Our First Week of Homeschool 2015-16

Moriah, Mommy and Josiah ~ First day of school 2015-16 

(And yes, the sun is STILL out in full, hot force at 8:15am in September)

I count myself blessed to be able to be home with my children each day - to love and teach them. It's definitely NOT the easiest thing I've done, nor is it the easy way out. It's hard! But it's in the hard times, when my patience runs thin and my sin of anger and lack of self-control surfaces, that I find my need for my Savior in a GREAT way. Homeschooling my kids is another tools that God uses to show me what is in my heart and how He is willing to cleanse me and change me into the likeness of His Son, Jesus.


Here is a run down of what our first week of home school looked like this year. It may will change and morph, especially as we add a new baby brother to the mix in early December. But for now, this is what works best for us! I always find it encouraging to read what other moms of young children do in a day of homeschooling... I hope that this blesses your heart as well.

Our typical week of school (so far):

Sunday: 

 A day of worship and family time

Monday: 

We work around the home or enjoy an outing together as a family.

We also prepare for our CC Community Day.  This is our second year with Classical Conversations and we LOVE it! CC provides us with a like-minded community, a method and a means to home school a variety of ages at once, and the accountability to keep on track throughout the year. Each Monday we prepare our in-class presentations for Tuesday, gather bags and books we will need the next day, review our memory work learned the previous 7 weeks, and as a tutor, I make sure I am prepared to lead my class. 

My class - set up and ready for a fun morning of learning and growing!

Tuesday:

We head to our local CC campus to enjoy 4 hours of new grammar (Timeline, Geography, History, Latin, English, Math, and Science), an art project, a science experiment, class presentations, memory work review and lunch with friends. 

This year I am tutoring the Abecedarians - kids ages 4 and 5 (which includes my Jo). They are a HOOT and have such sweet hearts. We had a great first day this week. 

Because my kids are all under age 10, we head home after our lunch/fellowship time at CC. It's rest time for all (including this very pregnant momma) and our afternoon is pretty laid back. 

Later in the day we may read books together, draw pictures, play outside and do some house chores, but our school day is complete after our full morning at CC.

Sweet friends drawing pictures and writing letters to each other after our CC community day. 

Mo and Jo's new school binders for the year, along with new markers for them to enjoy


Wednesday - Friday:

This Wednesday was our first "at home" day of school for the year.

My 6-year-old-going-on-12-year-old LOVES to draw, so she asked for a blank space on her binder cover to draw a picture in. And my son, who is in sea creature mode helped pick out his binder clip art online with me. Of course I had to strategically place the squid above the hungry shark's mouth. :o)

These binders have dividers in them that are marked: 
CC Memory Work, Geography, Handwriting and Math. 

These are the four areas we plan to focus on this year at home. We will also continue reading aloud (Mommy to the kids and Mo and Jo to Mommy), adding drawings and information to our Nature Journals, enjoying art projects together and various other subjects of interest that arise. But if we can make noted progress in these four areas, we will have succeeded!


Our Morning Routine:

Having three (going on four) children ages six and under, it helps to break our morning into 30 minute increments. This allows us to complete assignments and chunks of schooling, yet keep the pace moving so no one gets bored. The times mentioned below are flexible, but so far they are pretty accurate as to our normal routine around here.

8:00am - Wake up! Get dressed, brush hair and make bed.

8:30 - Breakfast together, devotions and prayer at the table.
Morning chores: clear and wipe off table (Jo), sweep floor (Mo), and put clean dishes away (both kids). Also, feed animals if needed (sometimes Daddy does this).

I believe I came across this kids devotional book at a local discount store. So far we LOVE it! It gives us a Bible verse to think on and discuss each day, a word of encouragement and application, a prayer and an "Our Amazing World" fact. It takes us 5 minutes or so to read through and prepares our hearts for prayer. 

9:00 - Circle Time: Sing a song or two, stretch, read poetry, work on scripture verse memorization, and review our phonics and ABC's.

We all enjoy a laid back approach to Circle Time  :o)

Momma and her boys enjoying poetry together

*photo courtesy of Moriah*

9:30 - Table Time: Handwriting (Wed), Math (Thurs), Geography (Fri).

(We will touch on math through games, etc on days besides Thursdays, but that day of the week is set aside to sit at the table and work out math problems on paper.)

Table time is used to practice sitting still for 30 minutes, holding our pencils correctly, working hard and finishing assignments that are given. 

Our goal in school is NOT only to learn information, but to learn HOW to learn, practice obeying, doing our best, growing in grace, finding truth and beauty around us, and honoring God in what we do. 

Mo having fun with Dominoes!

Concentrating and doing her best

Sounding out words and finding beginning sounds

Jo works on various fun worksheets, as well as more focused assignments. 

