What are your kids’ ages and pseudonyms?
Emily is 8.
Abigail will be 6 in two weeks.
Gracie is 3.5.
Matthew will be 6mo in two weeks.
How long have you been home schooling? Is there a story behind it?
This is our third year. No real story, it was always in my heart to do and I did it.
Dh did take some convincing tho.
Does your home school have a name or a mission statement?
No and no. I'd like a school name tho.
What is your general home schooling philosophy?
We are homeschoolers even when pregnant. It's not something you just start doing one day. Our children are ALWAYS learning from us, even in utero. Other than that and I don't know if it's more a method than philosophy, we use Classical Education.
Do you use a curriculum?
Yep. How to Study Your Bible for Kids ( http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=03623&event=1025SBF|10547|1025 ), Rod & Staff (math, english, phonics, reading), Handwriting Without Tears, Story of the World, make my own science stuff, and Purposeful Design Spelling (just got it today..never used it before).
Do you or your children have any special interests or hobbies that influence your home schooling?
Not really. *shrug* We kind of incorporate things as we go along. Like Saturday I taught them how to crochet. Then if they have an interest they can pursue it.
What is your typical daily routine? weekly routine?
Our day looks like this. It doesn't really change day to day. I thrive better (meaning...I don't get stressed out) if we stick as best as we can to a routine.
7:15-7:30 ~ get up and around to take dh to work
8:30 ~ We're home and I make breakfast.
9:00-11:30 ~ I do housework, girls help if there is stuff for them to do (folding laundry, tidying rooms, etc). They have playtime.
12:00 ~ Lunch
12:30 or 1:00 ~ Start school.
3:00 or 3:30 ~ School's done.
4:00-4:45 ~ They play, I have some "Me" time, I prepare as much dinner as I can before we leave to pick up dh.
The only exception to our morning stuff is Monday's, grocery day.
Do you have any special methods/tips for planning? household organization? storage? record keeping?
We aren't required to do record keeping.
I have all our school stuff in Emily/Matthew's bedroom. There is two small
bookshelves, a tall bookshelf and a plastic 7-drawer thing. On the smaller
shelves I have chapter books, curriculum and junk (lol). In the plastic thing I
keep office supplies, learning games, extra workbooks (things I pull ideas from,
not everyday curriculum), and....junk. LOL!! Can you tell I need to get in
there and clean???
We usually do school in the living room and dining room. This year I finally
found a system that works and keeps stuff organized for us. I bought a pink tub
for each of the girls (You can see a pic here. Yes, that is our cat in one of
them..lol http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...oolmascot3.jpg).
In there we keep:
*a zippered pencil case
*a large plastic crayon box for crayons, markers, colored pencils, scissors,
glue
*school books they use everyday
*spiral notebooks
On Sunday nights I grab the boxes and go thru to prepare lessons for the week.
That way each day all they have to do is get their box, grab their lessons and
do it.
It has saved me SO much time! I'm not gathering up books every day
or going thru trying to find pencils...everything is right there and ready to
go!
Tell us what you did today!
Today was grocery day. We dropped dh off at work and got our shopping done. We got a late start so my routine was totally off. It worked out tho b/c he had to stay late to teach a class, so everything just happened 30 minutes later tonight.
Anyway....when we got home I let the girls play a bit then I made lunch. After lunch Gracie laid down for a quiet time (sometimes she stays up but she's been sick so I made her have a quiet time today). We started with Bible Study, then History. Those are the two things we do together. Then I turn them loose w/ their baskets. They both did Spelling first since they were excited about their new books. That was until Em realized she had more words. It went something like this:
I asked her how it's going....
"Um, oooook."
"Are you regretting asking me for new spelling book?"
"Yeeeeeeeeah. There are SO MANY words!!!!"
She wanted something different for Spelling, a workbook like we used to do. So I agreed and we found one today (see above). The way we were doing it, I combined spelling w/ other things. I picked out a sentence or two from a chapter book (i.e. Little Women). I'd write it in her Spelling notebook and highlight vocab/spelling words, usually about 6 words (not much but they were pretty challenging). She'd do different things like look up definitions, put in ABC order, use in a sentence, etc. So now that she has this book with like 15 list words, she's regretting asking for it.
I helped Abby with her Math a little bit. Usually she's fine on her own but she's learning to count by 25's and it's not clicking yet. Then I showed Em how to do a bit of long division (72 divided by 6). After that Abby did her Phonics and I went thru that with her. Oh..Abby also did some copywork (handwriting) at one point too. By then Em was ready for English and I went over that with her.
They put their baskets away, got a snack and played with Sweet Streets.
Emily is 8.
Abigail will be 6 in two weeks.
Gracie is 3.5.
Matthew will be 6mo in two weeks.
