Today's School

These are resources we are using today. 

I hope we learn something by the end of it! :)

High School 2014-15

I hesitate to put a grade level on this but ds is 16 now (Yikes!) and isn't on a specific grade level in anything.  We just keep plugging away and moving forward bit by bit.  But here is what I have put together for this fall's curriculum.

We follow AO/HEO basically but of course we change it up to meet our needs.  I use the "lite" versions and even then we don't get it all done.  There is so much!  Here's what we have planned.

We are just about in Term 2 of Year 8 at Ambleside Online.

DS has some LD (no labels, we just know this after 16 years ;)) and so we make adjustments to just about everything.  We buddy read, use audible, I read aloud, we work on the white board etc to get it all done.  He's very intelligent and a very deep thinker.  His reading comprehension is wonderful but he just doesn't read fast enough to read all the AO books!  He also has trouble with the act of handwriting so we need to work on that this year as well.  It's painful and we need to build up those muscles.  Copywork is perfect for that and his composition can be done on the computer.

As we finish each book or text, we will insert the next one on the list.

Here's what we are using besides the AO titles right now:
Bible - Hebrews. We are starting a new series at our church and ds will be working on his daily reading and "homework" every day
Science - Apologia Biology (we are more than 2/3 of the way through this)
Latin - Latina Christiana.  It is for younger students but I think it will work for us right now. It'll be his first dive into another language
Math - Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra.  We were into Alg 1, but struggling so we went back for a bit.  He's picking up faster now and we'll be back in Alg 1 soon!
Shakespeare - Hamlet
Plutarch - Crassus
Artist Study - Fra Angelico
Composer Study -Hildegard von Bingen

I will let him choose a book from the earlier years of AO to read on his own just for the purpose of reading fluency, and comprehension building and just plain old reading for enjoyment.  He's never enjoyed reading and hopefully this will help!

We will be starting drivers ed soon as well and I have plenty of other books waiting in the wings.

I also work out of the house two days a week so he works mostly independently on those two days and we do as much together as possible the first two days.  I really hope to get it all done in four days.  We are very busy with other things like our puppet team and other ministries at church so "book work" is only part of our education. Plus some time or other we need to clean, do chores and cook as well as just have some down time. :)

I have so many projects I'd like to do and I just never seem to get around to doing them! Some day!

School Year Plans 2013-14

We're starting back to school on the 12th. Ack!  I've still got TONS of planning to do!  I have the preliminary outline but still so much detail left to figure out.

Overview For 10th grade:

• Math: Finish Algebra I and begin Geometry (Probably in December)
• English:  DS. has some LD in the language arts so we'll be working on writing narrations, sentence structure and paragraph structure along with spelling, reading and listening. I have several sources to pull from that I've had FORever! We'll also be reading some literature from the historical time period being studied.
• History: Dark Ages, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation, Exploration.  Whew!  A lot to cover!  We'll see how far we get.  We are doing our own thing most likely, following a pattern of Charlotte Mason style learning.
• Science: Almost finished with Physical Science and in September we will begin Biology.  We're doing a co-op this year and I'm leading the Biography class!  Talk about out of my comfort zone!!! We will be mostly doing the experiments and lab books.  I think I can handle it.  Pray for me. :)
• We'll be adding in speech, foreign language (Spanish or Latin), technology as well as fine arts.

It's going to be a full year but I am actually excited.  DS is maturing so much and things are getting easier.  I pray constantly for his increase in wisdom and stature with God and others.

Schedule for 10th Grade Term 3

This is for my dd

I haven't figured out how to post a chart form so I'll just make a list for now.


Day 1

• Bible
• Memory work
• Copywork- Bible
• Poetry- Student Handbook
• History of English Literature
• SAT Vocabulary Online: choose 4 words and write sentences
• Spanish Online
• Biology
• Geometry
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1 hour), read w/Mom, discuss
• Streams of Civilization 1/4 of chapter (notes)
• Folk Song - I've been working on the Railroad
• Piano Practice

Day 2

• Bible-
• Memory work
• Copywork- Spanish phrase
• Poetry- Poem per day
• How to Read a Book
• Easy Grammar Plus
• Essay Writing Online practice*(choose a topic and follow the steps)
• Spanish Online
• Biology
• Geometry
• Les Miserables (1 hour), oral or typed narration
• Streams of Civ ¼ of chapter (notes)
• Art Study - Vermeer
• Piano Practice

