Our Day

Duncan, AKA Doodle, is my ten-year-old fifth grader.

I have tried scheduling our school day several ways, and we accomplish more (less falls through the cracks) when our days pretty much follow the same pattern.

Currently, we are sort of doing two sessions. First we are reading together, Doodle is doing oral narration & recitation, and we are covering our poet and artist. This is our time that is the most Charlotte Mason. We do this either on the couch or in my bed. This week this includes:

Macbeth (Today he read Act2 Scene1 to me.)

The Story of Science (Today I read a couple of pages of chapter 9 to him.)

Fallacy Detective (I read chapter 10 to him.)

Parallel Worlds (He read a couple of pages to me.)

Norman Rockwell: Story Teller with a Brush (He read silently and looked at pictures.)

Robert Frost (We have Poetry for Young People: Robert Frost and A Swinger of Birches. Today I read two poems to Doodle.)

Doodle narrates and recites as we go. He is working on memorizing for recitation Macbeth’s soliloquy from Act2 Scene1, so narration for Macbeth was short today as he already knew a chunk of the scene. He is also working on memorizing The Road Not Taken.

I am not particular about the order of completing his morning work. I pretty much just let him choose what he wants to do next. Even without dawdling, this takes about an hour and a half or more.

Then, we go to the game room where Doodle goes from things on the computer to worksheets in his not-CM, green folder to his CM style study of ancient Egypt. Real Science 4 Kids Chemistry 2 in PDF format, Easy Peasy Chemistry and Physics Level M, Classics for Kids (currently Aaron Copland), Derek Owens Alg2, and Write at Home Composition all have at least a portion on the computer. I had the bindings cut off of his workbooks and put a week of hole-punched sheets in each green folder. This includes Evan-Moor Daily Paragraph Editing, Evan-Moor Read and Understand Poetry, Evan-Moor Daily Math, Holt Elements of Language Practice Book, MCP Spelling Workout, MCP Plaid Phonics & Word Study, EMC Write-In Reader, and World Geography and You- Eastern Hemisphere. He is also doing a modified Tanglewood Yr5 Ancient Egypt, so he typically reads a few pages in The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt and writes a short one or two sentence narration, and/ or does some map work/ geography, and/ or works on a leader page.

Alg2 Homework

EMC Write-In Reader

Last week's written narration for Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt

During this time, I pretty much stay in the game room with him. Again, I don’t care about the order of completion. This all takes about three hours or so.

So, our seat work is completed in five hours or less, because my son can only spend about five hours on seat work and retain the information.

We are late starters, so sometimes we eat lunch after our first session. On other days, we break for lunch some time during our game room session. Even if we don’t stop for lunch after the first session, we take a break between the two and take the dog out. While I make lunch, Doodle usually touches an instrument. (That is what I call it when he just spends enough time to play scales or chords and noodle a bit.)

Cute Dog :)

In the afternoon, he reads and practices violin and mandolin. During the week, he has an orchestra practice, a private violin lesson, a private mandolin lesson, a math tutoring session, and a volleyball practice. Although we have totally given up on nature study for this fall, we do go to the park one afternoon each week if it is between 55 and 85 degrees. When we get in the car to go to these places, Doodle has begun listening to German on CD. At this point, it is nothing major and nothing we do outside of the car.

Doodle is in the front row to the right and under the conductor's arm.

Violin lesson

Duncan hitting the blur of a ball. Love the hair!