Our Homeschool Schedule

Since things have changed so much since we started HSing in November (WOW, so long ago already!) I thought I would give you our current set up!


I dont start school at a particular time, mainly because Luke hasn't figured out our schedule, but we do always try to get it done in the morning.

Eat Breakfast
Get Dressed
Start school:

Pleadge of Allegiance
Girl Scout Pledge (because she is learning it for one of her petals)
Bible: Studying God's Word Book B-Right now we are learning about creation
Math-Horizon's K book 2
Reading-Spectrum and HOP K
Phonics-Spectrum K and Explode the Code B1
Writting and Penmanship-Writing with Diligence Grade 1 and she journals.

All together it takes us about 2.5 hours from start to finish with no breaks. You might be asking why we aren't doing any science or history. This is mainly because when I first started out I wanted to make sure that we were covering the three R's. Now as I have gotten more comfortable I have decided an actual curriculum is not necessary for those just yet. Next year we may add them in but I haven't decided yet. I usually try to write up our weekly lesson plan on Saturdays and even though we don't always get everything done, it at least gives us a goal to work towards.

There you have it!

Exploding the Code!

Ok I LOVE LOVE this book. It somehow fits perfect with what we are doing on HOP. Today Brianna had to look at the picture and then write what it was. She did this all by herself! You can not imagine how easy it is to get excited over them having these victories but it is such a blessing to see her grasping what we are doing and of course she gets so excited too!

No More Reading Woes!!

My Brianna just picked up her workbook that comes with the HOP program and read a lesson that she had never seen! She is finally understanding how to decode the words rather than just memorizing them! I am so proud!

Just a quickie

Just an update on school this week.

Reading and Phonics-
Brianna made it through the next two word families in her HOP program. So we now know -at, -ap, and -an. Of course we are still working on fluency and I imagine a bit of it is memorization as opposed to actual "reading", but I consider it a start in the right direction!

Math-
Flowing as usual. We started counting to 40 and she seems to already have it down pretty well. Keira surprised me by counting to 20 with us. I guess she has learned from listening. We continue to work on addition which she excels at.

Writing-
I have been terrible. We have been focusing so much on other things this week that we have only journaled once! I plan to get it back on par this coming week. She enjoys it so much.

Bible-
We continue to do memorization and I have some little work sheets. I have ordered a book that teaches the basics of our beliefs that I hope to have in the next week or so.

This brings me to my final thought. Science or no science this year? Brianna and Keira both have shown an interest in the stars and planets recently so my thoughts were to maybe start Apologia come July when we start our new "semester". I am just not sure if she is ready to add anything else since we are still finding our stride. I am sure some prayer will help me make the right decision.

AT Phonics Book

Now that we are using HOP to do Brianna's Phonics I decided it would be fun to do a lapbook to go with our first lesson "at" so here it is!

Now that we are using HOP to do Brianna's Phonics I decided it would be fun to do a lapbook to go with our first lesson "at" so here it is!

Dallas Mulls Daytime Juvenile Curfew

Dallas'
Public Safety Committee, eight members of Dallas' City Hall, is expected to soon
discuss expanding the juvenile curfew into daylight hours in the same way that
Hurst-Euless-Bedford did in
2008.
Dallas' current juvenile curfew law only covers the hours between 11
p.m. and 6 a.m. Sunday through Thursday. On Friday and Saturdays, the curfew
goes into effect at midnight.
Proponents of expanding the curfew want to
include the hours of 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and insist that if truancy can be
curtailed, so can crime. Mayor Pro Tem Elba Garcia said that in 2008, 63
percent of juvenile arrests took place during school hours and that the majority
of home burglaries in that year were caused by minors.
Officials with H-E-B
said unexcused absences dropped by nearly 10,000 since the curfew was
implemented in their district.
Officials with the Dallas
Independent School District said the daytime curfew might not only cut
crime, it would increase the attendance at Dallas' schools which would increase
money from the state.
There are, of course, the standard exemptions including
those students who are traveling to and from work or for those who have
graduated early.
Under the proposed plan, parents could be fined $500 if
their child is guilty of truancy -- one part of the plan that parents are
against since some say they can't control whether or not their child stays on
campus.
Dallas plans to hold a public hearing on the matter March 25 with a
final vote scheduled for April 22.

This is not good news for homeschoolers who could end up heading to court to prove that they are enrolled in school. Pray that this either does not pass or is written in a way that will allow for those who chose to use alternate education.

Copy Work and Starting Peter Rabbit Unit Studies

We started our unit study on Peter Rabbit this week. After looking at it I realized that she wasn't going to be able to follow some of it so, we ended up going ahead and doing our math instead of stopping it this week like I had planned. Anyways, we read Peter Rabbit and did the reading comprehension questions and she blew those away! I could not believe how much of the story she could tell me. I mean little details too! I was very proud of her. We also made paper plate bunnies. They are hung on our word wall at the bottom where the grass is. Today we did some work in her new journal. This was the first time we had done this so I wasn't sure she would tolerate so much writing, but she did! She drew a picture and then we thought of a short description which I wrote and she copied. She did great.

Tomorrow is usually a day at MDO but I have a feeling we will be home so we will making cupcakes and using M&M's to decorate them while we talk about what we are thankful for.




Yes she drew that picture all by herself. The small smile is Peter and the big one Mr Mcgreggor. The other things on the ground are veggitables and fruits. In the sky we have the sun, clouds and birds.