Day 3

• Bible-
• Memory work
• Copywork- Hymn stanza
• Poetry- Poem per day
• SAT Vocabulary Online: choose 4 words and write sentences
• Spanish Online
• Biology
• Geometry
• Les Miserables (1 hour) oral or typed narration
• Streams of Civ ¼ of chapter
• Hymn - When I survey the Wondrous Cross
• Piano Practice

Day 4

• Bible-
• Memory work
• Copywork- Poem Stanza
• Poetry- Blake Poem per day
• Ourselves by Charlotte Mason
• Grammar
• Essay Writing Online practice
• Spanish Online
• Biology
• Geometry
• Les Miserables (1 hour) (creative narration)
• Streams of Civilization ¼ of chapter
• Composer - Mozart
• Piano Practice

Day 5

• Devotional Reading: How to Study the Bible for Yourself by Tim LaHaye
• Recitation
• Copywork- (see Shakespeare)
• Poetry- Re-read your favorite poem from this week
• Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? 2 chapters (Read aloud to Mom, discuss)
• SAT Vocabulary Online: choose 4 words and write sentences
• Essay Writing Online practice
• Current Events – report sheet
• Health - Human Body Unit
• Geometry Test
• Shakespeare
• Up From Slavery, written or oral narration
• Nature walk/journal
• Piano Practice

*This is not a curriculum but a basic guide. We will aquire a specific essay writing book in the near future.

Science Notebooks

My dd makes pages for her science notebook each week. Lately she's used Microsoft Paintbrush as her medium. She prints them out and places them in her notebook. Here are a few she has made. They look very much like the illustrations in the book! She's doing a great job. IMHO.

Outdoor School

Today we had "outdoor school" we took our Bible, books, notebooks, a blanket, bottled water, sunglasses, a ballcap, a small pillow and changed into shorts and tanks and sat out on our lawn reading. I'm not sure how many trips it took to get everything we needed to get situated but it was a refreshing change. DS and I laughed together as we read Pagoo today. I had really wanted to read this book with him sooner but just didn't get around to it. I'm glad we finally started it today.

We also did:

• Acts Chapter 15 & 16
• Poem by William Blake
• Child's History of the World Ch 4
• The Jungle Book II
• Picture Study - Vermeer's The Milkmaid
• Folk Song - I've Been Working on the Railroad
• Grammar - Lesson 1 in English for the Thoughtful Child
• Cursive Practice
• Pilgrim's Progress about 1600 words
• Explode the Code Lesson 9
• Buddy read a few pages of "I Should Have Stayed in Bed" by Joan M. Lexau

We still need to do math, but it's "homework" tonight. We had a few interuptions because my mom was sick. But all in all it was a good day.

Our Memory Verses for the Next 12 Weeks

Week 1 & 2
Hebrews 12:1-2
"Run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith."

Week 3 & 4
1 John 5:11-13. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.


Week 5 & 6
Ephesians 4:29-32. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.


Week 7&8
Colossians 3:16. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.


Week 9&10
Philippians 4:8. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things.

Week 11& 12
James 1:19-21. My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
We've learned some of these before but it's been so long we need to relearn them.

Shakespeare

Plays we've read:

King Lear
Macbeth
Romeo and Juliet
Midsummer Night's Dream (acted in this one w/our hs group. FUN!!)
Much Ado About Nothing
Merchant of Venice
Othello
Henry V

That's all I can remember off the top of my head.

Plays to read:

The Winter's Tale
Comedy of Errors
King Henry VII
Merry Wives of Windsor
Cymbeline
The Tempest
Measure for Measure
Julius Caesar
Richard III
Triolus and Cressida
Love's Labor Lost
Timon of Athens
Coriolanus

We will read 1 play every 6 weeks for the rest of high school

Texas High School Graduation Requirements

http://www.smcisd.net/pdf/gdtograd.pdf
I use this chart to help us decide our course of study.
I hope to post soon with our plan laid out in detail

Highschool Plans Overview

I'm posting some future plans here so that I don't lose them! If they are on here, I can retrieve them anytime.

