Preparing for our School Year Using MS Excel (Part 1)

In my past life, I used MS Excel for reports and such in a business setting.  It's a format that I'm comfortable and familiar with, so it's where I keep a lot of my "record" type things.  It's also where I think through a lot of my planning, and it's where all of my year-long or term-long planning lives!

We use a loose 6 week on/1 week off plan, sometimes called "Sabbath schooling."  We like to start school at the end of June/beginning of July, because in the mid-south of Tennessee, it is brutally hot and humid by that point.  To save us from a Summer of screen-time, we take our Summer break in Spring, starting at about the beginning of May, and going for 6-8 weeks.  (I like six, but visitors from out of town, and VBS happened... so it was eight this year!)  That means we usually have a short term between Thanksgiving & Christmas (about three weeks - our Advent Session) and another short term (Spring Session) at the end of the year.

Once I figure all of that out, I put it into an Excel form, so it looks like this.

This is last year's document, so you can see how it looks filled in.  I just have a projection up top, because it helps me.  You could certainly do just one.  Peach blocks are weekends, and blue blocks are planned days off.  Yellow blocks are days we had Co-Op, and the two orange days are when we went on an unexpected trip.

I've used formulas to count how many times "p" (for present) is marked in each month, a total number of days and weeks remaining and completed.  If you're familiar with Excel, you'll probably be able to figure that out, but if not, just leave a comment and I'll help you out!

In addition to attendance, there are a couple things I plan for each school term.  The children rotate some of their chores each term, so I always put out a new chore sheet (on the refrigerator.)  Here's what the upcoming term's chores look like.

In addition to chores and attendance, I am trying something new for our first term.  I have planned out meals for the next seven weeks.  I rotate breakfasts and lunches to an extent - different muffins and smoothies, I might put different things in our scrambled eggs.  There's a three week lunch rotation, and I stick to things I can serve cold during the summer, because turning on the oven during the hottest part of the day is a big No-No!  Dinner isn't repeated exactly on any of the nights, because my husband appreciates variety! 

Here's what it looks like:

I'll be back soon to talk about how I format our actual school plans into Excel!

Celebrating the End of Our Homeschool Year

We homeschool somewhat year-round, taking one long break of about six weeks each year.  Even though our break is shorter than many, we still like to take the opportunity to celebrate.

We like to go out for a treat on our last day of school.  This year it was donuts.  We also like to plan a fun activity.  The "fun activity" this year was a little different, because we got that early morning call from the post office to come pick up the new batch of chicks for my oldest's egg business.  So, our last day was spent getting them settled in, and enjoying the fluffy fun of new farm animals.

We participated this year in our homeschool support group's end of year program.  It happened a few weeks after we were finished, but we set up a table displaying some things we had done.  We participated in the program portion, as well.  My kindergartner, true to the reality of homeschooling for many of us, didn't know he was in kindergarten until a few weeks before the end of school. He got to do a cute little K graduation, and he played a song he "wrote" on the piano, which was about ten notes long.  One of my girls recited a Hilaire Belloc poem, and the other sang a song she has been writing.  It was a fun way to see what others had been doing this year.

The biggest tradition for our family, however, is that we have an at-home program.  The kids do a little performance (this year it was like a rehearsal for the support group's program.)  We give them promotion certificates.  We say a little bit about how each one of them has grown and matured over the year, academically and otherwise.  My favorite part, however, is the last bit, where my husband prays, thanking God for the opportunities for growth in our completed school year, and praying over the year to come.  The kids' favorite part is probably the fondue dinner we have while we watch a movie afterward.

Next year, I'm hoping to add a little photo slideshow in to our at-home program.

How do you celebrate the end of the year?

Summer Break Chores

Our family has four children, ages 4, 6, 7, and 8.  We homeschool, so our daily chores don't change too much. Summer break is a good time for getting back in to good habits, or developing new ones, though.  When we start back to school, I also like for us to start with a clean, organized home.  Even though by the end of our term, it will need it again!

Here are the chores, and when we do them.  I include morning hygeine as chores, because some of my children like to freshen up upon waking and greet the day with a (clean) smile, but others would probably not notice if they wore the same clothes for a week.

On a laminated chart on the refrigerator, they are reminded to do the following before breakfast (which is at 9:00 in the summer.)  These are things they can all do on their own.

• Get Dressed
• Brush Hair
• Brush Teeth
• Make Bed
• Bring down dirty laundry

We then eat breakfast and each child has a meal chore to do afterwards.  

• 8 yo - Sweep kitchen floor
• 7 yo - Unload dishwasher
• 6 yo - Clear and wipe table
• 4 yo - Help Mom load dishwasher

After that, they have a few housekeeping/farm chores to do.  

