In June I had written that I had everything figured out.  We were spending WAY too much time every day with me going back and forth between kids.  With 4 of them actively doing some type of school work, I was being worked to death.  I think we have it down for this year at least. I thought I would share what I am doing.

I have 4 children: Austin 10, Nathan 8 (almost 9), Adam 6, and Lauren 4 (almost 5).  First thing in the morning I have Austin and Nate do some independent work so that I can work directly with Adam and Lauren. 

My time with Adam and Lauren includes many things.  If one is having a particularly difficult time in language arts or in math, then I have time I can spend one-on-one.  Usually we start out the morning with both of them doing their Explode the Code books.  They love these, and they get them in the mood for working.  Then I read - right now we are reading Charlotte's Web.  I spend some one-on-one with Lauren with phonics work, then Adam.  While I am working with one, the other usually continues on Explode the Code, or some other fun little workbook I have.  Adam is working through First Language Lessons at a good pace, and he seems to really enjoy most of the lessons.  Lauren listens in while she is working.

At the same time, Austin and Nathan work on independent reading, spelling and grammar.  We have decided to use Rod and Staff's English for our grammar work.  It is rigorous, but not over the kids' heads.  Sometimes they do need my help to understand the lesson's idea, but most of the time the book explains it well enough for them.  We absolutely ADORE our spelling program.  We invested in Phonetic Zoo from Institute for Exellence in Writing.  It is self-paced and the boys are moving through the lessons at a good pace.  And the best part is that I can see them using what they learn when they notebook in other subjects.  Most of the independent reading is books chosen by my boys.  However, I am going to be assigning them some historical literature to read that will go along with our history.  Right now Austin is in the middle of A Series of Unfortunate Events.  Nathan just finished up reading some selections from Sonlight's Intermediate 2 readers.  He's ready for some more challenging reading.

When we are done with that first block - I usually give the kids a little break.  Myself, too.  Then it's on to either History or Science.  We are switching these two subjects every other day for now... we may change to every other week.

Story of the World 3 is our History spine for this year.  We are really getting into notebooking.  My kindergartener is even enjoying the stories and coloring pages.  She especially loves the maps.  My boys are really enjoying this approach as well.  We are spending a decent amount of time every other day on History - and they haven't grumbled once since we started the notebooking.  I hope to include some classic literature into this time, but right now we are comfortable with simply reading the stories in the book, doing some activities and then reading about the times in our Usborne World History book.  They are showing off their notebooks every day to their dad - showing him all they remember.

Science is following much the same path.  We decided to go with a notebooking approach with Science as well.  After looking around, I decided to buy the Botany book from Apologia.  We are so thrilled!  Today my children did the first activity in the book - Shoe Taxonomy.  They collected one of each pair of shoes in the entire house.  (ok, we have to weed out the shoes!)  They then sorted them into kingdoms.  We took one of the Kingdoms and divided it down into two phylum, then each into two classes, then each into two orders.  At the end of the documenting - I gave each of them a shoe that they were to identify using BINOMIAL NOMENCLATURE.  I was so proud when the older two could do it without much prodding.  My little ones didn't really get that part, but they did love classifying each shoe. 

Math is our most fun subject.  I do NOT use a set curriculum and I cannot wait to write about what we are doing for math.  I am working on getting some documents together that I use - and putting it all together in a way that YOU can use it too.  It really is so much fun.  We all do math together, even though my older two are doing 4th grade level math... and sometimes higher!  We work together - each at his own pace and on his own level.  I love that I am not bound to a curriculum, but I love that I can see easily where each of my children falls in accordance with 'grade level'. I plan to have this uploaded by next weekend.  Cross your fingers!