How long have you been home schooling? Is there a story behind it?
This is our third year. No real story, it was always in my heart to do and I did it.
Dh did take some convincing tho.Does your home school have a name or a mission statement?
No and no. I'd like a school name tho.
What is your general home schooling philosophy?
We are homeschoolers even when pregnant. It's not something you just start doing one day. Our children are ALWAYS learning from us, even in utero. Other than that and I don't know if it's more a method than philosophy, we use Classical Education.
Do you use a curriculum?
Yep. How to Study Your Bible for Kids ( http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=03623&event=1025SBF|10547|1025 ), Rod & Staff (math, english, phonics, reading), Handwriting Without Tears, Story of the World, make my own science stuff, and Purposeful Design Spelling (just got it today..never used it before).
Do you or your children have any special interests or hobbies that influence your home schooling?
Not really. *shrug* We kind of incorporate things as we go along. Like Saturday I taught them how to crochet. Then if they have an interest they can pursue it.
What is your typical daily routine? weekly routine?
Our day looks like this. It doesn't really change day to day. I thrive better (meaning...I don't get stressed out) if we stick as best as we can to a routine.
7:15-7:30 ~ get up and around to take dh to work
8:30 ~ We're home and I make breakfast.
9:00-11:30 ~ I do housework, girls help if there is stuff for them to do (folding laundry, tidying rooms, etc). They have playtime.
12:00 ~ Lunch
12:30 or 1:00 ~ Start school.
3:00 or 3:30 ~ School's done.
4:00-4:45 ~ They play, I have some "Me" time, I prepare as much dinner as I can before we leave to pick up dh.
The only exception to our morning stuff is Monday's, grocery day.
Do you have any special methods/tips for planning? household organization? storage? record keeping?
We aren't required to do record keeping.
I have all our school stuff in Emily/Matthew's bedroom. There is two small
bookshelves, a tall bookshelf and a plastic 7-drawer thing. On the smaller
shelves I have chapter books, curriculum and junk (lol). In the plastic thing I
keep office supplies, learning games, extra workbooks (things I pull ideas from,
not everyday curriculum), and....junk. LOL!! Can you tell I need to get in
there and clean???
We usually do school in the living room and dining room. This year I finally
found a system that works and keeps stuff organized for us. I bought a pink tub
for each of the girls (You can see a pic here. Yes, that is our cat in one of
them..lol http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...oolmascot3.jpg).
In there we keep:
*a zippered pencil case
*a large plastic crayon box for crayons, markers, colored pencils, scissors,
glue
*school books they use everyday
*spiral notebooks
On Sunday nights I grab the boxes and go thru to prepare lessons for the week.
That way each day all they have to do is get their box, grab their lessons and
do it.
It has saved me SO much time! I'm not gathering up books every dayor going thru trying to find pencils...everything is right there and ready to
go!
Tell us what you did today!
Today was grocery day. We dropped dh off at work and got our shopping done. We got a late start so my routine was totally off. It worked out tho b/c he had to stay late to teach a class, so everything just happened 30 minutes later tonight.
Anyway....when we got home I let the girls play a bit then I made lunch. After lunch Gracie laid down for a quiet time (sometimes she stays up but she's been sick so I made her have a quiet time today). We started with Bible Study, then History. Those are the two things we do together. Then I turn them loose w/ their baskets. They both did Spelling first since they were excited about their new books. That was until Em realized she had more words. It went something like this:I asked her how it's going....
"Um, oooook."
"Are you regretting asking me for new spelling book?"
"Yeeeeeeeeah. There are SO MANY words!!!!"
She wanted something different for Spelling, a workbook like we used to do. So I agreed and we found one today (see above). The way we were doing it, I combined spelling w/ other things. I picked out a sentence or two from a chapter book (i.e. Little Women). I'd write it in her Spelling notebook and highlight vocab/spelling words, usually about 6 words (not much but they were pretty challenging). She'd do different things like look up definitions, put in ABC order, use in a sentence, etc. So now that she has this book with like 15 list words, she's regretting asking for it.
I helped Abby with her Math a little bit. Usually she's fine on her own but she's learning to count by 25's and it's not clicking yet. Then I showed Em how to do a bit of long division (72 divided by 6). After that Abby did her Phonics and I went thru that with her. Oh..Abby also did some copywork (handwriting) at one point too. By then Em was ready for English and I went over that with her.
They put their baskets away, got a snack and played with Sweet Streets.
The HS group was going to a goat farm. However the weather has gotten colder and they can't have the baby goats out in the cold. I'm trying to think of another field trip we can do on our own b/c the girls were super excited this farm one. Maybe a trip to the dairy farm?? Not much of a tour there but I could go for some yummy cheese curds. 
He's never brought up PS again.
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