Homeschooling Part 2

I have tried many different types of teaching styles. We began schooling with the mindset that teaching at home should be just as it would be at Public School, just in the safety and warmth of our own home. Well...that didn't work. Recreating the "PS classroom" at home, didn't feel right. I then tried different workbooks and learning styles, until I found what worked best for us. So to best describe our homeschool...it is eclectic and very loosely structured. I have come to learn that my children all will earn the things that interest them most just in there daily living. This is called "delight directed learning" The child finds what they love most and learns that!

Now this does not mean that they aren't exposed to other things of importance, such as history and science, but these things are learned in a unit study fashion. The materials that I use to teach my children are located hear at Heart Of Wisdom. The approach here is that the children learn all about Gods Word and Gods World through internet linked unit studies. We use the library and purchase whole books (not text books) to enhance each unit study. I use Saxon math, simply because we need a bit of guidance in this area..do to my loathing of math LOL, I have taught my boys to read using 100 Easy Lessons and Pathway readers. Both of these resources are super cheap, and can be passed on down to younger children.

Here is what a day would look like in our home. I am not a schedule my day down to the minute type of person. I envy those moms who can do that, and secretly wish I was one of them....but Im not. I will throw caution to the wind and pick up on a beautiful day and head to the park or the lake and enjoy life. I like to think I am pretty balanced...but most definitely not strictly scheduled. So the way it works best for my family is allotting blocks of time for what needs to get done.

7:00 to 10:00 breakfast, getting dressed, morning chores, my personal quite time.

10:00 to 12:00 school... we basically stick together and role through each area of learning together. We will do focused reading and then do some copy work and things of that nature...then move to math.

12:00 to 1:00 lunch and cleanup

1:00 to 2:00 school...this is when we do our unit study as a group with each child working on the same thing but at their individual level.

2:00 to 3:00 Free time or catch up time for the olders and story time for the littles, which will include touching on basics like colors and shapes and speech.

3:00 to 4:00 Afternoon chores

That is our day in a nut shell. We are done with "school" in about 3 hours.
With such a relaxed schedule I find it works best if we school 10 weeks on and 2 weeks off, with all of May off to enjoy great weather. This helps the kids stay on a basic schedule and they retain things much better if its constant.