School

One - Fourth.

It's how far we are into our school year, and I have yet to post about it.

We just finished up our two week fall break, although it wasn't much of a break other than not having a schedule during that time. We did accomplish many things on our to do list which was nice and I know we all appreciated having a few unscheduled days. One of the things I did over break was organize photos on our computer. While doing that I realized how many summer posts/pictures I have to catch up on so you may be seeing summer long overdue summer fun!

Off the rabbit trail and back to school.....

School this year is looking a little bit different at our house. We have made a few changes that seem to be making our school days/weeks run more smoothly. Here is a little glimpse at what is happening:

* we changed our history/science curriculum. for the past four years we have used a theme based integrated curriculum called konos. i loved the concept and the curriculum but we did not have the time each week to do the lessons to their full potential or collect all the materials/books needed to do the lessons. i started researching at the beginning of the summer to find curriculum that would fit our needs. we are now using apologia science and diana waring's history {we are doing ancient world right now} so far we are enjoying them both.

* i changed morgan's math curriculum to one that involves a dvd lecture. this has been a great change and causes less stress over math. yeah!

* we joined a co op that meets once a week on mondays. morgan and landon attend three classes while mauryn is in a preschool class. i help in the nursery one period, help in cotillion one period {this could be a whole post on its own}, and have one period free. the kids love going to co op and are learning so much in their classes. i think it is a good opportunity to experience learning from different teachers.

* the one thing i have struggled with since landon started kindergarten last year was splitting my time between the two kids when they are working on subjects that we do not do together such as grammar, math, and spelling. i knew i had to find a better way to organize our day so it would flow smoothly.

enter the idea of work boxes. all of my kids {even mauryn} have a tub. in the tub are hanging files that are numbered. in each hanging file is a file folder that contains either the book for a subject or a card telling them what to do {practice piano, have a break, eat a snack, read, etc...} when the kids finish their work for that folder they attach their number on the front of the file box so i can monitor where they are with school for the day.

i love the work boxes! i think my kids like them as well. they can visually see that they need to get through each day {mauryn's folders are not numbered she just works through her box... i will be adding numbers later this year}. the number one for both kids is science/history which we do together. number two is handwriting. while they do their handwriting i read to them or we work on our bible lesson. the numbers three to nine are different for each child. it is set up so that one child is working on independent activity while the other child is working on something that might need more help from me. we may not have a set time schedule for each subject but this system seems to be working very well for our family.