Starting Over

I love January. I love that it is butt-numbing cold and we don't want to go anywhere. I love that there are no major holidays distracting us. I love that it just feels like a fresh start every time. I am an optimistic sort, but I try not to set lofty, ridiculous lists for myself. I set goals, but I'm very forgiving with them. When scheduling our days, I try to keep in mind that all we really want to do is curl up on the couch with a good book. I have to add bathing to the schedule or it wouldn't happen until 3:00 in the afternoon. See? Optimistic, but practical, too! :D

My intention was to spend every day from Christmas till yesterday, focusing on our schoolyear (we go year-round) and organizing our routine. We had family drama, drama, drama come up and I crammed what I could and started with a blank page today which we've filled in as the day progressed. Here's what we have:

Morning Chores
everyone makes beds
taking care of the dog
breakfast
clean-up
boring hygiene stuff

School

Circle Time: us together, prayer, game, something with a smile
Bible: Boys-How to Study Your Bible for Kids Girls-Devotions for Little Boys and Girls Me (before the kids get up)- I joined a group to go through Becoming the Woman God Wants Me to Be. If you want to join the group, be sure to mention my name so that I can be entered in a drawing.

Logic: Logic Countdown

Math: Joel - Mammoth Math 4, Ethan - Singapore for now but we'll have to switch to Math Tutor soon for a review. Honor - I have no idea, but I suppose it's time for something. I've tried Saxon, Rod & Staff, and Singapore. None of these look as good as RightStart. If I could afford it, we would go with this. I'll probably end up using Saxon 1 for Kindergarten though. Any thoughts?

Language Arts: Further Up and Further In. This is a study on the Narnia books that we are reviewing for the TOS Crew. Honor will begin Five in a Row

Science: Friendly Chemistry. This is our second year with chemistry, but the boys were still very interested and I just felt we walked away lacking from Christian Kids Explore Chemistry, much as I liked it. Also, Friendly Chemistry sent it for free, so we're happy to enjoy a 2nd year of our favorite subject....I think. I'll tell you for certain after we've tried it. We're still on the corresponding history year, so it's not getting us off of our rotation at all. It's neat how it all fell together that way.

Latin: Classical Academic Press. I love them! AND Christopher Perrin is speaking at our Homeschool Convention this April. I can't wait to meet him! Honor is beginning The Latin Road.

Art: Spears and whatever comes up in our other studies.

History: Sonlight. This is my first year with a boxed kit. We usually follow The Well Trained Mind and study world history chronologically. This focuses more on American History and has our 3rd year lessons going another half year, but we've always stretched our history studies to longer than a year. Since we're studying the American Revolution (yes, still) this was good timing for this awesome product to review. I jumped up and down and nearly wet myself when I saw my name on the list to receive it. This will also cover geography and extra reading.

Spelling: All About Spelling

Music: Ethan goes to band Mon/Wed/Fri and Joel will practice piano while he's gone. Honor is using Kinderbach.


Afternoon Chores (around 3:00, hopefully. Tonight, it's 6:00)
Flip-charting assigned rooms
Honor has graduated up to sweeping the entry-way and wiping out the bathroom sink.
Boys fold clothes
I flip the kitchen

Errands -since we have to take Ethan to band M/W/F, I'm going to try hitting the library on Tuesdays and the grocery store on Thursdays at this same time, so our schedule can stay the same all week.

Evening La-dee-da
Supposedly, if my calculations are correct, we'll have an hour or so to hang out before supper and an hour or so to hang out after supper clean-up. We'll call this play time, though it's really Mama-gets-schnockered time. I kid. Playtime is not drinking time. Honest. We'll have playtime, supper, playtime, baths, evening read-aloud (history assigned fiction) and then bedtime by 9:00. Except me....then I get to blog and read and whatever. That's the plan, anyway.

We have homeschool group meetings every 2nd & 4th Friday, so I've chosen the 4-day-week schedule to use with Sonlight and on non-group Fridays, we'll use our Time Traveler's cd from Homeschool in the Woods. I really love this and wish I could devote more time to it.

I'm getting a little light-headed just typing this, and we still have baths and dinner clean-up to cover so I'd best skedaddle. I'll go over the "how" of the schedule tomorrow.....after I've figured it out! Here's praying I find it out. This will work, right? It has to, so I guess it will.

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