2015-2016 Kidschool Schedule

Every year our routine changes a bit, and I like to record how it looks.  This year I felt impressed to give a little more structure to my older ones.  For kidschool we start with family devotional (prayer, scripture, song, article of faith, pledge of allegiance).  Then we have individual work followed by group activities and read aloud time.

For their individual work, I ask Logan and Annie to do some math and writing each day.  The math is their 5-A-Day, and they get to choose a writing activity.  They have a list of options (i.e. copy work, writing prompts, write a story, etc..) in the fronts of their writing notebooks.  They can earn up to three stars each day, and every time they earn ten stars they can skip one (math or writing) and choose a school closet activity instead.  For most things, I haven't needed to apply much pressure because they so naturally do them, but we were needing a little more practice in these two areas this year.  This has been a good compromise, and it also gives me time to work one on one with Alex since he wants to learn to read.  Alex doesn't have to do anything, but he can earn stars whenever he wants to sit down with me to do reading, writing, or math activities.  He basically begs for this time anyway, so it's a piece of cake with him.  Once a child is finished with these activities, he or she can move onto to other individual learning activities, including reading.  Most of the time they will choose to read, of course, but I do have a list of ideas for them if they want to do something else. 

Here's a look at a day.

Logan usually sprawls out on the floor to do his math and writing.

Annie usually prefers the couch, but she was on the floor this day as well.

Abby always asks for a 'huzzle' as soon as she realizes we're starting school.

Alex patiently waited for me while I took pictures of his siblings.

Ready to go!  It looks like he chose a dot-to-dot page for math that day.

Annie finished her work before Alex and I were done, so she moved onto a geography puzzle.

Logan also chose to work on some geography while waiting.

After individual work, we have group activities.  On Tuesday, Alex gets to pick the first activity, on Wednesday Annie picks, and Thursday Logan picks.  I reserve the right to choose the rest of them.  Some of these might include: cooking, crafts, science experiments, language arts games/ discussions, math games/ lessons, etc. 

On this day it appears that cooking was on the radar again.

For read aloud time we will read anything and everything.  We often choose science, social studies, history, and classic literature.  This is one of the great keys to our school time.  We read and discuss, and ideas are sparked.  We read and discuss more, and real knowledge is gained.  If we don't finish a book during read aloud time, the kids will usually finish it on their own as soon as I step away.  (Sometimes I hide these books, because I want to finish WITH them!!  Ha ha!)  The library is a great source for this part of our day.  During our last library visit, we came home with seven bags of books!