Series | Homeschooling looked like this today
No. 1 - Ancient Greece was crazy, y'all.
10:30AM - Warm up
I set a timer for 10 minutes and he ate a snack while he read Usborne’s Lift the Flap Adding and Subtracting.
10:45AM - Phonics
I supplement his Language Arts with direct phonics instruction. We use Highlights - it’s not just for doctor offices! I really like it and think it is a good phonics approach. Previously, we were using the BOB books and workbook, but neither of us really enjoyed it - so we switched. Highlights is fun (without being obnoxious), colorful, wholesome, lighthearted, and incorporates a variety of games to teach the principles.
11:00AM - Handwriting
I found these handwriting practice pages on Canva. I downloaded and printed all the handwriting pages that were trivia because my son really enjoys learning those things.
Break: He took a 10 minute break to play with blocks. I put the baby down for her first nap.
11:20AM - Math
Yesterday he started explicitly learning about fractions. Fractions were always stressful for me when I was little, so I did a ton of exposure for him prior to starting this concept. He has watched How to Share with Friends and also read the Usborne Lift the Flap Fractions and Decimals book. Happy to say that he seems to be comfortable with fractions! His math is 3-4 pages and typically takes 30 minutes.
11:35AM - Read Aloud
He practices reading aloud by reading one science devotional. The illustrations are cute and wholesome, and the science is really interesting.
11:40AM - Piano
He practiced the piano for 10 minutes. We then went over the songs and practiced clapping the beats for the quarter notes, half notes, and whole notes of one of the songs.
12:00PM - Language Arts
We use The Good and the Beautiful’s Language Arts and I like it. His Language Arts is 3-4 pages and typically takes 20 minutes.
Normally we do narration after Language Arts, but we finished this short story collection and are taking a break while I decide on what to use next… I’m leaning toward Aesop.
Break: After Language Arts we took a long break. He played, he read, he ate lunch, and he played some more.
2:00PM - History
We are using History Quest (HQ) for history.
Right now we are learning about the Minoans and Mycenaeans. Yesterday we read the section in Usborne History about them, and today we read the HQ chapter. I also supplement the curriculum with a ton of nonfiction texts on whatever the subject is.
When I read from HQ, he does something quiet while he listens (plays with blocks, colors, and so forth). There is just no way he could sit and listen without doing something else - there aren’t pictures to look at and it’s pretty dry. I stop every few paragraphs and ask him to summarize what I just read.
After the reading, he watched 20 Minutes of the documentary Cavemen to Kings: The Greeks.
Break: He played some more, I put the baby down for her cat nap, and I caught up on some emails.
4:00PM - Science
We went to STEAM at our local library. Living 5 minutes from our library is one of my favorite things about our house.
STEAM is only one day a week and so the other days we are using The Good and the Beautiful’s Sparks and Stars curriculum. This is their early elementary astronomy course. I really like it, but I’ve read online that some people find the other courses (Wind and Waves, Flowers and Fields) boring.
We cover one science topic from Sparks and Stars each week and I supplement the topic with books and videos. This week the topic is electricity. On Tuesday we watched Dreamscape’s video How Do Satellites Stay in Space? and Wednesday we watched Science Max: Electricity. We typically do not watch any educational videos until after all other school work is done for the day.
After STEAM it is home to tidy up, eat dinner, get into pajamas, and then slow down for bedtime.
7:30PM - Reading
We always read a chapter book together after brushing their teeth. Right now we are reading The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli. We typically do 1-2 chapters a night. We all love this book and I’ll be so sad when it ends.
Well, that’s a random Thursday of homeschooling for ya. What do you think? Did anything surprise you or was it pretty much what you expected? Let me know! Wishing you good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. xx
Oh gosh.. I feel like I’m not doing enough.. I just do math language arts and science (once a week) with my first grader. 😅
Oh man, kids go nuts for Greek Mythology! I bet it is tricky finding collections of 1st grade appropriate texts on that. It could be cool for him to take a reader’s theater script and record it with different voices for his sibling’s Yoto!