Spring Semester Homeschool Schedule

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I can’t believe we’re half way through another school year! My kids, on the other hand, love to remind me that they are halfway done with another year of school!

I wrote about what worked well for us in the fall semester. And now, I want to fill you in on the changes we’ll be making for the spring semester. The beauty of homeschooling is that it can evolve and change as our children grow and change. In my 15+ years of homeschooling, I don’t think we’ve ever kept exactly the same schedule for two semesters in a row. And I haven’t had to, because I’ve had the freedom to make changes to better suit our family situation–whether it was a new baby sister being born, a foster child coming or going, a move from one home to another, curriculum just not working for us, or those babies growing into busy toddlers. Whatever the situation, we’ve been able to adjust our sails, and (as Walt Disney said) “keep moving forward”!

This year is no different. The baby that we started the fall semester with has grown and changed. He is crawling and toddling and into EVERYTHING. So, our schedule is mostly trying to get as much done as possible during his morning nap. It also means that sometimes someone (or two) have to help keep him entertained and quiet while we do group lessons. Cooperation. We’re learning what it means.

After several years of trying to follow workbook style curriculum, we are slowly getting back to a more relaxed type of learning. I have always leaned toward Charlotte Mason style learning with her love of beautiful things–living books, nature study, poetry, art, music, Scripture, etc. I also appreciate her “short lesson” approach. No need to drag a subject out til the child is bored. Twenty minutes a day in elementary grades is sufficient for most subjects. In fact, twenty minutes several times a week may be sufficient.

I haven’t fully mapped out the entire semester, only about the first six weeks. And I think I’m leaning more toward a block schedule this semester. So far, here’s what we’re trying…

DAILY:

Bible Reading & Discussion: We are reading through the book of John, one chapter a day, and discussing what we read. They’re also choosing one verse per chapter to use as copywork.

Math: I have one child using Math U See, two others just began Teaching Textbooks, and the youngest is using Christian Light Publications. I work with her on math and reading first thing in the morning while the big kids work on their math and Bible reading independently.

Catechism: So far, we’ve memorized 53 of 150 questions and answers. We’ll continue to drill these daily. These could also be used as copywork. However, in an effort at full disclosure, I seem to have misplaced our catechism book, so I can’t even give you the full title, much less a link. Forgive me…

Read-Aloud: Currently, we’re reading Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White. We’ve read it before, but we love it. I hope to read Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little this semester as well and maybe do a mini unit study on E.B. White.
Audio Books: I let the kids listen to these while they’re playing with legos. They’re currently listening to Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims. There are other historical fiction titles in this series that we plan to investigate as well. We’ll alternate between these and our collection of Jonathan Park CDs until we listen to all of them.

Book Basket: We’re continuing with this as one of my goals as a homeschool mom is to raise kids that not only love to learn, but to raise kids that know HOW to learn. I fill the basket up with books that expand on the topics that we’re discussing during our regular “class” time, so they end up learning way more about a subject than what I directly teach them. My requirement is to spend 30 minutes each afternoon with any book from the book basket.

MONDAYS & WEDNESDAYS:
On Mondays and Wednesdays, we focus on history. We are currently reading from George Washington’s World by Genevieve Foster. We read a chapter or two. The kids narrate back to me the important parts of what we read, and then we add information to our ever-growing timeline if applicable. Depending on who we’re learning about, we may also add a notebook page about the person to our notebook. I can’t wait to see how this progresses as I can see us chasing some interesting rabbit trails this semester.

On Monday afternoons, we’ll attend co-op classes where AJ13 will take a speech class, CD11 will continue the lego class he started in the fall, and AG7 will participate in a Five in a Row class. AC10 has decided that she doesn’t want to take any co-op classes this semester, and we have allowed her to make that choice as all of these classes are electives anyway.

Also on Mondays, we have a formal grammar lesson. We’re currently using Easy Grammar 6 with everyone. Since I have a 5th, 6th, and 7th grader, I chose to use the middle level and let them all work together. I don’t require much of AG7 (2nd grade) for this subject, but she usually participates verbally. They get lots of practice with writing and using grammar throughout the week with their notebooks, so this is the only day of formal grammar lessons. We also use Mad Libs once or twice a week just for fun.

TUESDAYS & THURSDAYS:
So since we concentrate on History on Mondays and Wednesdays, we focus on Science on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We’re using an older curriculum that I’ve had on the shelf for years, Considering God’s Creation. I like that it is Biblically-based science, and the curriculum is full of reproducible notebook pages. The majority of the work is already done for me. I open the teacher’s manual, and we work for 30 minutes or so completing as much as we can. I’m determined to NOT be ruled by the curriculum any longer, so that we all can enjoy our learning adventures.

FRIDAYS:

We’re calling these days FUN FRIDAYS  and for good reason. This is when the bulk of our enrichment or “fun” classes happen. Last week was our first Fun Friday, and it was great. I was amazed and ashamed at myself for not exposing my kids to what some might consider “advanced” courses before now. But then again, maybe you’re already doing this stuff with your preschooler and think that I’m waaaaay behind… Either way, I’m thrilled with how our first try went.

Each Friday, in as true to Charlotte Mason style learning as I can get, we will do an Artist Study, Composer Study, Nature Study, and Shakespeare reading. We’ll cover three different artists and composers over the semester. We’ll read about several of Shakespeare’s plays and read some of his poetry too. And hopefully, we’ll start a Nature Journal soon; but even if we don’t get the journal going, we’ll enjoy being outside learning about the world around us.

For our first Fun Friday, we listened to Bach and read a short biography about him that I found free for Kindle on Amazon. We did a picture study of Monet’s Water Lilies and talked a little about his life and work. We discovered birth and death dates for these men and added them to our timeline. For our Shakespeare study, we’re reading from Ten Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb. Our first reading was The Tempest. I’m not sure if I was most amazed by the fact that the kids enjoyed it or that I finally understood it all! It was great! And for nature study, our weather played a huge part in making that a success. You see, it rarely snows here in south Mississippi, and Friday was unbelievably cold and icy. The kids called it snow, but it was really sleet. No matter to them, they got to play in the icy mess/winter wonderland. And that concluded our Nature Study for the day!

I think that by following a block schedule and doing fewer subjects each day that we will actually end up covering more. We finished our first full week of this schedule, and it has worked even better than I thought it would. I’ll give an update in about six weeks to let you know if it’s still working well.

So what about you? Are you changing things up in your homeschool for the spring semester? Or have you already found what works best for your family? Leave me a comment, and let me know. I’d love to hear from you!

This article is linked up over at Hip Homeschool Moms.