Just sitting in a chair for 30 minutes and focusing on school work is an accomplishment for him!

I expect that these skills will become easier (and be able to go longer) as the year progresses.

 After checking Moriah's math work, I gave her a review assignment. 

This day she needed to practice writing the numbers 2,6 and 7. 

She did so with a happy heart and received one "Baldwin Buck"! 

These pretend dollar bills will be placed in each child's "bank" and can be spent at the end of each week. The school store will contain a few toys and school supplies, as well as tasty treats.

We are all excited for the incentive to: Do one's best and work with a happy heart and good attitude

Drew and Grammy playing together

Usually I get to keep my toddler, who just turned two, busy with toys, books and drawing on a white board. This day my mother came for a visit and kept him busy for me. What a blessing!

10:00 - Snack Time!

Drew enjoying a blueberry-bananna smoothie!

10:30 - CC Memory Work Review

11:15 - Play a game together, do a craft (like make play-do or cookies), free play, head outside,  or watch an educational show. May run errands with momma as needed.

12:00/12:30 - Lunch and free time

1:30/2:00 pm - Rest time in rooms with books.
More often than not, Jo naps and Mo stays up - but she stays in her room quietly drawing, reading or playing. Most days, I rest with my toddler. I need this time to re-charge for the evening ahead. After a short rest I enjoy reading, going online to check social media, etc.

4:00 - Up and at 'em! Everyone up from quiet time to play, read, and help with PM chores.
PM Chores include: catching up on dirty dishes from the day, folding/putting away laundry, picking up toys, checking mail, etc.

5:00 - Outside to play, help prep dinner.

6:30 - Dinner as a family and more outside play (if weather allows). Help Daddy with collecting eggs and feeding/watering animals.

8:30 - Baths, brush teeth, read books, to bed by 9pm!


Lord willing, most Wednesday, Thursdays and Fridays will look like this!

***

I would also love to give you a peek at what our "home school room" consists of.

It is a multi-purpose room: our kitchen, dinning room, craft room, school room and fellowship hall all rolled in to one!

With limited space, one must get creative. The truth is, it has taken me over a year to find a solution to fit our home school needs. But this is what works for now, and I'm so thankful!

Because we meet in the kitchen for table work and it is the central hub for each day, it made sense to have all of our home school supplies IN the kitchen! After moving our deep freezer in front of one window, I found some wall space I could utilize for school.

The only "large" purchase that I made to help simplify our supply organization was this 9-cubby shelf. It was at Big Lots for $39! And it has really helped keep us all sane. We can find what we need and it also limits what we think we need. If it doesn't fit on the shelf, we don't have room for it. So I ask myself, "Do we really need this right now?"

Our ABC's, world map and this week's timline cards are hung above our shelf.

The top shelf houses:  Regular pencils and sharpener, my laptop that we use for worship music throughout the day, motivating music during chore time, educational YouTube videos on various subjects, printing off handouts, you name it! It's used all. day. long. And lastly, our geography maps, world atlas and Baldwin Bucks money jars.

The first row of cubbies: our scratch/project paper, drawing/coloring tools and Momma's school books.

The second row: More supplies, Moriah's pink box and binder, and Dry Erase markers along with a basket of glue, scissors and erasers.

The third row: More school text books/activity books, a small crate of math manipulative, and finally Josiah's green box and binder. 

A closer look

Making the most of what you have and being grateful for each blessing sure helps one's attitude when it comes to wanting a beautiful school room. One day we may have the space to have a separate room for school, but for now we are cozy together - learning and growing in the space that God has provided us.

May you have a blessed day and enjoy each gift (including the little people) that God has given to you!

Many blessings,

Battleship Review Game {Great for CC Tutors}

Happy New Year to you! I hope that this post finds you excited to see growth and maturity in your life, as well as the lives of your children this year. Personally, there are specific things I hope to see change and grow as I apply myself to working diligently in my home and with my kids. With God's help, it is ALL possible!

Here is a little game that I came up with to help my class of 6-year-olds focus and still have fun during the 30 minute review time of our Classical Conversations community day. The game is an oldie but the application for CC is a new idea (I think... I haven't seen anything exactly like it on the web yet).

Creating a Battleship poster board is a fun way to review the past 7 weeks of grammar with your students (and/or your own children at home). It only takes 40 minutes to create this reusable game and the kids will LOVE it!

Materials needed to create the game: 

- one poster board
-  42 Post-it notes
- a permanent marker
- scissors
- three different colors of card stock (one sheet of each color)
- a straight edge (a yard stick or another large piece of paper)
- some tape

 A look at the final product!

 Putting together your poster board:

- Start by drawing a straight line down the left side of your poster board and another across the top. This creates your grid outline.

