Wow. My hat is off to you mamas who have planned a homeschool year for more than one child. What a difference from planning for only one. Lucy had a more "planned" kindergarten last year than the year before, but still, it was only one story a week, with a few activites plus some stuff geared towards her during circle time. My brain is overwhelmed with planing for two. I am trying to keep in mind that part of my brain muddle is related to summer time - even the Calendar of the Soul for this week backs me up:
Surrendering to senses' revelation
I lost the drive of my own being,
And dreamlike thinking seemed
To daze and rob me of myself.
Yet quickening there draws near
In sense appearance cosmic thinking.
(Steiner - 14th Week)
This week basically marks the half-way point of my family's summer, so let's hope some clarity in thinking is coming my way soon. As evidenced in my last planning post, I've got our blocks figured out. Now the main question is how in the hell I get all this done at the same time, in basically the same amount of time.
Starting last week, Jack and Lu now go to bed at different times. Up till now I've had luck putting them both down at about the same time (they share a room). Lucy has been going to bed a little later than she should and Jack a little earlier than he probably should. Our new routine is that they both hear a book at about 7:00. Lucy is asleep by 7:30, and Jack reads on my bed until about 8:00 - 8:30, then moves to his own to sleep. I'm planning to tell him most of his school stories at night before he goes to bed. I haven't minded, in the past, Lucy hearing stories meant for Jack's grade level, but I did so knowing that when it was her turn I would use different stories. For example, I didn't do Aesop's Fables with Jack last year, because I wanted to "save" them as new for Lucy. This year, though, will include a lot of Old Testament stories, and I want Lucy to hear them all fresh when she is in third grade. This frees up a little bit of time during main lesson time in the morning. Of course, she will still see his pics and overhear a bit of retelling, but that can't be helped.
I've been doing some thinking about how I can combine lessons for the two of them. For the most part I have them doing similar blocks at the same times (both doing math at the same time). I've got Jack doing those three blocks on grains, fibers and shelters at the same time Lucy is doing her Capitals and Fairytales blocks. I could use folk/fairy tales that would work for both of those blocks so that they could here the stories together, and then each do their separate work. So, I could use "The Porridge Pot" for the letter 'P" for Lucy, as well as using it to open the discussion on oats for Jack. Now I need to spend some time reading, reading, reading to find new and appropriate stories.
I think third grade is a good age to up the school requirements a bit, meaning Jack is going to have to put in a bit more school time than he has previously. For first and second grade we had a morning school time 4 days a week, lasting about 2.5 - 3 hours a day. I'm adding in an afternoon lesson time for Jack 3 days/week. (He is gone all day Wednesday for wilderness class and I'd like to save one afternoon for play dates). I imagine that the afternoon lesson time will last about an hour. Each session will start with flute lesson/practice. Then I've planned out 9 mini-blocks to coincide with his 9 main lesson blocks.
1 - Math - times tables (through games, recitation and the dreaded flash cards)
2 - Spelling - I plan to do one mini-block to intro how we will approach spelling. After this mini-block it is something he will do weekly and will be drawn from current stories / lessons.
3 - Extra project time - this coincides with his Fibers block, which will be project heavy.
4 - Holiday block - will probably spend this time doing holiday prep.
5 - Cursive Handwriting - I'm planning to use Cursive Handwriting from Handwriting Without Tears. Jack used one of their print books last year and it worked well for him. Handwriting is an area I've found that can quickly bring Jack and I into conflict (mainly because I get too intense and critical) and so these workbooks help me step back and him to work on his own. I haven't found it necessary to purchase the teacher handbook, the workbooks are very straight forward.
6 - Grammar - identifying basic parts of speech - noun, verb, adjective, adverb. Learning to write more informative and interesting sentences.
7 - Spelling - by this time I should have an idea about the types of words he needs help spelling. We'll focus on some specific word families.
8 - Cursive handwriting
9 - This is our outside block, so now extra lessons here, just more work!
My next steps in the planning process are to get our blocks written out on my planning calendar (I'll how I do this). Decide what holiday/seasonal stories I want to do each month. Finally choose some stories so I can get to the next steps of planning.
Have you schooled more than one child? What am I missing that you figured out once you were finally doing it? (Besides thinking that maybe we should just read and knit all day).
