Shall I describe a typical homelearning day for you? (This will be a day that we don't have any committments until late afternoon; days with other things going on are a leetle bit confusing!)
The kids are up before me usually, as I am rather a night owl and like to sleep til the last possible second, and then some. Sometimes that's past 9, but more often it is somewhere between 8 and 8:30. (If I were doing what my ideal plan said, I would be up at 7. Not happening right now.)
We usually get to our lessons somewhere around 9:30, but it can be around 10 before we actually get to it. We begin with our Bible studies. We learn a new hymn every month. This month it is Fairest Lord Jesus. Then someone picks one of our previously learned hymns to review. Currently we are doing a character Bible study on gentleness. We alternate character quality study with a Bible survey course called Bible Study Guide for All Ages, which we have been using for years. We are on volume 3 of 4. I am also reading them the book by the Mally kids called: Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends. I highly recommend this book. Bible study usually takes around 30 minutes.
Last year we did art every day, but we finished the book and I haven't found another that works the same for us, so we have not done art consistently this year. However, they all love to draw and color so they do get plenty of that, and lots of crafts too. If we do an art lesson, it comes right after Bible.
Then we move on to Science and/or History. Science this year is Considering God's Creation, which I like. It's not a textbook, but a "notebooking" sort of curriculum. We did not begin at the beginning, but skipped to the unit on Plants and began with that. We just finished it last week. I like the fact that it is adaptable to many age levels. Next year, I imagine David will do Switched-on Schoolhouse for Science, or some other independent text, as I have decided against using Apologia, at least for now.
Mystery of History Volume 1 is our history curriculum and I love it. The lessons are just the right length. I love the mix of activities - some hands-on, some quizzes (which we often do orally or as a game), some review. Very strong program and from the point of view I believe in. I am hoping to get through the second half of this book rather quickly this year and begin Volume 2 before the "year ends". Currently we are at about 500 BC and just recently learned about Confucious, Buddha, and Daniel.
Once we have finished with these subjects, the kids begin their separate work. I'll write about that in a separate post, since I am, quite frankly, itching to move on to other things! LOL
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