the riches and more: our friday school routine.

This post contains affiliate links.

Fridays are special days around here!  It's kind of our reward for plowing through the rest of the week.  We still get our schoolwork in, but much of it is our most enjoyable work, so we look forward to it all week.

Morning

I take notes through the week - I'm not mentally spry enough to remember dates, events, and places that we read about without taking notes!

In the morning, the big kids gather at the table with their maps and Book of Centuries.  Through the week, as we're reading our many books, we take note of any important dates or locations we think are worth remembering, and we log them all during Friday Table Time.  It's really fascinating to see how historical figures and events overlap and relate to one another - for instance, did you know that Martin Luther, Christopher Columbus, Henry VIII and Leonardo DaVinci were all contemporaries?  What must they have thought was happening to the world as news of one another reached their ears?  This is the kind of thing that makes history really become three dimensional, especially after we also map where notable events are taking place.

The Book of Centuries we use
The World Atlas we use
The United States Atlas we use

This year, the big kids' history focus is on the 1700's, up to the American and French Revolutions.  So we're mapping much of Europe, as well as the evolution of the original American colonies.

We're also reading Minn of the Mississippi, a story about a three-legged turtle (!!), and mapping Minn's journey on our Mississippi River map.


After we've finished up with our history and geography for the morning, we take a few minutes to do a grammar lesson, as that's a new addition to our schedule this year.  We also do a dictation selection - I read a poem or essay aloud, usually from The Harp and Laurel Wreath, then choose a short section of it for them to study visually for a few minutes.  Then I remove the book from view, read the passage aloud, and have them write it from memory.  It helps strengthen their vocabulary, punctuation, capitalization and spelling, as well as gets them to really examine good writing, which influences their own writing abilities.  I really love dictation time.

Lunch

Friday lunch is the absolute pinnacle of our week.  The big kids throw together some peanut butter sandwiches, and we head to Shelter to visit Todd for lunch.  When the weather is nice, we spend our hour walking the grounds while we eat.  (These photos were clearly taken a few weeks back.  There is snow on the ground now.  How quickly the world turns.)  The kids have a chance to observe the changes of all the plants and flowers over the course of seasons, and become familiar with different species and varieties.  Also, we take home every last acorn we can get our grubby paws on, because children are born gatherers.

They found a caterpillar!  They poked it with a stick!

After lunch

Once we get home, I put the littlest kids down for nap, and then we pull out our finds from Shelter Gardens  - pretty leaves, flowers, bark, sticks, and one bajillion acorns - and sketch them in our nature journals.  If we're curious about something, I'll pull out our field guides and we'll spend a bit of time hunting for more information.  The kids are becoming adept at identifying a few basic species of trees by their leaves - oak, maple, linden.

After nature journaling, I put on a CD of our term's composer (the kids have grown to ADORE Mozart's The Magic Flute and can be heard humming it around the house!), and let the kids copy works from our term's artist (Pieter Bruegel the Elder).  This gets them really looking at the art - trying to copy the scale, color, perspective, content, balance, and mood really gets their eyes and brains working in a way that just staring at a piece of art may not.

Dismissed!

We're usually done around 3:30, and we clean up the house before heading to our leisure activities.  Fridays are especially great because it's Pizza Night at our house, and because I don't have to cook, the kitchen is already usually cleaned up and I have more time to relax in the afternoon.

Structuring our Fridays in this way is such a refreshing way to transition from our school week into the weekend!

our homeschool morning basket.

This post does contain affiliate links, which allow me to receive a small commission when you purchase through them, though please feel no pressure to purchase using the links!  

I mentioned the other day that we've been implementing Morning Basket into our daily school routine, and I have been loving it.  We all gather together to do much of our reading and daily riches as a family, which is one of the things I just adore about homeschooling - every moment can be leveraged to further cement these eternal relationships.

After morning chores, I call the kids in to gather in Juniper's room.  They bring drawing notebooks and pencils, and I snuggle into the rocking chair.  I put Juniper in her bed for safe playing, and Callista is typically good about sitting on my lap or coloring, though if she's being really disruptive or throwing fits, she gets put in her bed to play while we finish up.

Penelope, making herself comfy on the floor.

Why, what gave you the impression that Callista doesn't like to be relegated to her bed to play?

I keep our items in a milk crate, because I was using an actual basket that quickly became too small.  We're able to cover a lot in our morning time!

Prayer and Bible

We start our day with prayer - I ask the kids what I can be praying for them, and then we all bow our heads and pray together for those things.  It's a great touchpoint for knowing what is on everyone's hearts as we jump into the day.  Then we read one chapter of the Bible - this year, I'm hoping to cover Genesis, Exodus and Mark, just moving through each book a chapter at a time.  We're using the King James Version, and it is surprisingly easy for the kids to track with (as long as I'm reading it with confidence in my voice.  Don't let them smell the fear).