10th Grade Last Term April/May/Summer to finish up
Bible and Social Studies (2 credits)
Christian Cottage Unit Studies(CCS) Vol 2 for Bible, and geography
Streams of Civilization Volume II
Up From Slavery
Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? (Economics: partial credit)

English II (1 credit)
Easy Grammar Plus
Essay Writing
Les Miserables (very long!)
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Shakespeare's Henry V

Science (1 credit)
Finish Apologia Biology

Math (1 credit)
Finish Math U See Geometry

Foreign Language (1 credit)
Spanish Online

Fine Arts/Humanities (1 credit)
Folksongs – I’ve Been Working On the Railroad, Grandfather’s Clock
Hymns – When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, On Jordan’s Stormy Banks
Nature Study – Birds, Weather, Trees, Insects, Patch of Ground
Artists - Vermeer, Matisse
Composers - Mozart, Johann Strauss Jr.

Music
Daily piano practice
Occasional performances

Plus exercise, homemaking, budgeting, child care, drawing, webmastering, desktop publishing, speech, drama, community service, and all those other things that seem to add up.



Tentative Basic Plans for next two years

11th Grade 2007-08

Bible & Social Studies
CCS - for Bible, geography
Streams of Civilization Vol II(If not finished last year)
A History of the American People by Paul Johnson

English III
Easy Grammar Plus
Essay Writing

Science
Chemsitry

Math
Algebra 2

12th Grade 2008-09

Bible & Social Studies
Streams of Civilization Volume I
A History of the American People by Paul Johnson

American Government
Whatever Happened to Justice?
The United States Constitution

English IV
Essay Writing

Science
Physics

Math
Pre-Cal and/or Stewardship


Okay, this is not a complete list but I'll add more as I go along. This is all I had in my notes for now.

Term 3 of 2007

I've been working on our last 12 weeks of school (give or take a week or two!) and I have decided to sort of finish up everything we've started and call it a year. ;o)
I would like to say we'll be finished by the end of May but it probably won't happen. We should however get the bulk of it done and finish the rest up leisurely through the summer.
Doing schoolwork in the hot summer afternoons is beneficial in many ways. For one it's waaaayyy too hot in Texas to be outside in the late summer. Another is we keep our skills up and don't spend so much time reviewing what we've already learned.
I'm working on making a term notebook, something I've fiddled around with in the past. This time I'm combining full-year-notebook, sonlight style and hints from this blogger.
It took me a while to decide where to start but once I did it was easy. It's taking a bit of time right now, but I hope it will be worth it in the end.
My next post will be about our notebooks.

Movies

We've watched a couple of old movies that go with our unit. They were great!

Camelot - my dd and I loved! It was a long musical and I confess we forwarded over a few portions but all in all we really enjoyed it.

Robin Hood with Errol Flynn - colorful, swashbuckling fun!

We read the Howard Pyle version of Robin Hood and not too many things matched up, but after all it is a legend and these have a tendancy to vary. So we weren't too surprised by the differences. Although my dd thought they left out some of the funniest parts. ;o)

What we did today: Worm Dissection

So far this week...

