time. She also started climbing on all the furniture and climbing the ladder in the girls room to the top bunk. She has to be watched like a hawk and I can’t get a single thing done when she’s awake unless I’ve got her gated in the living room. Thank goodness she still naps twice a day!
We’ve made a few changes to the school room recently!
Our piano teacher requested that we move the key board downstairs, next to our piano, so that he could use both during a lesson. So that freed up some desk space in the school room. I took this as an opportunity to set up a drawing center for the children. There is a small 3 drawer container that holds colored pencils, crayons, sharpeners, erasers, etc. Next to it is small silver bin that holds stencils. The big drawer holds paper, notebooks & how-to-draw books.
We finally got my netbook up and running again! The children enjoy using it to play starfall.com- a website that has phonics and reading games.
Oh, I am so happy with myself! I’ve had this lazy-susan stored in one of my cabinets for years & years- probably 10 or more. The only reason I didn’t get rid of it was because it was my mothers. I had the recent epiphany to bring it up to the school room and put it in the middle of our big table. Why oh why didn’t I think of this years ago?? It holds all of our STUFF, corralled in one place, easy to turn and find what you need. I love it. (The basket on the left holds “extras” that I want to get to during the week with the big kids- a money game & logic activities and the one on the right holds Savvy’s weekly preschool activities, which I rotate out every week.)
A few of our maps from this school year so far… The top one we used to track Dad, Sarah & Mike on their big trip out West.
Listening Center- all of our cassettes, CD’s and song books in one place.
August 17, 2011- We are trying out a new schedule this year. Instead of schooling on random days we are schooling 4 days a week, 6 weeks on with the 7th week off. We are loving this new schedule! We recently had out first week off and it was such a nice break. I took the children to the Natural Science Center one day.
We started out with a picnic lunch…
In the zoo area…
Crazy kids!
Brushing the goats.
This goat was so funny- he kept shoving his head down in Lyra’s stroller and stealing her dropped cheerios.
We love these beautiful fountains. In addition to the main spouts of water, they have little shots of water that jump from one fountain to another. Very fun.
Sweet.
By the way… look who’s walking!
Ick!
I thought it might be fun to blog about a day with four young children & homeschooling because I know that someday I’ll look back and not remember how busy and hectic this time can be! Mary is 7yo, Nathan is 6yo, Savannah is 4yo and Lyra is 17 months.
2:00am- wake up to Savannah’s feet in the middle of my back & Nathan scrammed up against me too. Kicked them both out of the bed and sent them back to their rooms. 
7:30am- drag myself out of bed. Exhausted because I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Didn’t shower first thing this morning, which is rare, because I was just to tired to get up at 7am.
7:30-8:15am: Fix myself a fresh ice water & get a strawberry nutrigrain bar. Check email. Switch laundry & do breakfast dishes.
8:15: Head upstairs with all the kids. Lyra falls and bangs her head. Two seconds later Nathan drops my cup of water from the top stair. Full cup of water & ice come splashing down and making a big mess. Spend 10 minutes comforting Roo and soaking up all the water.
8:30-9:00 Supervise kids getting dressed, cleaning & tidying rooms. I clean both upstairs bathrooms, make our bed, chase after Lyra. Finally put her in “baby jail”- the extra crib in the big girls room so that I can finish my work.
9:00 Put Lyra down for her morning nap and get started with the big kids school.
9:00-9:15 Work with Savannah on her preschool workbooks while Mary & Nathan complete their handwriting and logic assignments.
9:15-9:45 Spend 1/2 hour working with Mary & Nathan on a math lesson- teaching them to see groups of tens. Savvy doing tanagrams.
9:45-10:00 Phonics with Mary & Nathan. Savvy working on puzzle.
10:00-10:15 Mary working on her spelling and writing assignments while Nathan works on starfall.com. Savvy working on a teddy bear matching game.
10:15-10:30 Daily Geography with Mary & Nathan and then read 6 pages of “My First Book” to Savvy.
10:30-11:00 Read History assignment out loud to three big kids.
11:00 Get Lyra up from her nap, send three big kids out to play.
11:00-11:45 Fix lunch for me & Lyra, check my email, switch laundry.
11:45-1:00 Lunch for big kids. While eating they listen to these songs from Wee Sing America (Yankee Doodle Dandy, Marine Corps Hymn, I’ve Been Working on the Railroad) and then their Suzuki Music. Review CC memory work. Clean up lunch. Wash all four faces & hands. Supervise clean up of living room. Sweep & Mop the kitchen while the big kids play “store”.
1:00 Put little girls down for a nap. Shower quickly & get ready to go.
1:55 EARTHQUAKE!!!!! Very scary. I had started a load of laundry earlier and thought maybe that I hadn’t balanced the load well. I jumped up and felt the whole house moving under my feet and all the dishes were rattling. I felt sick for probably an hour afterwards- almost like motion sickness. It was a very odd feeling.
2:00 Barbara arrives. Rush out the door with Nathan. Stop to pick up a check from a friend, lose time because of a traffic detour and then getting off at the wrong exit. Barely make it to the doctor’s office in time.
2:45-3:45 Nathan’s appointment with the allergy doctor. She prescribed an epi pen in case of another bee sting.
4:00-4:25 Rush over to the GCUMC Consignment Sale to drop off my items.
4:30-5:00 Target
5:15 Meet lady to buy timeline cards I need for Classical Conversations.
5:30-7:30 Fun time with Nathan. Dinner at Panera and then play time at Toys & Co.
8:00 Home. Firetrucks & ambulance next door. (everything’s okay though!)
8:30 Finally, everyone is in bed!
8:45 Nope- Nathan just came down- he lost another tooth! He was thrilled, we took a picture & shooed him off back to bed.
I seriously hardly ever sat down all day long! And I didn’t even get everything done that I wanted to get done. I didn’t get science done or grammar done- I’ll have to catch up on those tomorrow. Didn’t get the laundry folded either.
8/9/2011: Field Trip to the Greensboro Historical Museum- what a lovely museum! I can’t wait to go back!