Life Skills

We move on to life skills.  We have been loving "The Goops and How to Be Them" - short little illustrated poems about manners and virtue, similar in rhythm to Shel Silverstein, first published in 1900.  As soon as I pull this book out, at least one kid yells, "YAY! THE GOOPS!"  And we've developed language in our house in reference to what we've learned: "Oh, don't be Goopy."  This is a book we get to the end of and begin again immediately.  I'm going to be ordering "More Goops and How Not to Be Them" very soon.

Reading The Goops on her own once we've finished with it for the day.

We also are reading through books on the topics of Christian boyhood and girlhood.  I have been so impressed by Boyhood and Beyond by Bob Schultz - this is one we will be going back to again and again, I'm sure.  We're also reading Beautiful Girlhood, revised by Karen Andreola.  This was highly recommended to me, and the character training is really excellent!  However, I don't love the writing style - it's a bit Victorian for my taste, but the content is so good that I'm not sure whether I'll look for an alternative next year or not.  We'll see.  We rotate these - we only read one chapter each day from one or the other of them.

We are also going through 50 Things Every Young Gentleman Should Know, as well as 50 Things Every Young Lady Should Know.  These cover basic manners and etiquette rules.  They are very practical, pretty short, and address things I never would have thought or known to teach.  (Did you know that you always introduce a younger person to an older person, not the other way around?)  They're basic books; the writing isn't stellar, but they're helpful.

Year 1 Free Reads

We are slowly working our way through the free reads list for AmblesideOnline's Y1.  Right now we're reading Pinocchio, which is funny and infuriating and insightful.  This copy, illustrated by Roberto Innocenti and broken into very manageably-sized chapters, is so beautiful, I purchased it from the library instead of bearing the agony of returning it.

Hymn, Memory, and Poetry

We learn a new hymn each month.  I had been following the AO hymn schedule, but was finding that I would quickly abandon this area of school if it required me to pull up a track or video on YouTube.  So I got a copy of Then Sings My Soul, a book with sheet music and a brief background of hundreds of hymns, and we just sing together a capella.  It has really helped me become much more consistent with this, and it is so sweet to hear even the littlest kids learning the words and singing along!

View this post on Instagram

The hymn we focused on in September was All Creatures of our God and King. “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluuuuuuuia!”

A post shared by Paige Van Voorst (@theminivanvoorsts) on Nov 7, 2019 at 4:43pm PST

For memory, we typically memorize short poems, pertinent information (phone numbers, addresses), math facts, Bible verses, quotes by Christian leaders, lines from literature, etc.  This term, we've focused solely on memorizing one longer poem - "If," by Rudyard Kipling.  I'm not super methodical about where I find our material, I just write things down on index cards as I come across things I think would be good to memorize.  This year, we've been using The Harp and Laurel Wreath for dictation, and there are some great selections in there (we also use this book for dictation in Year 4); I've also found some wonderful material in The Book of Virtues.  At some point, I will post about what we've memorized, and what else is on our list to continue to work on!

For poetry, we follow the AO poetry schedules for Year 1 and Year 4, but I will admit that the Y4 poet this term is Tennyson, and I can't stand him.  Maybe I'm just not pretentious enough to track along with his soliloquys on millions of Greek myths I've never read.  So we've just been reading A Child's Book of Poems from the Y1 schedule and loving it.  Beautiful illustrations, really sweet poems, (mostly) Not Tennyson.  All around, it's a win.

Composer/Artist Biography

This term's composer is Mozart, and we loved the little living biography by Opal Wheeler.  She has a whole series of biographies of great composers, so I'm looking forward to continuing to read her books.  Our artist this term is Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and I know you won't believe it when I say this, but there are no children's books on him, living or otherwise.  Shocker.

Geography/Nature Books

For science, I check out random books on the term's Nature Study topic (this term: agricultural crops) and Geography concept (this term: mountains and valleys).  We've discovered quite a number of stinker picture books this way, but there have been a few gems.  We loved Bring Me Some Apples and I'll Make You a Pie - we have read through it multiple times, will likely read it a few more before we have to take it back to the library, and it is definitely a book worth owning.  The Street Beneath My Feet is a fun one that folds waaaaaaaaaay out to show the different layers of the earth.

It keeps folding out for seven or eight more pages, illustrated all the way from street level to the earth's core!  

