This Homeschooling Life #19

I felt like we hit the ground running this month, in terms of homeschooling terms at least. We’ve really settled into our new rhythm and it’s working so well. Years of trying to do things the other way around, often lead to stressful days and not much getting done. Letting them have time to themselves in the morning, while I work or potter around the house, and then tackling school work in the afternoon works SO much better… that’s the joy of single parenthood – no one to tell you what you *should* be doing!!

This month, our book club book was ‘A Wrinkle In Time‘ so we also worked on a mini space project whilst we were reading through the book. We spent some time reading the resources on Space on the BBC Bitesize website {mainly the KS3 stuff as the KS2 was too basic even for Baya}, we made some posters about our Solar System and watched a few documentaries all about Space too. The girls loved it, and it was great to tie in some science alongside the book we were reading.

We also decided to add in another read aloud book each month – I’ve really enjoyed reading the book club book altogether the past few months, and while we often read some bedtimes stories, I wanted to add in another book each month. We schedule in some read aloud time most days, usually mid-morning once I’ve finished my work, before we have lunch. This month, we finished our set book in the first half of the month, and then also read Pippi Longstockings together. I’m planning on working my way through some more classic books over the coming months.

What else have we done this month? Some Maths {the girls still use 10Ticks, works really well for us}, spellings {we had space themed spellings this month!}, Reading Eggs, lots of baking, arts and crafts, hours spent practicing gymnastics, play dates, museum visits, lapbooks, home ed groups…. even on weeks when I don’t *feel* like we’ve done much, when I look back so much actually happens every day. Sometimes, it’s in those quiet, down days when they learn the most – when they’re busy investigating things that they love, working on their own projects and following their passions – that’s what I want for my kids, a childhood that’s magical, where learning is fun and natural, and time to explore what it is they love.

I spent a little time yesterday mapping out the rest of March, making some plans of what we’re going to study and focus on and building a basic framework of what the month will look like.

This Homeschooling Life is a linky for you to share either a week, a day or just a moment from your life as a homeschooling family. We are hoping it will be a really nice way to discover new blogs and learn how we all do things differently.