Wow!! Now that my kids are "older", we have really been working hard. Homeschooling is a lot more time and work than I anticipated, but I still enjoy it, and I think it will be worth all the hard work. I made up a chart for each kid, so they know exactly what they are supposed to do each day, and they can check it off as they do it each day. When I added up the time I estimated each subject to take, it came out to about 5 hours a day for the 10 and now 9 yr olds, 4 days a week and that didn't include the enrichment of story-time or singing time or art. I limited the 10 yr old to 2 hours a day of math so that she would have time to work on other subjects. She is doing better, and understands the concepts, but we are now working on speed and accuracy. I hope she can move on to 4B soon. Her 9 yr.old sister is just about done with 4A and will probably pass the test and move on to 4B in a couple weeks. That is a little frustrating to the older sister, but that's just how it goes. Maybe the younger one will be able to explain things to the older one or at least motivate her to really focus and concentrate. It doesn't come easy to her, but she still has to and can learn it. It will take a lot more practice for her than it will for the other children.
The great thing now is that the girls are getting up, cleaning their room, getting dressed and ready for the day and starting their schoolwork on their own around 9 a.m. It is so nice!! They are able to do so much on their own and are really learning and doing well. They are realizing that starting earlier means finishing earlier, and I think they are leaning to appreciate the fun of working hard and succeeding at difficult tasks. I am really quite proud of them. They are actually growing up.
The little boys are easy to teach now that I've been through the girls and found the best curricula for everything. They also love computer games and when they finish their schoolwork and their chores, they get 15 min. each on the computer. That has been awesome motivation for them finish and learn. I'm really proud of them too. They are finally getting those simple addition and subtraction facts down and are understanding the concepts. My reluctant reader who is now 7 is really close to reading the Treehouse books on his own.
So the schedule that seems to work best at this point is for me to get up around 6-6:30 a.m., make breakfast, exercise and get ready for the day. Have the kids start their chores, eat breakfast and get ready for the day around 8 a.m. The girls can then get started on their schoolwork with the stuff they don't need me to help them with around 9 a.m. Depending on what kind of house stuff I need to do and what kind of mood the little ones are in, I can read little kid books to the little kids at 9 or let them play a little. I then help them get all their work done by 11-11:30 and they can all take a break and go play outside for a bit. Then we can eat lunch, clean up and have singing time and story time which includes scripture and poem recitations, Spanish practice, Science and some history as well as learning new songs and reading interesting stories mostly from Yesterday's Classics.
After that the younger kids are pretty much free to do anything constructive or fun while I help the older kids with Spelling, Greek, Science and Math. It is fluid from day to day, but that is the goal. We try hard to be done by 5, but with activities scheduled during the week, we usually have to finish up in the evening. I try to leave the required reading and instrument practice for the evening and have them do those last. For a couple weeks, I wondered if I was pushing them too hard. But we seem to get done a little earlier each week as they get better at focusing and realizing that they have to finish even if it's late. So I think it is paying off.
I am finding that consistency is very important. We seem to be making great progress because we have been consistent. Doing a little bit each day seems to be better than cramming a bunch of info in a short period of time. It has been very rewarding to see my children work hard and grow and learn so much. Not that I am never frustrated and wonder how many times I will have to explain estimating and rounding. But overall, I'm feeling good about our academic homeschool. There is always room for improvement, but I think we are on the right track. Here is the chart for the oldest. The numbers are the estimated time for each activity, mostly 4 days per week. We are now doing spelling each day and the emphasis is more on goals accomplished rather than time spent. The time spent thing doesn't work well for us, because I have some kids who are masters at sitting at their desk and accomplishing nothing, but it is helpful for them to know about how much time each subject should take.
(Sorry the chart isn't more legible, but I don't want to take the time to fix it. You can still get the idea!!)
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
Clean room
Get Dressed
Eat
Brush teeth
15 min. Clean
Scripture 10 10 10 10
Journal 10 10 10 10
Grammar Practice 5 5
Word Study 5 5
Sentences 5 5
Spelling 15 15 test
Poem 10 10 10 10
History Report 30
Composition 30
Book Report 30
Math 120 120 120 120 120
Science 15 15 15 15
Greek 5 sec. 20 20 20 20
Spanish 10 10 10 10
Music 15
Drawing 60
Piano 30 30 30 Lesson 30 30
Violin Lesson 20 20 20 20 20
Required Reading 30 30 30 30
History Reading 15 15 15 15
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