Just-For-Fun Literature Picks

We may or may not get a few pages of a for-fun book in at this time, depending on how much time we have left in our hour.  Brambly Hedge is one we're really loving right now!  The illustrations of the pantries and storehouses make me want to go live inside a British Store Stump right now.

Shakespeare

I usually dismiss the little kids at this time, and the big kids and I listen to a little bit of Shakespeare.  This term, we're going through As You Like It.  I have really loved the Simply Charlotte Mason Shakespeare resources - basically, you read a child's version of the story (usually Lamb or Nesbitt, included in the resource packet), then you listen to the ArkAngel recording of it while reading along with the actual script, then you watch it.  (Making sure that it's a family-friendly production - there are some racy Shakespeare productions!) The kids have really picked up on it, and it is genuinely one of the most enjoyable parts of the day for all of us, especially Penelope (and Rocco, when he joined us to watch the movie with Helen Mirren - he loved it!).  Who'd have thought?!  I think next, we may work on acting out a scene or two ourselves!

This book has also been super helpful, and I've been reading small sections from it to the kids each day.  It has suggestions for memory work, as well as insights and interesting notes about each play.

It is a lot to cover in a short amount of time, but I think that's why I like Morning Basket time so much.  We cover so many wonderful things in a short amount of time, and we're able to do it together instead of segregated by age.  It's such a great way to start the day!

a day in our homeschool, part 2: our afternoons.

If you missed yesterday's post detailing our school mornings, make sure to go back and get caught up!  Essentially, our mornings tend to follow a somewhat tight schedule, getting a lot of schoolwork, chores, and together-time in right away.

At 11:45, I get the little school kids started on their math and handwriting worksheets at the dining room table, then head nearby to the kitchen.  I'm available to answer questions or offer help, but I'm also prepping for the next thing on the agenda, lunch.

She's my kitchen elf.  Here she's mixing/flinging/filching tuna salad.

12:30 Lunch

As with breakfast, I keep our lunch options very limited.  We almost always have either tuna salad with chips, or what we refer to as "normal lunch": lettuce, raw veggies, cheese, and fruit.  Sometimes I add sauerkraut, sometimes I add summer sausage, but mostly it is just kept really simple.  I always serve lunch on paper plates to keep cleanup to a minimum.  (Penelope's after lunch job is to clean up the kitchen and load the dishwasher after lunch, and she appreciates this!)

During lunch, I read aloud to the kids from the little school kids' reading list.  If you haven't noticed, I try to "buddy up" our time slots when I can.  The big kids like re-hearing favorite stories from their own journey through early elementary, and the preschoolers have the advantage of watching their older siblings narrate (the restating of the story in one's own words after having read it - a tricky skill to learn, but so helpful in the long-term "ownership" of ideas).  We read anywhere from 2-4 stories or chapters during this time, and it helps the kids stay focused on eating rather than goofing off or getting distracted.

1:30 Jobs, Exercise, Naps

After lunch, the kids have another set of chores to do (which I'll post about soon), and draw another set of exercises.  This is when I typically try to scarf some lunch down myself as I try to make sure the kids are all staying on task, as this is a time of day that is seems the kids are more given to devolving into chaos.  Once the younger kids are done eating, and Rocco is done with his jobs, I put them down for naps while the bigger kids finish up their jobs.

She was feeling under the weather the day I took these pictures, and had requested to stay in jammies all day, which explains her outfit.  Rocco is a four year old boy, which explains his outfit.

Laurelai was also under the weather this day, so she napped in my room over lunch time, and Rocco napped in there after lunch, which meant I made the bed three times that day!  When I prayed for consistency in this area, what I received was ample opportunity to really get the habit entrenched.

2:00 Afternoon School (Big Kids)

Once everyone has finished their after lunch responsibilities, the littler school kids are dismissed for the day.  They typically go to the basement to play, or to the garage to play with the Barbies when the temperature is high enough.  (Yes, we keep our Barbies in the attached garage - it's a weird setup, but it works for us.)  The big kids grab their drawing notebooks, I grab a cup of coffee, and we all head to the couch for Read Alouds.  We spend about an hour cuddling up, reading books, narrating, and discussing.

After Read Alouds, I help the kids with anything they've come across in their schoolwork throughout the day that they need help with, and I listen to narrations from their earlier history readings.  This is also when I work one-on-one with Atticus on spelling.

It is amazing how much more quickly and smoothly we can work through this time of the day compared to earlier in the day when the younger kids are all milling about.  It's still school time, but it's much more restful.

3:30 Dismiss!  Personal Free Time

The big kids put their things away, we pick up the living room, and I send them off to play.  Just yesterday they got to play out in the snow!

