What Schedule?

This week on the “Not “ Back-to-School blog hop I had a peek into the life of many homeschoolers. and I have to say some made me green with envy. The beautiful routines and schedules are to die for. It makes me wonder where did I go wrong, why can’t I do that. Then I turn green with something else, remembering the days we tried to follow a schedule…
I have to admit laid back is the style here. Lists are not my thing, when I had one it sucked the fun out of the whole day. I fought to stay on task while the kids just fought. That was the first 6 months of our first year, then they were out the door and in the trash, the list of course!
Having a laid back style has worked for us so far and I don’t plan on changing that anytime soon. We do, however have points throughout the day that sort of serve as a routine…

                       School starts at 8:30
                         Lunch is at 11:30
         group is after lunch (while Lady Bells naps)
                           day ends at 4:00

Anything between these times depends on how everyone is doing on any given day. The two older ones have independent work which we call self work and they also have time with me. Lady Jey is just starting into self work so sometimes I am still helping her through this time. Lady Bells works with me for 30 minutes and then has a notebook that is full of fun tot-school things for her to do, she can do these are have free play with anything in the school room.
The order that we do the subjects depends on the “feel” of the day, sometimes math with Prince can get tedious so if he is in a “good” mood we do math early if he isn’t we wait till dad comes home to get it done in this case school doesn’t end at 4.  I say we end at 4 but if it is a good day for everyone we can end as early as 1:00.
To keep myself on track and to make sure I am getting everything done, I made a list of everything I am to do with each child. I put this into a laminated pouch and as it gets done we check it off. It sort of looks something like this… nothing fancy!

                             

This list only includes the things that I work on with each child, they have other things that they work on individually which is stored in their weekly workboxes (my spin on the workbox).
So that is our schedule, for the Day in the life of… Castle Academy!

B for Ballerina

This week we did our second week of our CA collections. It is surprising to see how far Lady Bells has come since just last year! She is able to remember the letters we are working on along with their sound. This I have to credit to the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD, she loves the catchy little tune and can be found often singing it. She has also gotten very independent and does most of her notebook by herself. I can already see that I will be searching for new things for her to do very soon!
So here she is in action with some of the activities included in B for Ballerina…
Beginning handwriting:

Size sorting…

Color sorting…

Shape sorting…

Magnet page…

Capital/lower case matching

And that is just some of the activities included in the collection click on the picture below to download the whole collection.


Enjoy from Our Days at CA!

Second week of Kindergarten

I have to be honest and say I was dreading the day Lady Jey would enter Kindergarten mainly because it would be the first year of teaching it and I put SO much emphasis on this year. The stereo –typical  have two's of this year scared me! But over the summer I came to the realization that I was putting myself under un-needed stress, that all children are not the same, that we are homeschoolers so why mold myself to the have two's  of public school. So I took a step back and gave myself room to breathe and decided that I would take each day at a time… So what if she doesn’t learn to write every letter, so what if she doesn’t know every sight word, so what if she is not reading by the time school is out, she is Lady Jey not every other kid in kindergarten. She can only do what she can do and I can only teach her the skills she is able to learn. Why rush it and struggle when we can go on our own time and perfect it.
Saying this out loud to myself has done wonders and now I am ready for a fun laid back year of learning what God has set out before us and with HIS hand in it, everything will come at the RIGHT time on HIS time!
Now that that is out of the way, she has been doing good. Her handwriting has taken off since last year, with no real work over the summer. We are using the Reason for Handwriting curriculum and she actually understands what each line is used for after only two weeks, this is a big jump from last year. I made her her own “tree house” to write on, that will change with the season…



For Science we are using BJU science 1. We used this with Princessa in 1st grade but I felt it was more on a kindergarten level so we are going to try it out, and so far it has worked out great. She has learned about her 5 senses and is now learning about the sun, moon and stars which promises to be really fun with some lapbooks thrown in.

She also completed some of the older level pages out of our CA Collection B for Ballerina.

This fall we plan on starting Sonlight with her for history and language arts. I figured starting her with a little at a time would be a gentler approach rather then bombarding her with everything at once. But I am excited to get it started! We will see if she shares my excitement!?
And that is Kindergarten here at Our Days at CA!

Four years already!?

I can not believe how the years have passed by, it has been 4 years since we have started down this path but it seems like just yesterday. I started out scared and unsure how things would turn out and here I am 4 years later, happy and have loved every minute of it. I have loved every special moment that I have spent with my babies and can’t wait to see what this year has in store for us, and the many years left to come!
And so I introduce you to MY class of 2012/13…


Prince and princessa, who were my guinea pigs, have grown up quite fast. It is hard to believe that I taught Princessa in 1st grade and here she is now in the 4th grade. And Prince who had the most experience with public school has made the switch so smoothly without any complaint.

And my two babies Lady Jey and Lady Bells who have known nothing but homeschooling and have been involved since they could crawl. I remember the days Lady Jey use to cry to do school and my endless hours of searching the net and discovering Tot-school. Which Lady Bells is now in her last year of doing, (sniff) . 
I am so proud of my babies, but it also makes me sad to see how fast they are growing and becoming more and more independent.

I LOVE you, my I love yous, and here's to another great year of learning and special moments together here at Our Days at CA!



                                     

And it Begins…

Our first week of school went great. For the days we did school anyway.
Monday we had music lessons and class, this was a first for us also. We were there all day for the 3 different levels on a trail run. At the end of class we decided that Lady Jey and Princessa would stick with these classes.



Tuesday we had math class at the grocery store. Each of the older two was given a budget and a portion of the grocery list and set out to shop, both did well with this.  We then came home and went swimming in the community pool that we now have all to ourselves!
Wednesday dad was off so we had to run some errands with him. Although the older two did some self work we did not get much in the way of teaching done.
Thursday was our first sit down day to enjoy in our new classroom. Prince seemed to enjoy his Creation or Evolution studies. Princessa has started her Human body unit with AIG. Lady Jey was excited to start her science with BJU and Lady Bells is just excited to be back to the school routine.




Friday was our second in classroom day and I have to say I am really enjoying the bigger classroom! I have to thank my husband for letting us take over the living room and allowing us to move the TV to the smaller room.
Today was lady Jey’s first science experiment, she is learning about the 5 senses so we did a tasting experiment. I think she is going to enjoy the hands-on that BJU offers along with the nature study that Sonlight has.  The two younger ones completed the F unit that I made and it is so cute to hear Lady Bells singing the letter song from Leap letter factory. At the end of the day we finished up with the game I created to go along with the F unit, and ALL the kids joined in, it was a fun week!




I didn’t think I was ready for it but now that we have started back I am excited to be “doing” school again!  Thanks for joining us here  at Our Days at CA!

F is for Fairy

We did the first of our CA collections this week. The things I included in them for Lady Jey challenged her just like I wanted them to while the younger things kept Lady Bells occupied so I was happy.
Here is a complete look at some of the things included in the collection…

 
Color sorting for the younger ones…


Counting cards that could be used for both age groups…


Handwriting for the older group…


Shape sorting…


cutting practice…


How many? counting practice…


Lacing…


Handwriting practice…


Size Sorting…


Beginning Tens…



And for fun Fairy Gardens game!
This is just an example of what you will find in the collection there is lots more included for learning and fun. Click on the picture below to download and remember these collections are for your use only, no hosting on a website and if you blog about them please link back to us here. If you use them please leave us a comment to let us know others are enjoying our printables.


Thanks and Enjoy from Our Days at CA!