We've had a rough time getting back into the swing of things after the holidays. In fact the word swing indicates more motion than we've been doing! Nonetheless here's what we've done so far this week:
DS 3rd
Math- 2 drill sheets, 2 pages in Math U See
Phonics - 5 pages in Explode the Code workbook
Spelling - 10 words from ETC
Grammar - watching School House Rock Videos FUN!
Bible - reading and discussing Ephesians 6:10-20 (armor); and Psalm 100 (praise)
Copywork/cursive practice -Labeled the armor of God, copied a passage from "The Making of a Knight"
Read Aloud - Ivanhoe Chapter 1
Unit Reading - "The Making of a Knight" by Patrick O'Brien and "The Knight at Dawn" by Mary Pope Osborne (our first encounter with the Magic Treehouse series and DS is already asking if can we get the first book and the next and the next?)
For today's unit lesson we took some virtual tours of cathedrals online here, here, here and here.
We downloaded several photos of our favorite cathedrals and their parts and I'm going to send them into Wal-Mart photo lab and have them printed out to add to our notebooks. It saves a lot of ink and is much better quality than my printer can print.
We also made "stained glass windows" with crayons and wax paper.
DS has begun a "Big Book of Everything Middle Ages". I got the idea for this particular style from here (scroll down to notebook pages).
We usually just add to our 3-ring binder history notebook, or occasionally we make a lapbook, but I really liked this bound version. If we stick with CCS I plan to make one like this for each unit. I like the cross between notebooking and lapbooking AND we have been running out of room for binders!!!!
We are using the Christian Cottage Unit Study Middle Ages portion of In the Beginning God. I really like it because it helps keep me on track. It actually makes me feel accountable to keep up with the lessons and activities, yet it is flexible enough that we don't have to do too much if we don't want.
The main thing that attracted me to them was God's word seems the foundation of the program AND the fact that no particular books are needed. How FREEING!!! I have recently committed to homeschooling on a smaller budget and this is actually helping me do just that. I am really loving it! I hope at the end of January I'm still singing the same tune.
Now as far as highschool this week with DD-
Same as above plus +
Math - Geometry 2 pgs
Grammar - 2 pg
Vocabulary - Latin derivative "murus"
Piano practice
Science - Biology
Writing - Comparison on armor of the middle ages and the roman armor Paul refers to in Ephesians.
Okay, so not as bad as I thought and we still have 3 days to go this week!

Altering plans for January...

I’ve just recently discovered Christian Cottage Unit Studies you can buy a topic at a time here. I downloaded a free unit on Oceanography and I purchased the Middle Ages portion of “In the Beginning God” unit study. We haven’t actually done the study yet, but just going through them and looking at them and making a few notes it seems like a perfect fit for us. We’ve used Ambleside Online (and I still LOVE them) but some of the books just didn't fit us. I also have a visual/spatial son and sometimes just reading didn’t fit the bill so I tried making my own unit studies, the problem was I always tried to do TOO much. I never knew what to keep and what to toss and would end up overwhelmed. I’ve looked at Tapestry of Grace and programs like that but they are just out of my budget. Then I stumbled upon CCUS and found that I could buy them one at a time as needed AND they don't depend on a certain set of books. PERFECT! I’m sooooo excited to try them out! I'm working on notebooks and plans now.

Scheduling all those books...

Now that we've chosen our books, it's just a matter of plugging them into our schedule. We've been using the same basic routine for quite some time. I don't use time slots anymore, we basically just "do the next thing" but we do use the timer sometimes to keep us moving along. Especially for ds - he tends to dawdle.

DD

Daily
Breakfast and chores
Bible/MemPoetrySpanish/Current Events/TimelineNature study/Fine ArtsMathGrammar/VocabularyHistory Reading (a book each day)Literature (a book each day/Composition-Fridays)SciencePianoFree Reading
DS's looks similar:

Daily
Breakfast and choresBible/MemPoetrySpanish/C.Event/TimelineNature study/Fine ArtsMathPhonics and CopyworkHistory /Science Reading LiteraturePiano Free Reading

We do short lessons and each one only takes about 5-15 min and on a good day we can fly right through it. Some days some subjects are combined. I just check them off if they are combined with something else.

I also added a couple of new things that have fallen by the wayside. News/Current Events and Timeline. I'm really not a current events person and usually hear about what's going on from my dh or my friends. So this is something that is not a habit for me but I'd like my children to learn it. In the past I had subscribed to the kids' version of World mag but we never read it so I felt like I was wasting my money. For now we just read an article off of the web.

As far as the timeline entry that was hit or miss also. Yesterday my ds added Squanto since we just read a book about him and DD decided to add the poet we read yesterday - Christina Rossetti. So that worked well. We just have a hard time deciding which type of timeline to use! Right now we have one on the wall and we do like that but it is partially covered up by a desk we recently added in our sunroom. So I just don't know what we are going to do. We make a history notebook so it seemed redundant to have a timeline notebook. Besides we had a hard time finding things in that HUGE notebook. Just didn't work for us. The wall timeline seems better - we can see it all at a glance. I just need a bigger wall!

January Plans

I'm posting our plans for after the holidays. I'm looking forward to beginning a new term with my kiddos. We've enjoyed a more relaxed approach and I don't want to break that but I need to have some goals and something to build on.

Here's the outline (subject to change) for DD 15 yrs. Oops! Make that *16* she JUST had a birthday and I still can't believe it!

