With the new year we have purposefully combined our family in as many subjects as possible. Think Little House on the Prairie meets the RowLee family. We sit together, read together, do math together (older helps younger, or younger listens to older). We have the occasional separate studies like Rocket Phonics for Joseph and Emma. To keep my materials ready to hand I converted Makayla’s workbox crate into a family workbox. Our subjects have a set order this week and so the hanging file folders of the workbox reflect that. I will not need to refill them all week as I put all the assignments in the folder for the week. Here is what is in the family workbox:
{1} Gospel – First in our day we read and talk about a scripture story. Today was the tower of babel. We then practice a song we are learning. This week it is “I Know That My Savior Loves Me”. We recite our current scriptures we are memorizing. This week those are:
“We Believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.” (Articles of Faith 1:1)
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
“For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.” (Job 19:25)
{2} Skip count song – this week it is skip counting by 3’s to the tune of Jingle Bells (thank you Math U See!).
{3} Arithmetic – We are using the abacus we made for our review of Ray’s Primary Arithmetic with Joseph, Emma, and Daniel, and White’s First Book of Arithmetic with Makayla. It is all oral and hands on with the abacus, and we add in 5 minutes at our big dry erase boards working problems (for Makayla) and drawing items to match numbers (the younger kids). The younger kids went first and Makayla, after watching me work with one child, was able to work with the others. Then they in turn watched Makayla work bigger problems on her abacus. I loved that this math time was short and nobody complained!
{4} Ancient Egypt Unit Study – Today we learned about the Nile river and made a fold out river with informational pictures glued beside it explaining how it was used. 
We read part of Ms. Frizzle’s Adventures: Ancient Egypt, then the children were each given a different Egypt related book to flip through and find their favorite pages to share with the group. Makayla also did the first problem for her pyramid math game.
{5} Simple Machines Unit Study – Today we read two books about Inclined Planes snuggled up on the couch. Of course, that would be 
the time Oliver picked to dirty his diaper, so midway through the second book Makayla took over the reading aloud while I changed Oliver. The younger kids then played with our marble run toy (lots of inclined planes!) while Makayla filled in a quick lapbook piece about inclined planes first.
{6} Signing Time – Today we watched “Who Has the Frog?” and worked on question words like who, what, which ,where, and why. This combined with snack time as a nice break in our morning.
{7} Geography/Rocket Phonics – This is where we split up. Makayla did her geography page while I had Joseph and then Emma read aloud to me. Have I said before how much they love Rocket Phonics? I’ll say it again: They love Rocket Phonics!
{8} FactsFirst/Freedom – Makayla is helping me review a this online math subscription. The younger kids are free at this point. Today was Makayla’s first day with FactsFirst so she made her character, did some math, and had 5 minutes in the games area (all controlled by the computer – not me). So far so good.
{9} Worship Guitar – this is the only thing left for today and Makayla will do it once she is out of quiet time.
The family workbox was great, we had all the things we needed for each lesson and the kids could see what was next in the plan. Day 136 is done!
We also had some incidental math for Makayla as she got some play money for Christmas and decided to pay for her food at lunch. She asked how much each item was and had to pay for it with exact change. It was funny to see, but she wanted to do it.
Of course, she also is asking about earning money for chores, so we’ve got to figure out how we want to handle that! Any suggestions?
6 comments:
Has your recent reading of teaching in a rural school inspired the family learning style?
Our family has strived to learn in this fashion, almost from the start.
It helps to keep us all going in one direction!
have a great day!
I love the new family work box ideas. As for the money and chores I just thought I would share what we do. Each child has chores that they do because they are part of our family, no money is given for these. I also have a list of age appropriate chores that can be done for money. If they are done correctly they earn money for that job. Extra jobs can only be done after family chores are done and need to be done correctly in order to earn money
Yes it did! We have always enjoyed combining for unit studies, but I had not thought about trying to have everyone participate in things like math together, where everyone hears what the other lessons are, even if they are too old or young for it.
April - thanks for the chores/money ideas. We are talking over possibilities. We have always had the children do lots of chores just as part of the family. We're considering a wage that would be paid according to their week's work and attitude in both chores and homeschool, but I do not know yet. I'm sure it will take a while for us to figure out what we'll do... much to my daughter's dismay!
Sounds like a full and busy day! I love the photo of all 4 working at the table together.
Woweee you do all that in a day? What a woman! I'm impressed. I have four kids, the oldest is 5, so I'm looking around for ideas on good resources for homeschool. Thanks for your blog, I happened upon it and have bookmarked it!
:) Laura
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