Eclectic Education

Aug. 1, 2007

Homeschool Open House 2007

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Thank you, Tiany for hosting this Homeschool Open House!!!

Hi! For anyone new to my blog, I am Lynn mother of two boys. My oldest (Prince Caspian) just turned 11 and is going into the 6^th grade. I have homeschooled him since 1^st grade. My littlest one (Little One) is turning 5 in September and will be going into kindergarten. So this will be my first year of teaching with two school age children. As I mentioned in my profile, my children are special needs so we have to do things differently sometimes. My oldest has OCD and ADHD, which affects his learning some because he has trouble concentrating and focusing. He forgets to read the directions a lot. He also has trouble with spelling and writing, but he excels at History and Science. He’s very smart so it’s just something we have to work around. My littlest one has had multiple physical problems that have required a lot of time spent at doctors. In most ways he seems to be keeping up in development, but sometimes he has a little trouble with something physical. It took him longer to develop some of his fine motor skills, but now that he’s progressed he’s taking off!!!

How does my day go??? Well, things are really chaotic here sometimes!!! I am not real good at following a schedule. In fact, I’m pretty terrible at it. Part of the problem is I set unrealistic goals for my self and my kids and when I’m unable to follow them, I give up. So, hopefully, after 5 full years of homeschooling I have learned a little about myself!!! First of all and most importantly, I am NOT a morning person and my children don’t do well in the mornings either, so I have to give us plenty of time to get moving. I also have to keep in mind that our schedule has to be flexible to fit in various doctor visits and therapy sessions. I am also not a person that follows a lesson plan very well and I’m very eclectic in my approach, but I have a need to start keeping better records because my oldest will soon be at the age where I need records for college. So here’s my plan… First, I need to make a goals list for each subject that I can check off to keep me on track. Second, I need start keeping a journal of what we cover. This will be to prepare me for the record keeping I need to do later on. It takes awhile for me to get in the habit of things, so it would be better to learn by trial and error now than later, when my oldest is in highschool. I’m going to try to do better following a simple schedule, but like I said, I have to be real flexible. But here’s the schedule I’ve come up with:

Mom P. Caspian Little One

8:30-
10:00 Breakfast
Dressed
Chores Breakfast
Dressed
Chores Breakfast
Dressed
Play

10:00-
12:00 Chores
Work with Little One
Lesson Plan
Blog Book Work Book Work
Work with Mommy
Educational TV

12:00-
1:00 Lunch
Rest Lunch
Rest Lunch
Rest

1:00-
4:00 Chores
Work with Kids
Lesson Plan
Rest
Blog Projects
Projects

4:00-
Bed Chores
Rest
Watch TV with Hubby
Blog
Chores
Play
TV

Chores
Play
TV

This schedule will vary a lot from day to day and week to week. I usually try to schedule activities and appointments in the afternoons, so we will not have project time every day, but I want to have scheduled time for it when we are home so we can fit in some of the fun stuff like lapbooking and hands on projects.

As for the curriculum I am using this year, well, I don’t really follow a set curriculum, I’m eclectic. Here’s my plan:

	P. Caspain	Little One
History	Spine: Story of the World Covering: Middle Ages, Reformation, Exploration, Colonial Times, Revolutionary War	Various Easy Readers Covering the time period as P. Caspain plus some other readers in different time periods.
Geography	Trail Guides for both USA and World.	Learn about cultures of different countries along with big brother.
Science	Spines: Exploring God's Creation with Astronomy Christian Kids Explore Earth and Space Christian Kids Explore Chemistry	Various easy readers in space, earth and life science.
Language Arts	Story Starters Pathways and various other resources	Phonics ABCs Dolch Sight Words Word Families Early Writing
Spelling	Natural Speller	Start learning some easy words and writing them, start learning how to use simple word families to make new words
Math	Calvert Math	Numbers Simple Adding Simple Subtraction Shapes Patterns
Art	Drawing Basics with Thomas Kinkade	Baby Lambs by How Great Thou Art

As for where we “do school”, I wish we had a schoolroom, at least for the messy stuff, but we just don’t have the room. Instead we use where ever, usually the kitchen table, but it doesn’t have to be. I will probably be sending Prince Caspian up to his room more this year to do his work, so I can use the table with Little One. It will be distracting to Prince Caspian, if I am working with Little One on his stuff since I have to read everything to him.

Well, thank you for visiting our homeschool, I hope you will come back. As a parting gift, I have designed a Homeschool Journal page for myself and your welcome to try it if you want. Download it here: Homeschool Journal

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Comments

Aug. 1, 2007 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Hutcheson

Thanks for sharing with us. I enjoyed reading about your homeschool.

God bless,
Tammy

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