I decided to lay this out according to the Texas Recommended High School Program although we have more subjects than they do!

English Language Arts and Reading:
· Shakespeare: We’ve read The Merchant of Venice and King Lear with our hs friends we’ll be taking a break to do the Stossel Videos (see below) then we’ll get back to Shakespeare in the spring.
· The History of English Literature for Boys and Girls by H.E. Marshall
· Simond’s American Literature
· Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
· Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (we began this last summer but didn’t finish it… can’t remember why????)
· Poetry of Coleridge; Poetry study books from our local library
· Easy Grammar Plus; Igniting Your Writing; write summaries; poetry; narrations; songs etc.

Mathematics:
· MUS Geometry

Science:
· Apologia Biology
· Walden by Thoreau
· Nature walks and journaling

Social Studies and Economics:
· A History of the American People by Paul Johnson
· Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington
SPEECHES AND SOURCE DOCUMENTS:
· The Holy Alliance Treaty September 26, 1815;
· The Catholic Emancipation Act;
· The Peel Web;
· Peel's resignation speech 1846;
· Web of English History (selections);
· Prince Albert's Exhibition;
· Giuseppe Garibaldi speech
· Select from the list of Irish accounts of the Irish famine; William Bennet's Narrative of Six Weeks in Ireland;
· Accounts of English Mill workers

GEOGRAPHY:
· The Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman

GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMICS:
· In January we will begin a unit with some other hs friends using John Stossel’s videos featuring “Is America #One?” “Greed” “John Stossel Goes to Washington” and more

Languages Other Than English:
· Spanish: currently we are using Berlitz Spanish from our local library
· Latin: continue

Physical Education:
· Exercising
· Bike Riding
· Walking
· Dancing

Speech:
· Oral Interpretation
· Public Speaking – we cover this in a variety of ways

Technology Applications:
· Desktop Publishing
· Video Technology
· Web Mastering
· Computer Applications

Fine Arts:
· Piano
· Artist Study -TBA
· Composer Study - TBA
· Van Loon’s The Arts
· Drawing
· Oil Painting
· Mural Painting

Our Extras:
BIBLE: We’ve been studying the Kings of the OT but we took a break to study some other things we will go back to this after Christmas, we are making a notebook so will continue mapping, journaling, using the concordance etc. and for devotionals we have been listening to Pilgrim’s Progress (again) with ds year 3
LOGIC: Continue with Introductory Logic

LIFE AND WORK SKILLS:
Cooking, crocheting, knitting, babysitting,
She'll be learning to drive too!
She’s a member of what we call our “King’s Krew” for our children’s church. She writes and performs puppets, skits and helps teach the children. She also assists in teaching children's choir.

FREE READING: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights she’s also reading the Babylon Rising Series from Tim LaHaye


8 yo's January Outline

Copywork: We choose this as we go. We use Bible verses, passages from readings and sometimes DS’s own narrations.
Reading Lessons/Spelling: Continue with lessons put together by Mom (Various sources. We recently discover DS was visual-spatial so strict phonics were not working. Currently he’s dictating his own story to me that he reads for reading practice and that is working well!)
Music Appreciation: Piano lessons with DD, singing, Children’s Choir at church
Artist: TBA
Composer: TBA

BIBLE: daily Bible readings together, narrations, drawings, memorization, etc. Continue Pilgrim's Progress Book 1 (DS has a “book” that he draws in each time we read this.)

HISTORY: A Child's History of the World by Hillyer (This is the tough part for me. We’ve tried An Island Story; This Country of Ours by HE Marshall; and Story of the World by SWB and none of them just quite “fit” us. I will try again with the Marshall books now that DS is a bit older; I have to read them aloud to him and sometimes they seem to overload his audio system. I’ll make this final decision a bit later. We may even end up with another book suggested by AO The Discovery of New Worlds by MB Synge I looked over it briefly and liked what I read.)
BIOGRAPHY: Da Vinci by Diane StanleyGEOGRAPHY: Minn of the Mississippi by Holling C. Holling (He enjoyed Paddle to the Sea. Tree in the Trail and Seabird – not so much. We’ll see about this one.)NATURAL HISTORY: Secrets of the Woods by William J. LongSCIENCE: The Story of Inventions by Michael J. McHugh and Frank P. Bachman (not sure about this one just yet, I’ll have to preview it first for difficulty.)
We own several science books with experiments; I’ll make this choice later.
MATHEMATICS: MUS Alpha, and Beta (right now we are really trying to memorize all the facts before moving on. DS has a hard time with this kind of memorization.) FOREIGN LANGUAGE: Right now DS just learns vocabulary and counting with us from Berlitz Spanish POETRY: TBA (DD is reading Coleridge so we may do that together) LITERATUREAmerican Tall Tales by Adrien Stoutenburg
The Heroes by Charles Kingsley
The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald (my dd LOVED this book, I hope DS does too.)

