Category: Home and Schooling

This has been the best start to a school year we have ever had in our homeschooling journey thus far and I would love to share with you what has been working for us.  Just remember, what works for one family may or may not work for yours.  My best free advice: find what works for the unique needs of your family & realize that seasons change !  This is one of our easier seasons for a variety of reasons, one of which is that my baby is now 5yo - WOW! - and is having the time of her life not needing mommy to help keep her busy. (Does that sound depressing to you?)

One thing that is unique about my family is that we have a blended family with 7 children.

My oldest son is my dh's biological son (my adopted son), we have 3 of our own biological children, and 3 adopted children (2 nieces and a nephew).  Everyone is related in one way or another, but when studying the genetics of our children, we have a grand total of 7 biological parents!  Needless to say, there is quite the sampling of personalities, tendencies, and emotional & behavioral differences in our children.  Due to a variety of circumstances (from the very good to the very sad), each child brings some unique needs, challenges, gifts, skills & delights to our homeschooling experience.  It has been my job as the "coordinator" of their studies to get on my knees before the Lord and seek His wisdom in how to adapt our chosen curriculums & methods of teaching to each child while doing this for each of their 6 siblings at the same time.  It's been quite a journey these last 6-7 years to say the least!

So, rather than give you all the details of where we've journeyed, I'll try to show you where we are, what we're doing, and how we're implementing things this year.  Please feel free to ask any questions.  I'm certainly no expert, except when it comes to what doesn't  work for us, but I'll gladly share my experiences if it might help you on your journey!

Please be patient with me as it will take me awhile to share everything I'd like to share with you!  So keep checking back!

This Year's Schedule (For Now)

Let's start with this year's schedule. (I think you'll need to click on it in order to read it.)

This is the "framework".  I've put times in there to show you that in the perfect world on a perfect day, this schedule will work for us.  But, in case you haven't figured this out for yourself (and if you haven't then I'm assuming you haven't started homeschooling yet), no schedule is perfect & there is no perfect day!  So this is more like my guide through the day.  There's not been one day yet that has followed this schedule exactly (for example - no morning walks - YET!), but for the most part we have covered each subject as laid out and have stayed on target with my general goals for each week.

For example, I have 30 minutes blocked for math. Some days we may only do math for 15 minutes so that we have extra time for Lang Arts.  I have 60 minutes for history or science (depending on where we are in the rotation) and 30 minutes following for notebooking.  Well for our first 3 days into our history study we do almost all reading, anywhere from 30-90 minutes (which runs into our "notebooking" slot).  The last 3 days of history are spent doing mostly notebooking activities, so we end up spending closer to 90 minutes on just the notebooking.  For science, it's kind of all mixed together, so there's actually 90 minutes allowed for science, notebooking and all those fun experiments.

I'll share more details about each subject later! 

You'll see my 10th grader's "framework" on the right side.  He, too, just follows this as a guide.  Some days a subject may take a little longer and he'll have to cut another one short.  I do not require too much "makeup" work for him if he runs into some particular problem that messes up his schedule for the day.  We just try to adjust his studies the next day to make up for it.  There are certain subjects like math, science, and writing that I have a stringent schedule for, so we try to keep these on target.  Most of the others are a little more flexible, so we nudge these around to round out the day for him.  He does most of his AM work independently and then will check in with either his dad or I in the afternoons or evenings to go over the day's work.  His dad is his primary teacher which works out wonderfully.  I'm trying to find ways to blend him into some of his younger siblings studies though.

As for my PreK & K daughters (ages 5 & 6yo), they are really great at entertaining themselves in the morning hours.  They do bounce back and forth to do some activities with the older kids.  For the most part though, they play dress-up, draw/color/paint, and just have make-believe fun during the morning hours - no TV!  I've also learned to make myself more available during the morning school hours for the times they need me - more on this as I detail each of our subjects later.  I've set aside time on MWF for them to spend with me in the afternoons for "table time" and we cover the basic RRR for their age & ability.  On Tues/Thur, I try to plan for hands/on activities, PE, and nature study for their older siblings and I encourage the 5 & 6yo to participate with us as they are able.