looking schooly

I wanted to describe what we usually do in our homeschooling day because I agree from just looking at the schedule that it looks schooly.


Voice/Yoga

For voice practice Z and I do some yoga stretching and then Z, either lying on her back or on a workout ball, practices singing a couple songs.

Music

During breakfast I play a cd of music and I check my emails while we listen. We listen to all kinds of music. Sometimes if the music has lyrics Z likes to read along. We talk about the composer, if there is something to say about him or her.


Math

Math is usually out of a workbook. Right now she is doing a work book of word problems based on a variety of restaurant menus. On Fridays we play math related board or card games or I read her a math related book or we do a mathy activity, like measuring and comparing or origami.


Language Arts

This is a new subject we are adding this year. Z does one page from her Daily Grammar work book, that takes 5 minutes. For the rest of the half an hour we do different things on different days. She might have a spelling test (she likes spelling and spelling bees) or she might write a postcard to a friend or send them an email, or she might practice her cursive handwriting.

Science

This is Z's favorite subject. Right now we are studying the human body. She has a Children's Human Body Encyclopedia that she reads from and then we do various activities during the week based on her reading. She likes to watch a movie and take the quiz on Brainpop. Sometimes she write a "report" on the topic. Sometimes we do a hands on project.

Japanese

She does some Hiragana writing. Z is very proud of how well she writes in Hiragana and loves working on this if it is for short periods. Then she sings some Japanese songs that she learned into the mic on her karaoke machine. Then we make up stories using our vocabulary words and tell them to each other.

Social Studies

Social Studies incorporates History, Geography, and World Cultures.

In these early year much of our "history" starts with retelling of Myths from various cultures. This year we are staring with Vikings and the Norse Myths. After we finish reading D'Aulaire's Norse Gods and Heroes we will do some hands on activities like writing runes, designing Thor's hammer amulets, drawing pictures from the stories, etc. Knowing Z she will probably want to act out some of the stories too. After Vikings we are going to story the Middle Ages.

For geography we will do something like put pins on her U.S. map of all the places she has been. Or trace where the Vikings sailed on the world map.

World Cultures comes in when we celebrate holidays from other cultures or go to an international children's film festival and then do some follow up learning at home.

Reading

This is done sitting on the couch or the chair by the window together. We do informal vocabulary lessons when she comes across a word she doesn't know.

Art

We are going to be studying pastels. Z found out at the D'Orsay museum in Paris that she loves pastels. For this we sit out on the patio and paint or we go to the local park.