FREE READING:
Heidi
Farmer Boy
Five Children and It
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

I noticed I have quite a few notes and indecisions here but ds is at a turning point in his reading. We need to spend time on reading lessons and enjoyable read alouds to keep his confidence up, so I just don't know what will work and what won't until we get into it.

Week of Oct 16-20

This was a really good week for us. No outside appointments. We had some cooler weather and some rain this week. Something to speak about in Texas right now!
We are reading a book about Cynthia Ann Parker: Indian Captive. I have always been fascinated by this story and we don't live too far from Fort Parker. I went there when I was a child and I hope to take my kids there since we are reading about it. We are taking a break from the AO schedule and are doing some light topical studies. Right now the topic is Native Americans. We are just taking it one day at a time. Not going overboard. I hope to do some projects and hands on activities in the next few weeks. This week we just read.

Celebration!

Woo Hoo! We are all doing the happy dance here this week. DS (8yo) finished reading his Dick and Jane Storybook Treasury and DD (15yo) finished Algebra I and passed with flying colors!

So dd is on to Geometry beginning Monday, and ds is off to the library to find a new book to read!

God is so good and these are the times that make me glad I homeschool - watching my children succeed after a long weary battle.

Daily Schedule

I haven't posted in a while. I actually have written a few posts but they got lost in Cyberspace and I just didn't have the energy to rewrite them. A lot has been going on the past couple of months and I hope to blog more about it soon.

But for today I wanted to post a new schedule for our homeschool. We've been struggling this year to find a "groove" and I so hope this one will help. I'm going back to short lessons in varied subjects daily. We do well on these short 15 min timeslots. I know some say they hate to stop in the middle of something and move on, but we find that the short and varied lessons keep us moving and feeling accomplished.

Here is the basic schedule:

MORNING 9:00-12:00
Bible (15 min) together
Poetry (15 min) together
Math - (30 min for DD 15yr) (15 min for DS 8 yr & Reading Lesson 15 min)
Reading from Unit - (15 min) together
Spanish (15 min) together
Grammar (15 min)
Spelling (15 min DS) Vocabulary/Latin (15 min DD)
Copywork (15 min DS) / Writing (Logic on Thursday) (20+min DD)
Art Study/Composer Study (15 min)

LUNCH 12:00-1:00
Literature Read Aloud
Walk

AFTERNOONS: 1:00-4:00
Science/Science Experiments/Nature Study
Notebooking/Lapbooking/Projects
Piano Practice
Silent Reading/More Reading Practice for DS
Shakespeare Club on Thursday at 2:00
Computer Skills/Typing/Desktop Publishing/Blogging/PowerPoint etc.
Health
Living Skills
Cooking
P.E.
Etc.

All of the afternoon activities would not take place every single day. Some will like Biology for DD and piano practice but others like notebooking and Shakespeare Club will only happen when they happen ;o).

I didn't divide things so much into subjects because we cover many subjects in our units, projects, notebooking, lapbooking, silent reading and read alouds. Those will vary.

Right now 8yo DS is doing a unit on Native Americans and so DD will probably just do that with us, adding in her own research and reports at her higher level since we never really got around to this unit when she was younger.

I'm looking forward to a more relaxed learning style. I've prayed a lot over the past summer and into this fall about how our home should "look".
I have also learned (and this was the hardest for me) that each year, semester and even month may look different and call for a different focus or schedule.

Right now we need structured flexibility! LOL

I need the structure of the routine/schedule but the flexibility of what to study during that slot.

I felt in bondage when I followed someone elses list no matter how WONDERFUL that list was. I needed to "own" my own curriculum and schedule and my children did too.