Wednesday, July 25, 2012

A Day in the Life of CC Homeschooling

I get asked as a Tutor, "What do you do with the Memory Work at home and how do you fit that into your school?"  I first would say that CC's Memory Work is the crux of our school!  We add Math, Spelling and Reading to what is already laid out before us week by week in the Foundations Curriculum.  I can't tell you how much I LOVE THAT!!  How simple can it be?  She's made it so easy compared to where I came from with homeschooling.

I'll share a day in the life of homeschooling with CC.  However, I want to emphasize that how it looks for me, may not work for you.  You need to understand the unique needs of your children and the available space in your house and what works best for you family.  The great thing about homeschooling is that it can look however it works best for you children and you - and that is awesome!

Where?
We are blessed to have a finished basement in our home.  I have a school room set up down there for the kids with chalkboards, whiteboards, desks and bookshelves.  That works for us best.  The reason it does, is two fold in my house.  First, I'm as easily distracted as my children and can get off task if I'm up in the kitchen where my phone and  the computer and other "temptations" are.  Second, it helps my children switch gears because we "go to school" in the homeschool room in the basement.  So it's a visual/mental shift for us all and helps us to focus.  

I have friends who homeschool best in their kitchen or dining rooms.  I'm not disciplined enough to be able to do that well.  However, you just need to find the space that feels like it works the best for you to be diligent and the kids be focused.  There are also "seasons" in life where it may work to do one thing for a little bit and then go back to what you were doing before.  We have done school in the kitchen area when we've needed to be up there due to things going on outside of our school room.  However, I prefer to focus and step away from the noise of life upstairs.  

How?
We start our day with movement after we've eaten breakfast and gotten dressed for our day - any chores are done for the a.m. as well.  We take a walk or ride bikes or if it's raining we have a therapy room and they may jump on the trampoline or swing.  It helps with focus and attention for my kids.  Then we head down to the school room and "go to school".  

Our schedule is going to be a little different this year as we are adding a Wonderful Wednesday into our week.  This is a day to get a few of the families we do CC with and lapbook together (we are using the lapbooks purchased separately from http://www.wisdomandrighteousness.com/resources/memory-work-lapbooks-for-cycle-1/ , do pin maps of our year's geography, make a more messy/elaborate craft or experiment and play review games together as a small group.  

Mondays - we have our CC Community day - so we don't do anything beyond that with the exception of Latin in the afternoon and a Math game.  My daughter and son both love to read so they do read a lot of books throughout the year when there is down time.  I try to make sure that there are really good books available throughout their day.  I also subscribe to a few magazines that are great for casual reading such as: Chop Chop, Zoobooks (evolution base of thinking but we discuss the "errors" together) and Answers.  

Tuesdays/Thursdays:

Bible Study
Math
Spelling/Grammar
Memory Work Review
Geography (world map drawing and week's location review)
Handwriting/copywork
Reading (independent - chapter series books)
Read aloud - classic book read by me
Online games for review such as math skip counting or world geography

Wednesdays - Wonderful Wednesdays:
Lapbooks (purchased separately from http://www.wisdomandrighteousness.com/resources/memory-work-lapbooks-for-cycle-1/ )
Pin Maps
Craft/Experiment
Review Games

Fridays:
Review the Memory Work
Nature walks and study along with keeping a nature journal
I also leave this day "light" for field trips, play dates and to catch up with anything we weren't able to complete during the Tues/Thurs timeframe.



Sounds easy enough....right?



4 comments:

  1. I am enjoying reading through your past post and like your schedule. I am curious are you able to get all your math and spelling/grammar done in two days? I know most curriculum would be 4-5 days. Do you double up on Tuesday and Thursday? Thanks for your insights.

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  3. Valerie - we are using CC as our main curriculum. There is no need to add a grammar curriculum. They will be doing IEW and immersed in grammar for 3 years in Essentials. I use the week's grammar from our Memory Work and expound on it/discuss it/watch a school house rocks youtube video on it/provide a worksheet for it from www.busyteacher.org or find a book on it like "Under, Over, by the Clover: What Is a Preposition?" for each week's grammar laid out- until Essentials - that is enough for them. I teach capitalization, punctuation etc. in the context of copy work and sending letters to Gramma about our weeks. Regarding spelling - I do use Kathryn Stout's spelling curriculum but I also consider copy work each day to be a part of spelling because they are learning how to spell as they are doing their daily copy work. We do a more "formal" concentrated time of spelling with the curriculum on Tues/Thurs. I believe that's enough for the younger ages. We do our math every day. We do it after CC on Monday and then after Wonderful Wednesdays. Friday's we don't always do math unless we need to move forward to stay on track. We're using Right Start Math. I have found the focus on Memory Work as Leigh suggests at the younger ages to truly be sufficient and to trust the "model" she has laid out. Using this model - my daughter has consistently tested a few grades above her age on end of year testing - so it's working for us. :) I think the model laid out not only takes a great deal of pressure of Mom's to homeschool but it also makes school more enjoyable because the younger ages are given room to learn in context to field trips, nature and other hands on activities that once you are up in Essentials and Challenge will be more difficult because of the time it takes to do the work at those levels. I hope that helps you.

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  4. Thanks so much for your insights. I have a 2 boys 8 & 6 and a baby on the way in February. My older son has been a struggling reader which has added to some of my challenges though he is moving forward. This is our 5th year with CC and I think I have tried to add too much extra science & history & language arts curriculm and managed to overwhelm myself and than not get all that I can from CC. Your simplicity yet deeper focus is refreshing. I was even thinking this week I should tie in with an exercise more of the science experiments they did in class this week with why a dead fish floats belly up and the vibrations of a spider string vs more science curriculm (may be good idea to tie to the schedule you sell.. I did purchase it and just started using it!). I think I need to go find my book The Core and reread it. Thanks so much for your insights.

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