Sample Homeschool Schedule

September 13th, 2012

sample-homeschool-schedule

Before I type out our homeschool schedule and courses for this school year, I would like to say that if your children are not in high school, there is no reason to do more than one unit study at a time. Do math first thing in the morning; then an in-depth unit study should include (over the course of the year) history, science, literature, reading, writing, and art. Unit studies are the best way to learn, where you splash into one topic and surround yourself with it. All high school and college courses are in-depth unit studies. There is no other way to learn something in a thorough fashion. If you are interested in gardening, and you voraciously read everything you can get your hands on about gardening, you are doing a personal unit study on gardening.

Textbooks are thin rocks skimming upon the surface of a pond, never going deeply enough to give true knowledge that can be remembered for the rest of your life. Textbooks are churning out illiterate children in our public school system (a failing system), and the only reason private schools are successful with textbooks is because the creative teachers make the material into unit studies. I’ve seen it with my own eyes when I was a teacher in the schools, and I’m telling you the truth.

My 10-year-old and 12-year-old have been ready for high school science for years because they have done all the sciences in depth already through unit studies. (My Unit Study Treasure Vault includes our unit studies we’ve done over the years to get to such a high level so young.) My 10-year-old and 12-year-old both read on a college level. I believe their deep knowledge in all subject areas is due to the great unit studies we’ve done.

I don’t feel comfortable sending young teenagers to college to be influenced by ungodly professors at such a formative time in their lives. For this reason I did not start high school biology when my older two kids were 8 and 10, even though they were ready. After praying about it and not wanting to hold them back any longer, I’ve decided to teach high school biology this year, using Apologia Biology.

This year we are doing a Renaissance Unit Study. It’s really a literature unit study, since Shakespeare is the main topic we will be covering. We’ve already watched our first Shakespeare play, and the kids enjoyed it. We will be doing lots of art this year, too.

Bryan (12 years old)

  • Algebra
  • Biology
  • Shakespeare/Renaissance
  • Karate/Swimming

Stephen (10 years old)

  • Pre-Algebra
  • Biology
  • Shakespeare/Renaissance
  • Flag football/Basketball/Swimming

Nathaniel (9 years old)

  • 6th grade math
  • Science kits and unit studies, delight-directed
  • Shakespeare/Renaissance
  • Flag football/Basketball/Swimming

Rachel (7 years old)

  • 3rd grade math
  • Science kits and unit studies, delight-directed
  • Shakespeare/Renaissance
  • Gymnastics/Swimming

SCHEDULE:

  • 7am-8am: Math
  • 8am-9am: Bible/Breakfast/Reading
  • 9am-10am: ~break~
  • 10am-11am: Biology
  • 11am-noon: ~break~
  • Noon-1pm: Shakespeare/Renaissance/Lunch
  • 1pm-2pm: ~silent reading~

My older two sons are reading G.A. Henty historical fiction books during “naptime,” when it is quiet at my house. They are reading through the Renaissance time period. (Last year they read the Henty books set during the medieval time period.) My sons just read a fun book about microscopes during their silent reading time as well, since the first chapter in biology includes becoming familiar with microscopes.

My younger two children read to me right after breakfast. I sometimes throw in a craft for the kids to do around 9am. If any of the kids woke up at 8am instead of 7am, they do their math after breakfast. I sometimes work one-on-one with a child for writing. Otherwise they relax and play. My 3rd son played with snap circuits during part of his free time this week. My daughter had a tea party with her dolls. My oldest son likes to draw during his free time, and my second son loves reading Calvin and Hobbes comic books during his free time, giggling to himself. This is my day in a nutshell.

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Posted in Homeschooling, Organization | 6 Comments »

Renaissance Unit Study

September 10th, 2012

renaissance-unit-study

This is what we will be doing for our Renaissance Unit Study:

  • Renaissance notebook
  • Attend a Shakespeare-in-the-Park play
  • Read and discuss several famous Shakespeare plays
  • Fun and interesting Shakespeare books for younger kids
  • Diagram of a ship with labeled parts for explorers
  • Design ships and sail them
  • Make a Renaissance cap
  • Put together a model of the Globe Theater
  • Performances of paper dolls with Shakespeare characters
  • Reformation videos with Reformation Day performance
  • Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions
  • Make your own inventions
  • Draw proportions of human body

 

Join the Unit Study Treasure Vault to watch us doing each of the activities mentioned in the video.

