Education is an atmosphere. Teachers create a place for learning. I love seeing how learning environments look. Here is our basement space. We have mornings upstairs.
I love my modified motto. We will memorize it and say it often.
Growth comes from heartfelt desires, habits of the mind and the spirit of light. I want this school year to fill my children’s hearts with beauty, their minds with self-mastery habits and invite them to learn from their Heavenly Father to become and create what they are here to become and create. That is my goal.
Here is my plan. Each one could be an entire post. If anyone is interested in a part, put it in the comments and I’ll do my best. Shifted! Wake up earlier. Hence, go to bed earlier. All this is crucial to protecting consistent family dinner.
Morning Time. A keeper! Have morning time routine of movement, personal scripture study, journaling and memory work.
Williams’s Hour. Slightly shifted! Now, I have four children for our rotation it will have four 15 minute components. Saxon math with mom, practicing repertoire on instrument, math logic and problem solving, music sight reading and technique.
Drawing. New! We will draw 15 minutes each day together. We will draw from real 3d nature objects, imagination sketches with composer study, memory sketches with picture study, and draw maps with map questions.
Winona’s Hour. Improved! Author study. I am so excited for this. We are studying E.B. White. We will read a novel each term with highlighters, each child having their own copy. We will copy gems, study spelling, grammar and craft through self-selected passages. My oldest will supplement this with studying E.B. White’s essays and a Elements of Style workbook. For each term we will have a family memory experience- going to the state fair in September for Charlotte’s Web, seeing the tundra swan migration in April for The Trumpet of the Swan, and Something Special TBA for Stuart Little.
New! Reading baskets. Each child has a basket to read from and jot down anything we want in a commonplace book. Each child has book genres according to age. My youngest will learn to read with me one-on-one during this time.
Read aloud backbone! I will read aloud a picture book three days in a row. Each day we will discuss different aspects : art, writing and science concepts. I will read from The Libraries of Hope Freedom, Nature and World Series. While I read, my children will keep their hands busy with fiber arts, sketching or tinkering toys. We will notebook.
Lunch. Same old! Children walk our dog while I put lunch together. Review foreign language phrases at lunch.
Studio. Hopeful this will work! Afternoon Quiet Time with lots of personal preferences. Special study sketching, leisure reading, wild abandon free writing, technology project time- not consuming but creating using technology.
Nature Study and Play. Family favorite! Outdoor time visiting the woods, public gardens, mountain hikes and bird refuge wetlands.
Thursday is our co-op day with friends!
Fridays will be a bit different after morning routines. Instead of read aloud we will have audiobooks and clean our home together. Then, in the afternoon we will have a new tradition of inviting friends to join us. Belle Ame is a word to describe this- it means beautiful soul. We gather to share and grow together in recognizing and appreciating the beauty of the world and each other.
Some days we will write, play lab with science inquiry or learn how to knit, have group hustle kindness service projects or cook a global dinner for our families to share. We will hold a space for new friendships and new adventures without scheduling each Friday.
Each term we will have oral exams and organize our reading baskets for the next term.
The dotted lines are a rotation daily.
The boxes with children’s reading genres is for daily independent or partner reading.
Our screen time is for technology creation. My children type their imaginative stories on google docs. They each have a technology project. The girls have digital art with Canva and Procreate. One son will create a podcast with content development, recording and editing. The other is exploring architecture with legos and Minecraft, sketching floor plans and Sketch Up.
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