Following our 6 weeks on 1 week off schedule, we are just finishing up our first week off since the start of our new year. It was far from a relaxing week off for me but I did get a lot of stuff done. The kids took a break from scheduled plans (except PE and Music 4 days a week) and I did some Fall cleaning, decorating, and clothes swapping. Our first 6 weeks were low key with schooling, 3 days a week. Most of what we did was review and making sure they had certain concepts down before we progressed. We tried out some new websites, signed up for some trials to try some new things, and continued with some website that we love.

Some of these websites include:

www.teachyourmonstertoread.com the kids love to play this

www.education.com we tried the free version and decided we like it enough to buy a 1 year subscription. There are some great resources including worksheets and lesson plans available here

www.teacherspayteachers.com I have printed several worksheets and resources from here. I have bought a couple too, but there are so many free ones!

https://allinonehomeschool.com/ (EasyPeasy) good free resource but we do not care for the reading section at all and we don't do the religious section either.

http://www.k12reader.com/ I am loving this website. I have decided we are using this for our spelling for sure and I am still exploring the site for other resources as well.

Www.abcya.com is a website the kids like to play on

I have several more, but that is what I am coming up with off the top of my head. I use Pinterest and just search google when I am looking for something specific.

So why did I decide to do a 3 day work week for our first 6 weeks (and our last 6 weeks before Summer break as well)? Mainly because school should NOT be a stressful,tiring burden for kids. I am striving to make our home school a fun and low stress environment. Learning takes place all day every day, but we do have a schedule for our structured school times. We do not mimic public school and plan for 6-7 hours of confined desk work. We have a list of things to do in a day and we do it. By making a slow transition from having a few weeks off to a 3 day work week it lets myself and the kids adjust to having sit down school time again. Our school/work and relaxing/play time is all in the same location so we all need a little transitioning time to get into the mindset of learning at home.

Last school year was our first time home schooling so we had a bit of a learning curve, trial and error situation getting into a routine that worked for us. Here is or schedule for this year: 

Monday—Reading, Writing, Math, Spelling, Health & Etiquette, Music

Tuesday—Reading, Writing, Math, Spelling, Spanish, PE

Wednesday—Reading, Writing, Math, Spelling Test, Computer Science, Music

Thursday—Reading, Writing, Math, Spanish, Kid's Choice, PE

Friday—Reading, Science, Social Studies, Art

The goal is to be up and done with breakfast by 8. Then we will do a little exercise routine (for all our benefit) for about 10-15 minutes, say the Pledge of Allegance, and start our learning time by about 8:30 to 9am. We will work until lunch time and hopefully be done for the day so they will just have Music and PE scheduled in the afternoon and then be free for imagination play and chores for the rest of the day. Is this a set in stone schedule....NO! Sometimes someone will need a little extra sleep. We will have an appointment scheduled and only some of the work can be done on the go, or someone is just having a bad day. We can and will be flexible. Starting at 10am, taking breaks after every subject and not getting done until 7 in the evening, or being so interested in what we are studying that we just keep going and explore something from 9am until 9pm. Every situation is adaptable, everyone is entitled to a bad day, and as long as we learn something then it has been a successful day. 

I am feeling pretty confident. Hopefully I will have more time for keeping up with this blog in the future. Thank You for keeping up with us. YAY for HOMESCHOOLING!! I can't wait to LEARN AS WE GROW this year!