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Posted in History | 6 Comments »

Unit Studies for Homeschool

September 7th, 2012

unit-studies-for-homeschoolI’m on the edge of my seat, about to launch the biggest project I’ve ever done, which has grown way beyond what I imagined. It’s the fruition of 20 years’ worth of work, since I’ve been an educator for two decades. It’s a membership site where all my unit studies are in categories, with supporting materials beneath them, usually in the form of video demonstrations. It includes over 100 unit studies for homeschool. There are well over 1,000 supporting videos and articles, showing you how to homeschool your children with unit studies.

I’ve had people e-mailing me, asking for the book list for each of my unit study time periods. It took me many hours to track down all the books that I used, but these lists are now in my Unit Study Treasure Vault, followed by a list of activities in the order I did them while homeschooling my own children.

The science section has subject headings, and all the articles, videos, and field trips I did for each subject are under each heading. And I’ve added more high quality videos from the best of what the internet has to offer. I will be filming three exclusive demonstration videos found nowhere else on earth but in my Treasure Vault each month, plus I will continuously be adding to each category.

There’s a geography section, a literature section, an art section, a field trip section, and I will be adding more sections in the upcoming months. But each section is substantial and large already. That’s the crazy thing about it. And it will only be growing.

The Bible section is one of my favorite sections. Years ago I wrote Charlotte Mason style summaries for each book of the Bible, turning them in to my pastor for a class that took two years. My own father was a pastor and a missionary for 30 years (as well as a seminary professor), and he and my mother are helping me to edit the summaries and upload them to the Bible section of the Treasure Vault. Under each book of the Bible, I will be creating wonderful activities. This one section will eventually have hundreds of original hands-on learning activities. Even though I’m creating all these materials for homeschool moms, Sunday school teachers would also benefit from it. It might become so huge that it will need a whole separate Bible Treasure Vault. Who knows? The whole thing gives me so much joy, I can hardly contain it.

In fact, the whole idea for this Treasure Vault was birthed in joy. My husband had taken the kids swimming one evening, and I sat there in silence in the house, asking God what He wanted me to do with my business. I opened my heart to God and waited. Suddenly the idea for the Unit Study Treasure Vault came to me, and the individual ideas came like a waterfall, hundreds of ideas, and I had so much joy in the Spirit. I am exactly in the center of the will of God right now. In God’s presence is fullness of joy.

My husband is a computer programmer who happens to be my webmaster, so he has been writing computer code all summer long. I’m not kidding. He’s hardly been sleeping at all the last few weeks in preparation for this launch. My husband told me last night, “This is the biggest thing you’ve ever done, and you’re blogging about a hammock. We’re days from launching. I’m surprised you haven’t been getting e-mails saying, ‘What’s going on?’”

“Oh, I’m getting e-mails, and I’m answering each of them one by one. Those women are excited about the Vault and can’t wait.”

We have a couple of small glitches which are being worked out. We might launch tonight. Or Monday. The time is near…

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

The Unit Study Treasure Vault is now open!!

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Posted in Homeschooling | 5 Comments »

How Karate Helped my Son

September 5th, 2012

how-karate-helps-kids

Several years ago my husband and I were praying about what to do with one of our sons who was uncoordinated. Three of my children learned physical skills easily while the other child took forever to learn them. Learning how to ride a bike took just a few days of practice for most of my kids, but months of practice for this one son.

We put him into soccer, and that was disastrous. Nobody would ever kick the ball to him, so how was he supposed to improve? He was so frustrated; you could see the frustration all over his face.

So we pulled him out of soccer after one season, even though his brothers have continued to do various team sports and have loved every minute of it.

I advise homeschool parents to pray about the weaknesses of their children. God knows the exact answer to your prayer. You might not come up with it yourself unless you ask God. For our family, the answer was a Christian karate place nearby. The students quote Scripture as they do their poses. Both my husband and I felt a supernatural peace about signing up our son.

A year later, I had a son who was physically fit and had control over his body movements. It was a miracle. We are now in his third year.

A homeschool mom recently walked up to my son and asked him if he liked karate. I tried to change the subject. My son had never thought to question whether he was supposed to go to karate or not. He hadn’t thought of being rebellious to fight what his parents knew was the right thing for him. The homeschool mom didn’t realize that children don’t rule.

Any activity that you sign your kids up for that is making up for a weakness will not be the favorite activity of your children. That’s because that activity comes hard for them. But if it’s what God wants you to be doing, it will strengthen those very weaknesses so that for the rest of that child’s life, he will not struggle in that area as much.

And if you’ve prayed about it and have a supernatural peace and joy in your soul about that activity and are in complete agreement with your husband, move forward and do it. Your child will come to expect that it’s a part of his life.

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