• 8 yo - Check chicken feed & water
• 7 yo - Feed and water rabbits
• 6 yo - Feed cats
• 4 yo - Mist lemon and lime tree with spray bottle
• All - Tidy up bedrooms

Later, after lunch, we have a different rotation of meal chores, and the 8 yo, who has an egg business also has to collect eggs.  It looks like this.

• 8 yo - Load dishwasher & collect eggs
• 7 yo - Clear table
• 6 yo - Use handheld vacuum where needed around table
• 4 yo - Wipe table

The last scheduled chore is a 5 minute tidy.  We have a rotation of five rooms, so each child is in a different room.  They get to their place, I start a five minute timer and yell "GO!"  We stop when the timer is done.  I usually help wherever the four year old is.  

When we're keeping up with these things over break, everything stays looking neat!  

Summer Routine for Normal Days

Since I had four children within five years, we were always in a lot of stages at the same time, but everything was constantly changing.  I was always planning as changes were happening, and they happened rapidly.

In my process of planning for new ages and stages I have always made out a spreadsheet of 15 to 30 minute blocks, not as an actual schedule, but as a framework to help me budget our time.  Often, once I figured out what I needed and wanted to fit in to those time periods, I wouldn't even look at the spreadsheet again.  I'm still using those spreadsheets, though our rapidly changing stages have slowed a bit.

For our summer break, I knew I wanted to keep up with a few things - reading, math facts practice, and a mini Morning Time (Bible, Life of Fred, and a read-aloud.)  I also needed to get some of the housework under control, do some chore training, and make sure to fit in exercise and reading for myself.

Our plan is for Normal Days.  A Normal Day might only happen once or twice a week, and I'm okay with that.  We just work best with a routine when we are home all day.  If grandparents come to visit, or we want to go swimming, or want to spend a few hours at the library, I'm not even a little hesitant to throw it out the window and enjoy Summer!

With all of that in mind, this is our Summer Routine for Normal Days.  It is laminated in spreadsheet form and hung on the refrigerator. This is an ideal.  We don't do all of those things all the time.  Life happens.  I'm pretty sure I've only hit my movement loops and hobby loops three times in our first week and a half of break.

7:30 Bible, Coffee, Planning, Cook Breakfast (me)
9:00 Breakfast + Meal Chores
9:30 Daily Chores
10:00 Morning Time
10:30 Movement Loop - Treadmill, Yoga, Refit Revolution (me) Free Play - outside if it's not storming (kids)
11:30 Hobby Loop - Piano, Photography, followed by lunch prep (me)
12:30 Lunch + Meal Chores
1:30 Quiet Hour
2:30 Reading, Xtra Math
3:30 5 minute tidy, then MW - Girls pick 2 Netflix shows, boys ipad time.  TTh - Boys shows, girls ipad
4:30 Board Game
5:00 Upstairs Cleaning Loop (me)  Free Time (them)
6:30 Dinner + Meal Chores
7:30 Gardening, Animal Care, Outdoor Play
8:30 Baths, Family Music/Reading/Movie
9:30 Bedtime

The next post will be about what all of our Summer chores look like this year.

Philosophy Confusion and Summer Reading

When we started thinking about homeschooling, I had very little exposure to other homeschoolers.  There were two families at our church who were graduating their youngest children about the time we were getting started.  One of them gave me some tips, like to combine in the subjects where it made sense.  I had four babies in five years. Combining history and science made a lot of sense.  Like most homeschool moms do, I think, who know they want to homeschool, I started too soon.  She was "ready," she was excited, she was an early talker, she loved books.  Still, I know that I pushed.  Doesn't everyone say that they wish they had waited?  I'm another of those.

I didn't really have a philosophy.  I looked at blogs and catalogs, at Ambleside Online and Sonlight.  For reasons I don't recall, what I knew of Classical Education (basically nothing) painted it as rigid and joyless in my mind.  Charlotte Mason?  All I remember knowing about CM was "hours out of doors" and "living books."  Nothing concrete, nothing I actually understood or could dig in to.

In addition to our own four small children, we had the boys at the children's home.  We were working a (very) full-time job.  We were so. busy.  I did too much, and didn't really learn any about the philosophies.  I had good ideas, we read good books, we did a year of Sonlight, a year of Heart of Dakota, and a couple years of making it up as I went.  Now, as my oldest is pushing into upper elementary, I'm feeling the need to plant ourselves.  To find a philosophy that feeds our family's vision for homeschool.  I think the place we can put down roots and nourish our vision is on the Charlotte Mason side of Classical Education.  All of the children are old enough for me to read again, and my brain is un-fogging a bit so that I think I might be able to figure this philosophical stuff out a bit.  As long as I take notes.

