Why We Start School In July and a Sampling of our Day

Today was our first day of school and I often get asked why we begin our school year in July, so i thought I would share the benefits and why it works for us (and maybe you too?):

1. It gets to stinken hot to go outside and if we have to stay in, why not do some school work?
2. The kids have some summer camps that are educational, so by supplementing them with some school, we can count it as one of our school days
3. We like to end our year earlier by the end of April and enjoy the nice Spring weather
4. Taking off in the fall for vacation without any guilt since we are already ahead of the game
5. The flexibility alloted to do a 3 or 4 day week or have time to get sick and still be on time to finish
6. I'm not gonna lie, it sure is nice when public schools begin and we already have 30 or so days completed


So......... what does a homeschool day look like? No two days are ever the same, but we do try and maintain a schedule (this year I made the kids each their own and they loved checking their progress and working ahead) and here is today:




The kids were up at 7:45ish and had to make their beds and get dressed.

Then we went downstairs and had cereal and Bible time. We also went over our new schedules and our Family verse for the school year.


We started with Science at 8:45. This year the older two are both doing Apologia's Junior astronomy and bonus-- we all do it together!

Once Science was done, I did a reading and handwriting lesson with my daughter while my son did his art lesson (He is doing How Great Thou Arts Joseph and the Goose (http://www.howgreatthouart.com/products/5.html).

Then we did my daughter's math and my older and younger son played together. My older son did language arts and handwriting while my daughter did her art lesson and then she played with her younger brother. She is doing an etiquitte/art book http://www.howgreatthouart.com/products/7.html.

After that we all did Mystery of History and then the kids made some river landscape collages. This was a lot of fun as most early civilizations began around a river.

We did plan on going to the library before lunch, but someone had a meltdown and had to spend some time in her room cleaning it up, so I did my older sons math and we use singapore math http://www.singaporemath.com/. He also did it super fast, so he practiced piano while I began making lunch and put some laundry in.



We had leftover quinoa fajitas for lunch-- yay for cleaning out the fridge and eating healthy!



Everyone helped clean up lunch by running out the recyclables, wiping the table and sweeping the floor-- many hands make the work light.


Then, we left for the library around noon and stayed for about 45 minutes. The kids are doing summer reading at the library so they were excited to get a new free book-- nice first day of school prize, huh?

Afterwards we came home and read some books on space, creation, and then a chapter from Caddie Woodlawn. I found these adorable free paperdolls for my daughter to act out the story with http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/kids/dolls/caddie/clothes.asp. Then, thankfully, the younger two took naps while my older son read and I worked on some 31 things and cleaned the bathroom.

Thats our day and now we are off to make dinner and get ready for VBS!