As we entered the fall school term in 2020, we had students in first grade, tenth grade, and (almost) everything in between. As we've done the last couple of years, we are doing school in 5-6 week chunks, then taking a week off. We do most of our school on Monday- Thursday. Friday is only math, housecleaning, and piano lessons (plus biology and Spanish for the older two).
Covid has changed a few things for us this fall. No drama classes, nature center field trips, or library trips. Also, piano lessons continue online, as we've done since March. Plus, daddy has been working from home. All of this has actually led to some benefits. We are able to have a more regular, stable routine to our days and weeks, less driving, and more time with Ronnie. We've still been able to participate in horse riding lessons, and Ronnie has been able to be more in tune with what the kids are doing each day. I'm enjoying it while it lasts!
I took some advice from Amy Roberts at Raising Arrows and formalized our school-day "anchors." These are specific times in our day where everybody knows what to expect at that time. For example, getting up and eating breakfast is flexible (done at different times by different people), but we all meet in the living room at 9 am sharp for history. After that, the big kids are free to work on their independent work and the younger four stay for science. When that is done, the next three are supposed to work on their independent work while I work one-on-one with the youngest. Then, I work my way back up in reverse age order, checking work and doing subjects they can't do on their own. Lunch is at noon, storytime is at 1, and Spanish is at 1:30. There is a rotating schedule for piano practice beginning at 2 pm. Bath times start at 5, supper at 6, family Bible time at 7. This overall structure has really helped everyone know where they are supposed to be and what they are supposed to be doing. And it helps me "teach from rest." Most of the time, my part of school is done by 2pm, and I can spend a couple of hours resting and doing "office work" before starting supper. A new thing this year is assigning a specific child each night to help with supper. Often, that is to make the salad, but sometimes extends to other cooking...even to doing most of the meal prep themselves.
We are studying world history this year, using
The Mystery of History Volumes I & II, covering from creation to the middle ages. I am really enjoying using this curriculum. Each week in the curriculum is divided up into 3 lessons (usually 10-15 minutes), with a number of optional activity suggestions for different age groups. Since we are trying to do two volumes in one year, we listen to 2 lessons each day (Monday - Wednesday) from the audio version of the book. Each week we also do two of the worksheets or quizzes from the lessons, and sometimes we do some related map work. On Thursdays, the younger kids work on the timeline, and the older ones work on their memory cards (writing on index cards several bullet points about each lesson from that week). The younger kids have really enjoyed the timeline, more than I thought they would. One feature I really appreciate about the worksheets is that they incorporate questions from previous lessons, so there is constant, built-in review. I also appreciate that I can use this with all my students, even though there is a big spread between their ages and levels.
In order to make it qualify as a high-school level course, I have been supplementing with additional reading for my older students. Since the Mystery of History lessons mention various world religions in their historical context, I'm taking the opportunity to delve a little more deeply into that with a series of books from Answers in Genesis called World Religions and Cults. My older ones and I read selected chapters from these three books, then the whole family watches a corresponding video from AIG's World Religions Conference on Answers.TV. (For a yearly subscription, you can watch almost all of AIG's video products. It has been a good investment for us this year.) I'm also supplementing with some selected readings and audio recordings from Diana Waring's History Revealed curriculum.
As we've done the past two years, our writing assignments also roughly correspond to our history studies and are taken from IEW's Ancient History and Medieval History theme-based writing curriculum. This really helps to reinforce some of the topics the kids hear in our history lessons.
As usual, our read-aloud time also roughly corresponds to and expands on our history or geography topics. You can learn more about the books we've read if you look for the "picture book" post each month.
The two oldest kids are taking a high-school level Biology course from Apologia. They are working on this pretty much independently. I get a glimpse of what they're learning from watching the accompanying DVD instruction. I don't remember much of this stuff cellular-level stuff from my high school class.
The rest of the kids and I are working through the elementary level Exploring Creation with Anatomy and Physiology, also from Apologia. We are going through this at about double the normal speed (one chapter a week, instead of one chapter every two weeks). We listen to the chapter Monday-Wednesday and do selected activities from the notebooking journals and experiments from the textbook. We learned how to make a chicken bone rubbery and how to type our blood. Interestingly, Ronnie and our first three children all have one blood type. I and the next two kids all have another type. The youngest wasn't willing to have his finger poked to get a blood sample. So, I am waiting till the next time he loses a tooth, has a nosebleed, or gets a cut. Then maybe I can steal some of his blood to type it :-)
Again, my older two are taking a high-school level Spanish 2 class from Bob Jones University Press. I keep up with what they are learning, trying to work through the chapters and activities a week ahead of time. Sometimes I watch the videos with them, and sometimes I let them do it on their own if I need to work with someone else on something. I am satisfied with this program. I feel it is adequate, and well worth the extremely reasonable price ($79 for DVD rental and purchase of textbook, activity manual, and teacher's guides).
Of course, there are the usual basic subjects : math, spelling & vocabulary, penmanship, phonics, Bible memory, and self-directed computer programming for those interested.
Another feature of our day is a daily 10 minute news show called World Watch News. It is news from a Christian worldview, aimed at teens but suitable for the whole family. They have done an excellent job explaining terms and issues that come up frequently in world events. This has been especially helpful during election season.
Our lunch and dinner table conversations have been quite interesting. We have gotten past the stage of only talking about food and table manners and cleaning up spills. There are almost always questions such as "What would happen if you ...?" and "How does such-and-such work?" and "Why does/is...?" Often about science topics, sometimes about current events or other topics. When I take a few moments to just sit back and listen to the various questions and conversations, I'm really quite amazed at what my kids are thinking and how they are processing the world around them. And then there are the jokes and puns...such as "I tried to figure out how to calculate the value of pi, but I found that it was circular reasoning."
