The first day of school for our school district is Monday but we are just finishing up our 2nd week of homeschooling (when I told Honeybun we decided to homeschool, she was so excited she wanted to start right away!)
So, the question is: How’s it going?
It’s sort of a hard question to answer because I didn’t go into our journey with many expectations. I went in with a flexible attitude knowing we would have to adjust as time went on, as we learned our process and as we got into our groove. So far though, it’s working.
Perhaps most surprisingly is how much we’ve accomplished. While it may not sound like much (especially to a skeptical husband who is still worried about it “working”), I believe we have done MUCH more than her classmates will do in their first two weeks AND we’ve done it in much less time each day.
Despite going to gymnastics each Wednesday, the park last Friday, shopping three days and an ENTIRE Tuesday away from home, we’ve easily achieved the goals I’ve set for Honeybun’s learning.
I decided to set up a flexible schedule in which we have daily, weekly and monthly tasks. We start each “school” day (which some days is afternoon time) with journal writing and then do our calendar (I’ll get into each of these individually another time).
We have three tasks which are required to be completed every school day which are: reading, spelling and exercise. Most days we read together from a chapter book but some days Honeybun chooses to read herself (usually during the little ones’ nap time). Exercise is flexible and is fairly easy to achieve. Since we don’t have a strict schedule we are able to walk to do errands or ride bikes to the park (both 1.5 miles round trip). The girls also swim almost daily and once we (hopefully) get back into dance classes, that will count as well. We are using a spelling curriculum which I will explain another day but usually takes us about 10 minutes to complete (depending on how much Honeybun argues and complains!)
Each week she is also required to complete four language arts assignments, four math assignments, one handwriting assignment and one research project. Language arts assignments so far have included grammar work and reading comprehension and her math has included worksheets, playing math games together and working with manipulatives (aka Legos). For handwriting I’ve been making her sheets at —- focusing on letters she needs to work on and each week she researches a topic of her choice (again, more on this another day. I have so much to share!!!)
Our monthly assignments include art projects, science experiments and foreign language which she must complete 4 each, each month. So far we haven’t worked out how we’re going to do her foreign language so we may leave that one for this month. And while art, science and social studies are not individually defined in the common core curriculum (which I am following, read why here) and a lot of it is covered during “teachable moments” coinciding with daily life and Honeybun’s incessant questioning, I’ve decided to include science and art as requirements to make sure she is getting the experiences since they may be easy to forget.
The greatest part of the daily/weekly/monthly set up is the flexibility it provides. If we have a busy day and don’t get “a lot” done, we can make it up another day. I have set the load based on a 5 day school week, but I definitely do not discourage Honeybun from working on the weekends (this month I have our school week running Monday-Sunday but Id don’t like using the weekends to “catch up” so next month I’ll probably switch to school weeks running Saturday-Friday so weekends can be used to “work ahead” instead.) The tasks we do (after journal, calendar and usually spelling) are up to her to decide. I do sometimes guide her, make suggestions and even push her to certain tasks at certain times, especially as we near the end of the week or if she’s been favoring one area or fighting others.
As I said, it’s working so far and I hope it continues to work though I will gladly tweak and adjust as necessary. And as you can see, I have so much to share about what we’re doing and what we’re learning about school at home and parents as teachers that I am eager to share!
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