Here are some pictures that go through a day of school in our house.

Here are some pictures to help explain what we do during our homeschool schedule:

Our school supplies are so simple: lots of spiral notebooks! It’s been handy to have this shelf this year.

Nearly every morning, we start off with a Blues Clues or Daniel Tiger! It serves several purposes: 1) It transitions Micah into the day and he knows school is starting 2) I can grab a shower and/or 3) I can do Jonah’s scripture study time without Micah or Lydia interrupting! Usually we study for the first while and then he goes out and watches the rest. By then Jacob and Emma are usually done with their scripture studies too. I get a kick out of watching all 5 kids enjoying the same show at the same time. 🙂

Every morning, I spend some time reading to Jacob and Emma. We rotate what we learn about: US History one week, Science the next, and Artists for the third week. Then we start back with US History. It’s enabled me to be more involved, enabled us to cover more subjects, and also given the kids some variety which they appreciate.

We read a 2-page spread and talk about it together.

We use whatever Science book we want to that week, but this has been one of their favorites.

This is our book: “13 Artists Children Should Know.” I picked it up in London. 🙂

When it’s Artist week, Jacob and Emma spend their afternoon research time copying the art of that artist.

Every morning, the three oldest kids write in a journal. I get Jonah’s ready for him, but with Emma and Jacob, we have a grammar lesson and then they practice by writing in their journal! I think it will be a great thing to hang on to.

Jonah’s journal entries will progress in difficulty over the year. This was from September.

Emma has math lessons with Joe every other day or so. They are working slowly through a Pre-Algebra book! They are covering the foundational stuff like negative numbers, exponents, etc. She went from dreading math to liking it! I’m so glad! This picture is of Jonah working on his math that I got ready for him that day.

Jacob doing his math in his notebook. I get two pages ready for him each day.

Jonah reads a book out loud every day. This was one of the first books he read all the way through!

Plato! Emma and Joe read the same material each week separately, then talk about it once a week. She dreaded it, cried about it, and so on, but now she’s really loving it.

Emma takes notes to help her self pay attention

Emma’s Plato notes

Emma’s Plato notes

Emma’s Plato notes

Jacob and Emma are learning Spanish together. I love it! They have a lot of the same subjects and it helps both of them stay focused. We are using Duolingo (online). They also memorize spelling words and poems every afternoon. They don’t memorize the same ones, but since they have the same subject at the same time it still helps keep them focused.

Every afternoon Jonah does “research time” by reading out of this animal book and then filling out a page in his notebook with: 1) the animal’s name 2) two facts 3) one picture. Half the time Lydia wants to learn so he reads it to her. I think he likes the feeling of being in charge and teaching her, and I love to see the kids learning together!

Lydia doesn’t have any required school, and some days she likes to do it and some days she plays with Micah. She has several workbooks and other activities that she likes.

Lydia’s letter book, another one of her optional activities. Probably after Christmas she’ll have some required school time.

On Fridays we do something different, some way of learning that’s fun. This picture is of Jacob drawing what he thought a Hungarian Rhapsody sounded like.

Jonah and Emma drawing what they thought a Hungarian Rhapsody sounded like.

Sometimes, the Friday activity is one the kids do themselves! Here is a sign inviting us to the kids’ history play

I decided to keep track of the books the kids were reading outside of school. I decided not to include a “literature” subject this year and encourage outside-of-school reading instead. (Plus, Emma’s reading philosophy, that counts!)

Jacob reading to add to the book chart

Jonah reading Cooking With the Cat — the first book he picked up and worked on all on his own without me even knowing!

The kids do like a break. We break for snack every day at 10, and they usually take a half hour break after lunch. Sometimes they like to play with Micah. (In this picture, Emma is helping Micah find things in the book he got for his birthday.)

Micah and Jonah drawing side by side during one of Jonah’s breaks (and yes, he prefers jammies to any of his normal clothing!)

One day Lydia wanted to learn more about butterflies and Emma offered to help (gotta love big sisters!)

Jonah and Micah love to play around on google map!

After school, the kids like to do crafts or do a chore in exchange for some time playing games

There’s a bit of a sample of how we do things! I’m glad they have each other and it gets more fun and more rewarding all the time!