At this point, I have about an hour to unwind before I start dinner.  This is the time slot where I read, make phone calls, take a shower, eat lunch if I haven't yet, do yardwork or housework that needs immediate attention, listen to podcasts, bake something quick, check my email, and/or generally just power down in the quiet.  It's an hour that goes pretty quickly, if I'm honest.

4:30 Start Dinner, Pick Up

Todd gets home at about 5:20, and since he does intermittent fasting, not eating for twenty hours a day, he comes home hungry.  I have been shooting to get dinner on the table right around 5:30 or 5:40, which means I need to start early.  I also like to have the house picked up before he comes home, so shortly before 5:00, the kids and I set a timer for 10 minutes and pick up the main floor and basement.  Then at 5:00, they're permitted to watch an episode of a show on Netflix until dinner time.


And, just like that, the day has flown by!


Note: This is our routine each Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.  It varies a bit on Friday, which I'll cover soon (that's when we do all of our Riches, among other things).

Wednesdays, however, do not follow this cadence at all - we drive up to the Amish in the morning to pick up our dairy, produce, and bulk items for the week.  While we drive, we listen to audiobooks from the kids' reading lists.  When we get back to town, we run errands - typically, stopping at Walmart for grocery pickup, or at the library.  Then we take Wednesday afternoons off.  The kids like to play or do art/handicraft projects.  I either spend the afternoon getting caught up on larger house projects, or meeting with an older gal from church who comes over every other week.  I am really astonished at how much we have been able to Tetris into our days and weeks!  It seemed so daunting for a while, but I think we're finally hitting our stride.


Pop back in tomorrow - I'll be covering our Morning Basket time, and later this week I'll be sharing some of the resources and curricula we've been using and loving!

a day in our homeschool, part 1: our mornings.

I realize that while I mention our school days quite often, I haven't given a very detailed view of what our days actually consist of lately.  I believe that the last time I gave a full run-down of our day was in 2016, in our Cedar Falls house, and to be honest with you, I have been putting off doing another one because going back and looking at those photos just makes me miss our cute (bright! sunshiny!) house and my tinier-than-now babies, so then I get depressed and lose steam.

But I think the time has come - a lot has changed in our days since then!  Our homeschool, St. Anne's on the Hill, is now in its eleventh week of the current school year, so we're nearing the end of our first trimester.  Our schedule seems to finally be ironing itself out and our days running more smoothly, though the transition was pretty rough!

This Year

This year, the big kids are working through AmblesideOnline's Year 4 (5th Grade) schedule, a notoriously difficult leap from Year 3 for Ambleside families across the board.  I knew it was going to be intense, but have been surprised by how long it took to settle in!  However, now that we've adjusted, it is actually going pretty smoothly and doesn't feel too heavy.

The little kids are in Year 1 (1st-2nd Grade) and doing an actual structured school routine for the first time.  We'd been casually working on phonics, sounding out words, writing and early math for quite some time, but I wanted to wait until Finneas was 7 (and Laurelai, 6) to start them in formal lessons.  If I can give you one piece of homeschool advice, it's this: do nothing formal before age 6.  No preschool, no mandatory school time, until at least age 6 (and 7 is even better for boys).  I know you won't listen to me, but it's good advice.

So, to sum up - two kids are in 5th grade, two are in 1st/2nd grade, and I have a preschooler, toddler, and nursing infant.  Brace yourselves for a little bit of crazy.

Let's start with our morning routine!

8:00 Wake Up, Bible Time, Big Kids Work Independently

Yes, I wake up at 8:00.  Yes, my kids get up earlier than that.  Here is how I guide them through starting their days when I say so.  One change has been made to our previous routine, however, and that is that the big kids get out their independent schoolwork once they wake up.  They prefer just getting started so that they still have plenty of time to play in the afternoon.

The things they're responsible for taking care of independently are:

*2 math worksheets
*Cursive handwriting
*Copywork
*Spelling
*Reading for 30 minutes from assigned free reads
*History reading and accompanying written narration
*Spanish
*Piano practice (this has to wait until everyone is awake!)
*Music theory

It sounds like a lot, but they're usually able to get it all done in about 2.5 hours total, including time after breakfast when I'm working with the younger kids.  They're typically done with all of this part of their schoolwork before lunch.  Later this week, I'm hoping to post on what resources we use for these subjects, and how the kids work on them independently.

While they're working, the little kids are playing.  I get up, make my bed (a consistent habit I'm trying to cultivate), and read my Bible.  I also check the schedule and to-do list that I write out the previous evening to help me visualize the goals and obligations for the day ahead.

You don't have to tell me twice that I need curtains in here.

