September Homeschool Day

I love seeing how other people do things....like what they make for dinner, or what their typical days look like! I'll be sharing both of those this week on my blog. Today I'm taking you through each subject on a random Tuesday of homeschooling. We don't get to every subject every day. For example, in addition to what you see here we also do online piano lessons, handwriting, art and history. None of those were on the agenda for today. Here is what we covered!

9am - Bible

We always begin our morning with some sort of Bible. Some weeks I simply read to them from our favorite Child's Story Bible. This week we began a new study from the company Not Consumed, called "My Brother's Keeper: Learning to Love Your Siblings God's Way". This is a 20-day Bible study for kids, with different versions based on age. So far we are really enjoying it! 

9:45 - Musical Multiplication - We listened to our multiplication tables put to songs. I've heard music helps kids memorize facts easier, so I'm interested to see if this helps. Ryan has his math facts down solid, but Lucas is learning multiplication now and Jenna is very eager to learn math.

I sent the kids outside to play but Jenna wanted me to read her a story. The boys ended up staying to listen! We read our favorite Halloween book! 

10:00 - Recess! Now that the smoke has cleared and the temperature has cooled a little bit, we've been enjoying riding bikes out front for a mid-morning break.

10:20 - Language Arts/Math/Logic/Poetry/Spelling (Individual Subjects)

My Dad comes over at this time and does math with the boys one at a time. While Lucas did math with him, I did Langauge Arts with Ryan. Ryan and I did a lesson in his workbook (helping verbs), followed by a Mind Bender. We are loving these Mind Benders!! Jenna does level 1, Lucas does 3, and Ryan does 4. They basically teach critical thinking through logic puzzles.

Here is a look at the Mind Benders puzzles:

(Level 1 - Jenna)

(Level 3 - Lucas)

So while Ryan did his Mind Bender, I worked on Language Arts and logic with Jenna.

Ryan finished up by writing out his spelling words. He then chose 1 word to look up in his dictionary and write out the definition.

Our favorite dictionary! https://l9900.myubam.com/p/3167/illustrated-dictionary-ir

Ryan and Jenna finished our time together with some poetry memorization. I had each child look through this book on Monday and select a poem to memorize. They will be reciting them in front of Daddy on Friday, so they're spending a little time each day memorizing them. (Each of my kids chose the same poem, completely separate from each other!)

The boys swapped, and the littles went outside to jump out their wiggles.

11:00 - Lucas and I sat and did his Language Arts lesson together. Today he was learning about abbreviations and plural nouns that are the exception to the rule. (Goose = Geese, Octopus = Octupi). We also did a Mind Bender, followed by spelling and poetry.

Here is a picture of what the boys worked on in math with Grandpa.

As the boys were finishing up, I got Jenna started on her math lesson.

12pm - While the kids sat at the table and ate lunch, I finished reading this book to them. This is a read-aloud that goes along with our history curriculum. It takes place in the 1700s and is based on the true story of the artist, Benjamin West, who grew up as a Quaker. Today wasn't a "history day", but I'm glad I was able to sneak in this reading and finish up that unit with them.

12:45 - While I took Andrew upstairs for a short nap, I left the kids to each do a round of Rush Hour. This game is awesome! It's a game of logic. Basically, your red car is stuck in traffic and you have to move the other cars around to get your car through the traffic jam. It involves a lot of critical thinking about how your next move affects the flow of traffic. It comes with 40 different puzzles to solve, from beginner to expert. Highly recommend!

(Yes, the kids ended up watching some TV after finishing their Rush Hour puzzles)

1:30pm - We finished our school day with science. Today's lesson was on Marine Mammals. We reviewed what a mammal is, and then talked about how these animals have built-in wetsuits (blubber!). Did you know that they also have slimy tears that protect their eyes from the saltwater? Pretty cool!

We did a little comparison of seals and sea lions:

We finished off our science by talking about the kids' upcoming Marine Animal Report. I had the kids look through our Usborne Ocean books (https://l9900.myubam.com/search?q=sea) and select an animal to do a report on. Ryan chose the great white shark (no surprise!), Lucas chose the blue whale (he likes it because it's huge!), and Jenna chose a clown fish (finding nemo!)

After science the kids did a little work on "Home Ec" (Vacuumming and picking up toys!)

5pm - The final "subject" of the day was PE! Ryan and Lucas began both baseball and soccer (all socially distanced and with masks) this week. Today both boys had baseball practice and we couldn't have asked for better weather.

Jenna said the funniest thing while we were there. "Mama, what does No Ticky mean?" She kept asking me about the words "No Ticky". She then showed me this sign that said "Notice". Now that she is learning to read, she is trying to read words and signs everywhere!

So that was our Homeschool Tuesday! What does a typical day of school look like for your kids right now?

Our New Normal

Lately we have been adjusting to our "new normal". I'll never forget one day back in April when I had just brought home a ton of groceries. Adam spent a good hour in the garage sanitizing all our food before we brought it in. I remember him holding up a pineapple and asking if he should wipe it down with a clorox wipe. 

Let's just say we have stopped sanitizing our groceries....but we are still being pretty cautious with our daily choices and activities. With older parents nearby who we see often, and 3 out of 6 of us with asthma, we have been pretty committed to social distancing these past 6 months. But of course we have to leave the house. We can't stay home all day every single day.

It's tricky finding "safe" activities outside of the house! Every time we go somewhere, I can't help but wonder if I'm unknowingly exposing us to covid. As of now, we aren't really going to indoor places, except for the grocery store and necessary errands. And when one of us goes, the kids always stay home. They aren't in school or any sort of indoor classes.

We are spending as much time outside as possible (which is really hard with the hazardous air quality!!). Going to the park to read our history lesson, taking a spelling test in the driveway, and riding bikes with the neighborhood kids are all things you can find us doing.

Recently, we began venturing out a little bit more. We attended an outdoor family night at our church recently, where we threw water balloons at each other in the heat.

On Labor Day we went to the Sacramento Zoo (all outdoors) and of course wore our masks.

Feeding a giraffe seemed pretty safe!

We are sanitizing and washing our hands often and trying not to touch our faces. It still always feels like a gamble to go anywhere!

We love being at home but sometimes we need to get out!

And of course we couldn't stay away from sweet baby Callie.

Swimming has been our "safe" physical activity all summer. That season is ending, but luckily our city is letting the boys play both soccer and baseball. Of course the season won't look normal. They will be practicing drills, distanced from the other players. There also won't be any games. But the physical activity and opportunity to see friends will be invaluable!

So what does your "new normal" look like?