Homeschooling Heather Style

I thought I'd take a break from my many ramblings and musings, and from my Brazil posts, to have a homeschooling day on the blog. I'm sitting downstairs, listening to the boys play in "Legoland Brazil: Timmy's Room" and enjoying the relative peace & quiet that happens when all 3 boys are actively engaged in imaginative play, and no one is fighting. Peaceful, whether or not it is actually quiet. I love it.

Then I glanced at the clock and realized it is 11:30 almost, and we've not started school yet.  Which, honestly, is totally normal for us, but a lot of my homeschooling friends back home, or my non-homeschooling friends wherever they live, would find that absolutely appalling. So I thought I'd share about what homeschooling looks like here.  "Here" being at my house, without regard of geographical location.

Because we are night owls, and my boys all wake up at different times in the morning, we don't start school until after lunch most days. This allows me to do my chores and things in the morning -- dishes, laundry, exercise, and email/blog surfing. Not in that order at all. This also allows the boys to wake up, have some fun free time, and some quality Sibling Bonding Time, which I think is pretty important, so I hate to interrupt it when it happens.

Around the time I start getting hungry, I let the boys know that after I eat, we'll do school. This signals to them that they have 30 or so minutes to wrap up whatever they're doing at the time, grab a snack or lunch (we do self-serve lunches around here....) and be ready when I call them.  I read while I eat, usually a bit from the Bible and then maybe some from whatever book I'm reading as well. If I find that the boys need a bit more time to finish up their play, I will read a tad longer and tell them "fifteen minutes" so they know I mean "finish up."  Of course, I'll also do that if I'm on a particularly good chapter of whatever I'm reading, but don't tell the boys that....

Then we Do School. By this time it is usually one o'clock or so, sometimes later. Since Quentin does not get home these days until 6:30 or so, we have plenty of time, and we've found that school at this point in the afternoon is the perfect Boredom Buster for the longer days* we have here. 

Our school day is not a long one. The boys each start with Math; I explain the lesson/concept to one, he starts on the exercise and I explain the new concept to the other. Caleb generally finishes math first, so he moves right to Handwriting while I remain available to help Timmy if anything is giving him trouble. Now that he's learning ratios, and area of a triangle, and things like that, he sometimes needs help.  Caleb goes straight to Bible when he's finished with his Handwriting, and he often reads ahead. He moves from the dining room/school room table to the couch to do his Bible reading, and though he has a Bible broken down by dates, he often reads several days worth at once.

When Timothy finishes Math, he moves on to Language Arts. He has 2 main workbooks that he uses: Grammar Ace (once/week) and Wordly Wise (4x/week).  He absolutely LOVES his Wordly Wise vocabulary work, so he moves to that with no problem. Depending on the timing of things, where Caleb is in his schedule, I then sit with Caleb and read his History to him, and we discuss what we've read. Right now he is going through a book about people groups who do not have the Bible translated into their language, as well as a book on Missionary Stories -- brief accounts of the happenings in the lives of various famous missionaries. 

Generally, Timothy finishes up his Language Arts while I'm working on History with Caleb; Timmy then reads his Bible while he waits.  Once I'm done with Caleb's History, Caleb goes upstairs and does his daily reading and then I do Timothy's History with him. Timmy is learning about Japan right now. Once we are done with that, he does his daily reading, and that's it. We're done with school.

We catch science on weekends or evenings, very informally thus far. I have a science curriculum waiting to be started that we'll start in our new year in February, but this year we've done various mini unit studies -- kittens being born and how they grow, caterpillars becoming butterflies, ocean life, etc. 

Both boys get further Language Arts through informal writing "assignments" -- usually of their own creation. Both boys are working on creative writing, writing stories for me. Caleb keeps a journal and writes stories. Timothy writes stories, cartoons & is recording a cast of characters for a game he & Caleb invented. I correct the spelling and grammar on these informal exercises, and Caleb will start formal grammar/language arts next year.  He also has a Spelling program, though we use it sporadically. They both write really well just from exposure to great literature, and we do have "read aloud" time during the day many days, or at bedtime or whenever.

The challenging part of our day is incorporating Zach. I have a few preschool workbooks for him, trying to get him ready to listen & follow directions, and just get used to "doing school" with us at school time. He is growing accustomed to this, and most days will sit and color or work a puzzle while we do school, after he's done an exercise or two in his workbook.

We deal with many interruptions, though, and juggling the needs of 3 students of such different ages/levels can be tricky, but most of the time we all enjoy it. The boys love being done with school in two hours time or so, and tailoring their learning to their interests, and I love the flexibility that homeschooling offers us. Definitely a win-win for our household.