Whoever he is, he gets the prize. Abby appears to be moving beyond the emerging reader stage. Woohoo!!!
Check this author out if you have a first grader. So far, Little Chief and Chester haven’t been too boring for our fourth daughter. We’re starting on Amelia Bedelia tomorrow. Then, it’s time for the Boxcar Children.
Breakfasts:
Oatmeal, 4 days
Toast with nut butter or eggs, 4 days
Breakfast Burritos, 2 days
Quiche, 2 days
English Muffins or Bagels, 2 days
Lunches:
Mac and Cheese, 2 days
Grilled Cheese, 2 days
PBJ, 2 days
Egg Salad, 2 days
Noodles and Seasoning, 2 days
German Pancakes, 2 days
Omelettes, 2 days
Dinners:
PF Chang’s Chicken and Broccoli over Rice
Italian Meatballs over Rigatoni with Salad and Artisan Bread by Sarah
Homemade Ravioli with Sauce and Salad and Artisan Bread by Sarah
Haluski
Rachel’s Tomato Soup with Artisan Bread and Salad
Chicken and Veggie Soup with Dumplings and Challah Bread (Sabbath Project)
Homemade Hamburger Helper and Broccoli
Homemade Creamy Hamburger Helper and Cauliflower
Burgers and Applesauce
Round Steak with Roasted Potatoes and Brussel Sprouts
Chicken and Swiss Casserole and Broccoli
Roast Beef Sub and Fruit
Tuscan Pork Tenderloin with Oven Roasted Potatoes and Broccoli
Now that she’s no longer napping in the morning…
And, yes, we manage to get some things done in spite of all the cuteness!
Beret Anna loves my cookbook shelf. Thankfully, she’s careful with the pages and the older girls think it’s great fun to sit and read them with her.
Holly and Abby have been enjoying a magnetic mosaic maker while listening to CDs they received for Christmas on their I-Pod. This has been great fun for them!
Beret has been in the need-to-run-everywhere stage for a couple of months. This is Abby’s unique method of slowing her down. It seems that wearing a size 6X winter coat makes looking at books a bit more interesting when you’re 16 months old.
I love the Milly Molly Mandy look!
I can’t recall if this is the same as what I posted earlier this year, but here’s the current routine!
Morning Routines 6-7:30
Get Ready, Set Upstairs
Rotate Piano Practice with Breakfast
Clean Kitchen while Mom Reads Aloud
Morning School 7:30 – 11:00
Music with Abby, Older girls do Bible nearby
Together Time – memory work, dictation
Tapestry of Grace individual meetings or daily tasks
Independent work alternated with school meetings for older three
Independent work for older three while I do school with Abby
11:00 Break
Lunch, Kitchen Clean Up, Read Aloud Time
11:30 or so
Rotate music practice with school finishing (I start with Holly and Hannah. Then, I move on to daily tasks while Beret naps and Sarah practices violin).
If my back is cooperating I exercise during Beret’s nap and the middle girls read or listen to stories on their i-pods while playing quietly for a bit. On days when I teach, the girls divide up and take over an area of the house for a project or fun. On other days we have lessons or do a bit of extra baking in the late afternoon.
4:30 or so
Dinner Prep and House Straightening happen at the same time
We eat around 5:00 and do another round of reading aloud during kitchen clean up.
Evenings are Daddy time, if he’s home, or are taken up with orchestra or ballet or…
Bedtime for kiddos is early, 7 pm during the school year, but they wouldn’t have it any other way. In truth, this means more time to unwind and read with plenty of time to think their own thoughts or have visits from Mom and Dad in turn for prayers and goodnights. The younger three have lights out at 8 and the older two have lights out at 9 or 10 depending on their schedule. Special nacho nights are sometimes had by the older girls after late rehearsals too and that is always fun, but shhh!, the younger ones are still not yet aware this fun awaits them.
I should have known someone would want a list of the books we’ve read together this year. I’ll try to remember all of them, but I know I’m missing at least two.
Little Britches
Understood Betsy
All of a Kind Family
Pollyanna
Little House in the Big Woods
Angel on the Square
Cheaper by the Dozen
Mitchells: Five for Victory
Home school… Isn’t this blog supposed to be about school? Well, school is going well and that means I don’t feel like writing about it, but several of you have asked for ideas or inspiration or an update, so I’ll try to manage the latter at least!
Beret Anna has finally moved to one nap a day. I’m enjoying having a toddler near us while we’re doing school and our set up is working well. She plays near us in our mostly child proofed school area while we do Together Time and individual Tapestry and School meetings. After that, we put up the gate so that Hannah and Holly can work with less disruption. Abby has a school desk out in our main basement room where our toys are and I work through her first grade work while Beret plays near us. It’s a great set up for all.
Speaking of Abby, she’s halfway through first grade and was ready for an increase in work as she prepares for second grade work next year. I haven’t added her to our history rotation, officially, because we’re on Year 4 and the topics covered with older students aren’t what I’d prefer her to focus on during her six year old year. I ended up doing an extension of what I do with the girls in K and we’re enjoying that. I’ve found that with this larger spread of levels I can’t keep many balls in the air at once, so we’re working through topics by month instead of alternating subjects by day of the week. Exploring the human body or plants for a month and then taking a trip through various cultures for a month works just as well as doing one subject M, W and the other on T, Th. It’s also much easier for me to manage.
Development continues to be a good thing. Math isn’t easy for every child, as I’ve discovered, but time and exposure and working on it dilligently and daily does its work. I’m very pleased with Hannah’s progress this year and am looking forward to increasing her accuracy over the next year.
Otherwise, we’ll be continuing on our same basic schedule from fall, though we’ll be trying to add in the things that got lost when I injured my L1 disc in September. (No, I probably didn’t mention that here, but I blew a different disc from the one I blew four years ago. Between that and managing Samters issues daily, I’ve learned a great deal about the pace of our days). Art always falls between the cracks, but we manage to pick it up when we can. Read Alouds have been going wonderfully as I’m reading to the girls while they wash dishes or chase Beret after each meal. I think we’re on book number ten for the year. I’ll post an updated schedule reflecting how we’re schooling with current ages soon.
