Formulating a "Schedule"

I've created this blog to keep track of our progress on our homeschooling journey. I've come across so many awesome websites and blogs that have truly inspired me (see list of links to the right). I'd love to be one of those blogs one of these days, but for now, this is just a record of what we're doing...how we're doing it...and what the results are.

We starting homeschooling last year with Savannah (age 5 at the time). We just focused on the basics...reading, writing and arithmetic. Since I had a little one, I didn't want to start off too intense, and kindergarten is supposed to be mellow anyway, right? This year I've got both Savannah and Abby to work with--and while I'm taking it slow with Abby, I'm going to try to implement a lot more of the Charlotte Mason philosophy into her daily "school" routine. We're using Ambleside Online as our guideline and we're slowly working to adapt our routine to fit our family. So today I was working on my schedule for how things are going to transpire...it's amazing how many things I want to implement...and I know if we go along with what Charlotte Mason recommends, we'll be fine...but sometimes I find it all a bit overwhelming. I just keep telling myself, little bits at a time. Lessons are short, fun and hands on. I'm learning with them...and most of all, I'm learning to be more patient, understanding, organized and creative myself. That's the biggest blessing in homeschooling in my opinion. I think I'm homeschooling my children more for my benefit than for theirs. Okay, not really, but almost!
Here is a list of everything I eventually want to implement:

• History (The Story of the World--on CD I also have the activity book, but I'm not sure how much of it we'll use. There definitely looks like there is a lot of fun stuff! -- We're also reading Our Island Story which is a history of Britian)
  
• Geography (We're learning about the Great Lakes through Paddle to the Sea, but I'd also like for the girls, and myself for that matter, to learn the states and their locations, so I'm going to try out Audio Memory to learn the states and capitals)
  
• German
  
• Art (I'd like to focus on water coloring this year, since it's something children naturally enjoy, and I've always been fascinated by it...I'd love to learn some techniques and give the girls some skills to use in their nature journals)
  
• Artist Study
  
• Composer Study
  
• Nature Study
  
• Piano (I'm going to try an at-home program to begin with...and see if we'll go to lessons from there. I'd love to put them straight into lessons, but the cost is somewhat prohibitive)
  

In addition to the above, I'd also like to implement a weekly Tea Time where we have tea, listen to classical music, have a little snack and work on some handicrafts. I'd like to start with some very simple stitchery to give the girls something fun and productive to do with their hands. I'm also going to start a science day. I've got a book called The Backyard Scientist and also one called Rocket Science that my neighbor lent to me that I'd like to take one experiment a week and give it a whirl. This is something I could get the neighborhood kids involved in too. Now that Luke is getting older, I also want to start taking some field trips.

For Math we're using Math U See and Savannah went from disliking math strongly to loving it! HORRAY!!! For reading I'm using The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading, however, Savannah is so ridiculously advanced in reading that I'm having her read out of the Christian Liberty Nature Reader and narrate it to me. Abby struggles a bit with reading, so we'll probably take it very slow with a combination of The Ordinary Parents Guide and BOB books. She'll get it when she's ready. Penmanship is pretty easy for both of them. Abby is working on her uppercase letters and is about to start on lowercase, then I'll have her to simple copywork. Savannah does copywork out of the Bible, and I've decided to give her shorter verses and insist that they're done perfectly.
We're reading a chapter a day out of their children's Bible and then they narrate it to me. Actually, for now, I tend to do the narrations...I want them to hear how a narration should go and I have a hard time letting them narrate when some of the "facts" they come up with are simply not true. If it were from another book, I'd probably let it slide...but from the Bible I'm a stickler for accuracy!! :)

So there you have it. We're going to start full-bore when the children in the neighborhood go back to school...or probably the week following that since they return to school on a Wednesday. As I refine things, I'll add to this...and as I find interesting links, I'll be sure to add them!