Happy Homeschooling

So today, Haley and I undertook one of, perhaps, the biggest undertakings of our lives. We are homeschooling. Haley confessed to me after our morning break that she had been very nervous about how she would adapt. She said, she even cried before she went to sleep last night, that she would miss her friends too much and that she had made a mistake. I am happy to report that after our first lesson, Haley was enjoying herself very much and by lunch she was ready to add school every Saturday so we could complete our year sooner. (not sure I'm a go for that - but glad she is excited!)

I must admit that I too had my misgivings last night. I prayed through the night... whenever I rolled over or awoke at all, I found myself asking the Lord to help us. It was such a pleasure to teach her today. She was teachable! I'm not saying I thought she was dumb.. far from it. I'm saying she doesn't always appreciate my input. She has an unteachable spirit at times... but not today.

So this is how it went.... We were so excited that we started at 7:30. We had everything done. Dressed and ready and breakfast eaten. We got up and ate with Nolan and I read a couple of pages from Josh McDowell's, Evidence that Demands a Verdict. (which we decided would be our morning devotional)

We divided our day into 50 minute periods with a five minute break between. We had a break at 10:00 for 20 minutes, lunch at 11:30 for 45 minutes and we were done by 2:00pm.

First period: Math. We are using with Saxon Math 87 with some supplemental work from old programs that Frank has used with lots of success ie: Fractions and Decimals. This curriculum will support her beginning a full course of Algebra in the eighth grade.

Second period: Language Arts. We are starting off with Reasoning and Writing. So far it has been very easy, but it is great review. Subjects and Predicates today. We enjoyed watching Mr. Morton by School House Rock. Frank has a wealth of other material that he wants us to cover this year. Tomorrow we will also begin Spelling through Morphographs.

Third period: History. We will be correlating the textbooks that Haley would be using - Prentice Hall's Medieval through Modern Times with Abeka's History of the World in Christian Perspective.

Fourth Period: Science. Apologia's Exploring Creation through General Science

At lunch time we continued the theme and watched a wonderful DVD by Moody Science called Journeys to the edge of Creation. I was excited to be able to get the DVDs via Netflix. So that was nice!

Lunch

Fifth Period: Handwriting/Keyboarding/Art

We spent 15 minutes of practice on improving our handwriting skills (yes, we!)

Haley worked with Mavis Beacon on her keyboarding skills (which she enjoyed so much that she is continuing to work on that now!) And then we spent 15 minutes with a very simple, but sweet book called Draw Write Now book 1. This book teaches basic 2 dimensional drawing of simple barnyard animals. And there are several other books which she would like to work through. We are also pulling together some instructional 3d drawing dvds for further practice. Since, her mother cannot draw even the simplest stick figures without help, we are both looking forward to this!

Sixth Period: Home Economics

Our guide for several weeks will be Proverbs 31. Haley picked a wonderful book called "Personal Help for Girls" by Pearables. We read chapter one and will contemplate that for the week. We are also going to be reading and "doing" Mrs. Dunwoody's Excellent Guide to Homekeeping. And we will be discovering the Flylady website over the course of the entire year.

So that about covers it.. PE will be taken care of with 3 hours a week in ballet. Music will be covered with weekly piano lessons, daily practice and singing in the youth band.