August 8: Everything's all set up for the first day of homeschool for the year. What does our homeschooling day look like?
Lily gets up and has breakfast whenever she wakes up (since getting enough sleep is so important at this age). After breakfast, she gets dressed and starts her day.
Last year, we used a whiteboard with a list of assignments, but this year we're using a digital planner. On a typical day, she has the following:
Reading--This year's books are Trickster (a graphic novel of Native American myths), The Tapper Twins Go to War (with each other), The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Secret Garden, Ben & Me, Riding Freedom, The Constitution (a graphic novel), Warriors, Caddie Woodlawn, Primates (a graphic novel), Mountain Meets Moon, Peter and the Starcatchers, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, A Midsummer Night's Dream (graphic novel, unabridged), A Wrinkle in Time, The Watsons go to Birmingham, I am Malala, City of Ember
Spanish -- A lesson or two in DuoLingo
Spelling and Typing -- A few minutes with skills-building games/apps
Science -- Big Book of Science (a multidisciplinary science course with a reading section, critical thinking, and experiments each week)
Social Studies (American History) -- Reading the Core Knowledge textbook material for a couple days a week, doing worksheets for 180 Days of Social Studies Grade 5 for reinforcement, and watching Crash Course (AP American History) for enrichment. When we get to the American Revolution, she'll be watching the full series of Liberty's Kids
Language Arts -- Worksheets/lessons with Spectrum ELA and Lumos (for enrichment). Later this fall, she'll be doing basic sentence diagramming, and the spring will be all about essay writing
Math -- Mammoth Math lessons/worksheets, plus weekly math games for fun
Vocabulary -- A Word Ladder sheet each day
She'll still be doing swim lessons, and does some work on the rowing machine. Although her co-op/social is on hiatus this fall due to COVID, she'll be doing fun online classes for things like art, video games, and just to hang out with kids.
If she decides to just plow through her work, she'll be done in around 3 hours (before lunch). Or, if she chooses, she can spread it out through the day. It's all up to her for time management.
It's a pretty relaxed learning environment, but it does give her some good academic rigor in learning. Every year is about fine-tuning the system. This year, the big change we're making is more videos and games and fewer pieces of written work. We're also doing a dedicated science and social studies curriculum instead of just winging it.
It all starts Monday...bring it on
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August 10: Started school at 8:30 AM, finished at 11 AM. Not a bad way to start 5th Grade life.
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August 12: Halfway through the first week of back to school. Wednesdays would normally be co-op day for in-person fun at Lighthouse, but that's cancelled for this fall due to COVID. Instead of trying to schedule anything else, it just becomes a day off for Lily, aside from her Spanish lesson and a math lesson. She may also finish reading her book of Native American trickster myths because she's enjoying it.
This year, we're using a digital planner, which allows her to check off her work as she goes along and means I don't have to keep rewriting things on the whiteboard every day. Here's what her schedule tomorrow looks like, and her Tuesday schedule all checked off. She's still managing to finish her day in less than 3 hours, which makes it pleasant for us all.
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August 21: Another homeschool week in the books.
Reading--The Tapper Twins Go to War (with Each Other). Technically not read this week, because someone was too excited to wait. ;)
Social Studies--Looking more in-depth on the Columbian Exchange, and why Christopher Columbus was such a mean ol' doof. Needless to say, no love in this house for ol' Chris! Her book for the week also included an optional section on the history of European movement into Canada, so she studied some Canadian history and geography that wasn't on the plan.
ELA--Lots of work on verbs (Helping, Linking, Perfect tense, and irregulars). I figure she just needs to know how to identify them, and that's that....it's a topic she'll likely never use again.
Math--Working with 3 or more digit multiplication and long division with two-digit divisors. Doing real well on that, but really want to reinforce that skill to the max, so we'll be doing some additional work on it for next week.
Science--Diving into the chemistry unit with a discussion of the Presocratics and their view of basic units of "stuff". The Crash Course videos we're using are such a great supplement. Yes, they're for AP classes, but they're right at the right speed for her. (And they're funny! We were watching them as a family, and totally cracking up about the idea of being a vegetarian without allowing beans to be part of your diet, because Pythagoras.... ah, history!)
Of course Spanish, typing, vocabulary, and swimming (PE) round it all out, too, plus social time online with Lighthouse.
It's amazing what you can accomplish in a few hours a day! Hope everyone else's week of school went awesome, too
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