Here's the summer reading list I hope will get me a little closer.

Consider This by Karen Glass (currently on Chapter 8)
For the Children's Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
The Liberal Arts Tradition by Ravi Jain and Kevin Clark
The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer (Not related, but on my list!)

I'm sure I won't get to it before we are back to school at the end of June, but Josef Piper's Leisure: The Basis of Culture  is next on my list after those.

Are you doing any reading for professional development this summer?

How We Got Here (And Where We Are)

The children and I are entering our fifth year of "official" homeschooling.  When my oldest, now 8, was a wee little thing, I talked my dear, patient husband into the idea of home education.  Neither of us had a particularly positive public school experience, we couldn't afford a private school where the children would be allowed to pray and hear about God, but mostly I just couldn't imagine being apart from this sweet tiny girl.  (Or her sister and brothers, as they came along.)  So, when she was two or three (!) I went to my first home school convention, and started circling things in the gigantic Rainbow Resource catalog.  We started having something akin to "Morning Time," though I hadn't yet heard of it.  I had been reading to her all along.

A few weeks after the oldest turned three, my husband and I started working at a children's home.  We were houseparents, living with and caring for boys.  They attended public school, but all of the other staff children were home schooled.  It was an easy reason to give to those who questioned us, to say that it was a good way to spend time with our own children, since our afternoons, evenings, and weekends were very busy.  

I still give that reason, and it is a valid one.  One that people can easily comprehend when I can see that the idea of home education concerns them.  However, it's not nearly the greatest reason that we chose this path.  Spending my days with these growing people, having the time with them to see their strengths and weaknesses, and to help them with both.  That's a reason. Watching them as they learn, and grow, and make connections.  That's a reason.  Introducing them to the Creator, to Christ, to the Word.  That's a reason.  Also, I like them a lot!  

When that oldest girl was four, with an early October birthday, we started Kindergarten.  I couldn't wait any longer.  (If you want to know - yes, I wish I would have waited!)  She was already reading and writing.  I had a 3 year old, 2 year old, and a nursing six-month old.  Plus, a passel of additional boys and a job.  Why wait??  

So, she started, and it went fine.  (By "fine" I mean I was exhausted, but realistically that had little to do with homeschooling, and much to do with the busyness of life and my own health issues.)  We started with a math curriculum, and a reading curriculum, and an "open-and-go" curriculum for everything else, because I thought we had to do "everything else."  Two years later, her sister started.  We started a different "open-and-go" curriculum that they could do together.  A lot of that happened in Morning Time, which we called Marshmallow Time, because I bribed the little boys to participate by giving them mini-marshmallows at the end. What didn't happen in Marshmallow Time was saved for nap time.

The day before Thanksgiving, the year that our second child entered Kindergarten, we moved from South Carolina to Tennessee.  My husband began to work as a farm manager for his step-father and mother's cattle farm, and we moved in to the farmhouse that his step-dad grew up in.  We moved from a campus of five families with a total of 19 children, in addition to the boys who were living there, to a farm with many acres, but few neighbors.  None with young children.  We missed our people.  It has taken time to get used to the relative isolation, but we have found a good church, and a good homeschool group.  We have made friends, and life has slowed down. 

We just completed our first entire school year here on the family farm.  We're on a seven week break.  Our third child, a boy who thrives in this environment, just finished Kindergarten.  The girls are entering the second and fourth grades.  The "baby" is four, and in just one more year they'll all be in school.  That makes my heart ache a little, but the ages they are now, all between four and eight... it's a beautiful place.  

They still think that I'm brilliant.  They all still want to snuggle up with me.  They spend most of their free time outside.  They know me well, and when asked by their Sunday School teacher what my favorite thing to do was, the three youngest said "sleep," "read," and "drink coffee on the porch."  That's pretty accurate.

We read a lot.  We go on walks, go fishing, look for snakes and crayfish and grasshoppers, and picking wildflowers.  The youngest is nervous that he will be "alone" in Sunday School this year.  The oldest is already looking forward in several years to being in our church youth group.  I'm looking forward to the teen years, and dreading them leaving home, but I love where we are right now.  

Who I Am and Why I'm Here

I'm Amy.  I'm a Christian homeschooling Mom to four children, ages 4, 6, 7, and 8, as of this post. We just finished our fourth school year, and I have students entering grades 1, 2, and 4.  I love people, research, reading, tacos, coffee, sweet tea, chocolate, spreadsheets, paperwork, and the outdoors.

I intend for this to be a chronicle of our lives, and mostly our home education.  Welcome!