- Place seven post-it notes close together in a horizontal line to make the first row. Continue with placing six post-it notes in a vertical line to the left to make the first column. This will help you draw a correctly spaced grid.

- With those post-its in place, use your straight edge to draw the ocean grid.

- Once the grid is complete, fill in the rows with post-its.

- Down the left side write the numbers 1 though 6.

- Across the top write the letters "A" through "G".

- Draw and cut out your ships from the three pieces of cards stock. I made the following ships: 3 small orange boats (they will occupy 2 squares each), 2 medium blue ships (to occupy 3 squares each) and 2 large green submarines (to occupy 4 squares each).

- Next, cut each ship into the same number of pieces as the squares they will occupy.

Before and after I cut my ships

- Using small pieces of rolled up tape, place your all of your ships on the ocean grid, under the post-its.
 
*Before placing my ships, I glance at the correlating spaces' memory work that the kids would answer. I chose subjects from the past 6 weeks that they needed more work on than others, knowing that they would choose squares that the ships were under once one piece of a ship was discovered. Hope that makes sense :)*

Facing the boats either horizontally or vertically will help your students guess where the rest of the ship is hidden.

A sneak peek of the hidden ships  :)

- Now your Battleship game is ready to go!

 

What you need to play the game:

 

- The poster board game, complete with hidden ships, hung on a wall or from a table. (Placing the poster board a little lower than where the children are sitting will help them resist the urge to look up and under the hanging post-it notes to see where the hidden ships are.)

- Cheat Sheet to help you quickly locate correct review question to ask. ***You can create this by writing the numbers 1-6 down the left side of a piece of paper, and the letters A-G across the top of the paper - just like your Battleship grid. Then, next to the numbers, write a letter for each subject you will cover (e.g. "H" for history, "G" for geography and "E" for English). Above the letters at the top of the page, write the week numbers that you will cover during this game. For our class, we are in week 14 so I started with 14 and worked backwards 7 weeks. At the end of our game, we sang our Timeline song together, so it was covered too!***

- Foundations Guide

- A white board or piece of paper showing students the color and shape of the ships they are looking for and how many remain to sink. 

- Optional: small treats to hand out when a ship is "sunk"

How we played the game: 

- The goal of the game is for the students to "sink" all of the hidden ships, and win small rewards along the way. It's a class effort which builds a team mentality! A great game for any age group.

- Each child took a turn calling out a grid square (e.g., "C,3").

- I then looked at my cheat sheet to see the week and subject to turn to in my CC Foundations Guide and asked the student a review question. (On my cheat sheet, "C,3" would have been English from week 12 memory work.)

- Once the review question was answered by the student or by the class as a whole, I removed that grid's post-it note and the "shot" was either a "miss" (nothing under the post-it) or a "hit" (part of a ship was reveled).

- Students took turns calling out coordinates and answering review questions and when a ship was completely uncovered I passed out an M-n-M to each child as a small reward (and incentive to keep paying attention and playing).

- The sheer joy of sinking my hidden ships may have been enough excitement to keep their attention, but the small piece of chocolate was a fun addition.

- We played as long as our time allowed. I believe that each of my 6 students had 4 turns answering review questions (and they helped one another along the way, when needed). 

EDIT ADDED 3/19/2016:

***I have found when using this game, especially with the Abecedarian class, that we don't get through very much memory work. I have found it best to review 3 weeks of history and then have a child choose a square on the ocean grid to "shoot" his/her cannon ball on to uncover a ship. Then I will continue with the next 4 weeks of history, the Helping Verb song, a few Latin Declension songs, 3 or 4 weeks of science questions, geography, or some math songs. This way we cover more memory work in those last 30 minutes!***

What the end of our game time looked like

I noticed that while playing this game, the children were taking pride in answering the review questions on their own, whereas in the past it was difficult for me to get a clear answer from them one at a time. In past review sessions, they seemed to prefer answering as a group, maybe so that if they messed up it wouldn't be noticed. 

Also, we covered a large range of information from the past 6 weeks (7 weeks if you count this week's information learned that same morning). This helped me not stress out and have lots of fun with the kids. We ended on a great note!

The kids only uncovered about half of my ships in the 30 minute review time, so I plan to save the rest of the board to play with next week. After that, I can remove my ships and place them in different locations to change up the game!

This game is sure to make even your littlest students SMILE!

The only expense may be using more post-it notes to create another grid in a few weeks, unless my current post-it notes keep their "stick" and don't get too bent out of shape. We will see!

I hope that this simple game is a help to those of you who tutor CC classes and are stumped with a review game that works. Like I said, my class really enjoyed this game and they are looking forward to playing again next week!

"And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart." - Galatians 6:9 

Have a blessed day! Keep up the wonderful work with your class and with your children. Our work is not in vain! 

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