Our Homeschooling Day

I thought I would post about what our day looks like. There are some things that I want to change for the next year but for now this works. Everyone gets up between 7-8am. We eat breakfast and I drink my coffee. Then:

~CADE:
completes his morning chores-this includes things like making his bed, bathroom hygiene, and taking care of the animals (food, cleaning and refilling water bowls).
Scool starts around 9ish. I'm not very strict on this, several times it's been 10ish. :0 Typcially he does his independent work first because I am doing things for the little girls and can't give him my undivided attention at that time. His independent work includes Handwriting, Daily Grams (part of Grammar), journal, and maybe his silent reading. He then will take a break for 15-30 minutes usually. Sometimes not if he is super focused. I allow Cade to pick and choose which assignments he wants to complete in whatever order he wants. If the girls are playing independently sometimes I will jump in with the assignments that require more of my help. Science and Grammar for instance. Cade has matured over the year regarding his ability to work independently. This is a good thing. At the beginning, I had to sit with him while he worked. I have a lesson plan book that I fill out each week and he pulls it out of the "teacher's box" on Mondays and begins to work his way through. Anyway, back to our day. Depending on Cade's focus that day, he can be finished with school by lunch, 2-ish or find himself still doing work at 3-ish. When the later time occurs that is usually because he is not very focused and it may not be a good day either. I try to keep that minimal routine in place. We school Mon-Thurs and usually have Fridays off. I love a 4-day school week and so does he. He is allowed to take breaks whenever he wants and he is allowed to take as long as he needs on the assignment. Cade has ADHD and more times than not, I find him at the kitchen table standing up to do his work. This includes a lot of bouncing, pencil drums, strange noises coming out of his mouth. He is not required to sit still as in public school. This works much better for him. His school includes Math (division of money and thousand's place right now), Grammar (adjectives right now), Spelling (18 words every week), Daily Grams (part of Grammar), Handwriting (cursive scripture copywork), Journal (whatever topics I pick), History & Geography (deserts right now), Science (Mars), Bible and silent reading (Hardy Boys #2 right now).

~JENNA:
Her morning starts with breakfast and I won't lie: I let her watch cartoons for awhile but not all of the time. Usually PBS or NickJr. I am working on this and thankfully she doesn't just sit there absorbed like a zombie. She and Cloee play together non-stop unless she goes to her school table to work on school stuff of her choosing. Her table is set up with her art supplies and she will work on that for quite some time. Right now she loves "wrapping presents". I found an old roll of wrapping paper and bought some cheap tape and that girl will be occupied for an hour. She likes to wrap presents for her daddy. If the weather is nice, they will go outside before lunch. Cade goes with them so I can begin making lunch, folding clothes, etc. They eat lunch and if the weather is nice and it's not crazy late, I will let them go out for 15 more minutes before nap time. Ahhhh, nap time. I LOVE nap time (or quiet time for Cade). Everyone does this-this is my break. I usually get 1 to 1-1/2 hours of quietness. When Jenna wakes up, it's snack time and then typically outside time, weather permitting.

~CLOEE:
Generally follows Jenna's schedule. She runs around the house and finds things to play with. She is not required to follow a strict routine. ;) Well, except for nap time but she likes nap time. (She will be 18-months on March 1st).

Cade has shown a lot of initiative lately with school. This week, he finished most of his classes yesterday (Wednesday)so that he only had a couple to finish today. I'm fine with that as long as he keeps a good attitude and gets all of his chores completed during the day.

Things I want to change: I think I want to become more structured in class times. So I will probably try that and if Cade doesn't like it we'll go back to this method. More structure for the little girls. Jenna is showing a great deal of interest in learning more things so I need to start working more with her and organize her day better. I've really slacked on things to do with the little girls. I feel like all of my focus has been centered on Cade this first year of homeschooling, trying to find a good fit for us.

I think that's pretty much our day. I'm sure I left out some pretty routine things and of course, this routine doesn't happen every day. We're fairly flexible at SHINE Academy.