I'm almost done with my Bible read-through plan this year - the first time in years that I'll have actually gotten all the way through!

I try to plan each day the evening before, putting together a schedule and to-do list, and thinking through what I'll be making for dinner.  It has made a huge difference in the smoothness of our days!  The layout of this Day Designer planner from Target is just perfect.

9:00 Breakfast and Chores

When breakfast is ready, the kids are responsible for making sure their 'before breakfast' jobs are done before coming to the table - getting dressed, brushing their teeth, making their beds, and cleaning up their rooms.  Big kids put away their schoolwork so we have room at the table to eat.

I keep timers with our toothbrushes to make sure they're brushing for an appropriate amount of time without needing me to hover.

There's always one kid who finishes up way before the rest!

Once I get Callista up for the day, the tornado begins.  Luckily, she plays well in her bed while she waits for breakfast.  The big kids are instructed to not get her out early unless there's a fire. ;)

I make breakfast easy on myself by limiting our meal options.  Each morning, I serve either eggs or baked oatmeal.  It takes the guesswork out of meal planning that early in the day, keeps grocery costs consistent, and limits whining about the food.

After they're finished eating, the kids are dismissed to do their after-breakfast chores (which I'll post about in more detail at some point) and exercises (which I posted about here).  With any free time they have after this before we begin Morning Basket, they either get back to work on independent schoolwork, or they play or draw.

10:30 Morning Basket

This is a new routine to us this year.  I've attempted it before, but as it was never really necessary before now, it always slipped through the cracks.  This year, I find it's such a helpful tool in getting through a lot of school work in a little bit of enjoyable family time.  Again, I'll be posting further details on this soon, but the main gist is that we all get together for about an hour to enjoy some reading and riches that all family members can appreciate and enjoy.

It is truly amazing what all can be covered in a little over an hour!

11:45 Little Kids Work With Mom

After morning basket, the big kids work on anything they have left (usually piano practice and Spanish) while I work with the little kids on Math, Handwriting, and Reading.  This usually takes about 45 minutes total.  I'll give you a rundown soon on the resources I use for teaching first and second grade!

At this point, it is around 12:30 - time to make and serve lunch, and jump into the second half of our day, which I'll chronicle tomorrow!

What Do I Do with the Littlest Kids?

I imagine you may be wondering what our younger kids do during this time.  Juniper (6 mo.) is up with us at times, and at other times is napping in my room.  Her nap schedule is more of a nap routine, and doesn't fall at set times.  She wakes up for the day, I nurse her, and then she's up for about an hour or an hour-and-a-half.  When she starts to fuss, I lay her down, and she sleeps for 2-2.5 hours.  We follow this cycle through the day.  I just nurse her while I do whatever else we're in the middle of, and she plays on the floor near me while she's awake.

Rocco (4 years) is typically found playing, either by himself, or with Callista, or with a bigger kid who isn't currently working.  He's pretty easygoing and doesn't need much redirection or hypervigilant supervision.

But... Callista.  Callista is a wild card.  Some days she plays just fine by herself or with Rocco, or is happy to just snuggle me while I work with the older kids.  Other days, not so much.  On her crabby days, she can be incredibly disruptive, and is often capable of finding the most unsafe activity she possibly can if left unsupervised.  So I allow up to an hour of our morning routine to be dedicated to independent playtime in her bed - either during Morning Basket, or during my work with the Little Kids, whichever seems to be the most helpful that day.


Tomorrow I'll tell you about our afternoons!

how homeschooling is going three weeks in: nature walks.

Well, we've completed three weeks of school so far this year, and I'm feeling pretty good about myself.  Partly because I haven't resorted to stress-eating yet, and partly because I have actually taken the kids on two - count them, two - nature walks already.

For reference, we have lived here for two and a half years, and in that time, the total number of occasions on which I've taken them on a nature walk by myself is, well, two.  I think you can see why I'm feeling so accomplished.

Plus, it seems that nature walks are the perfect opportunity for spontaneous sibling hand-holds.  I just diiiiiiie.  (Please ignore their garish clothing; we were headed to the pool after our walk.)

"Hey, kids! Look directly into the sun and give me your best and most pained smiles!  Nailed it."

They were being kings and queens and toddlers of Narnia.

(Photo credit: Penelope.  Cute credit: ALL Callista.)

Once out of Narnia, they began storming the beach at Normandy.

 I have really loved having a scheduled time each week to hit the great outdoors.  The kids' imaginations really go nutso while we're out there, plus it doesn't hurt this Mom Bod to be getting out and moving on the regular.

Looking forward to exploring our neighborhood trails even more this fall!