Homeschooling With Baby :)

I was reading some of my posts and realized I should update what is actually working for us now. Baby is now 9 months old, and the girls are 2nd and 7th grade. When we are home (which now is 4 of 5 mornings a week now, yeah!), it goes something like this:

Gracie (2nd grade) Elli (7th grade)
9-10 LLATL yellow, 2 pages 9:30-10:30 Online class- World Languages
-I get them started here and if I didn't get a shower yet, I rush up to take one about 9. Baby usually takes a nap somewhere around 9:30. If he isn't napping yet, I might stick him in the exersaucer in front of the tv/dvd and let him watch his movie. I know, pathetic. I don't like babies or young kids watching tv. But it's educational and interactive. This one is "Teach Your Baby to Read", which I know, sounds horrible and controlling. But it was cheaper to get that set for $79.95 with Usborne books instead of $100-200 for the Baby Einstein set at Costco. I got a discount as a "show" with their party-plan, but I also get a wholesale discount because I signed up as a personal use consultant. Anyway. I'm trying this out. He LIKES it, and if he learns to read as a bonus, great. I am happy he likes looking at the kids and babies in the video. I love it that it has songs and fingerplays that he LOVES (who knew a baby would like the Itsy Bitsy Spider and Head Shoulders Knees and Toes). Anyway, I can stick him in front of that and he'll be happy. Sometimes he fusses because he's bored after a while and wants another song so one of the girls comes in to check out the situation and usually it's starting the next song anyway. If not, they skip it to the next song for him. Buys me enough time for a quick shower anyway!!
When I'm done with that, I come down and see where everyone is at. Sometimes Grace needs me to do Spelling Bee or quiz with her, or "discussion with teacher". I play with baby and teach her at the same time. After a few more fingerplays or patacakes, I'm usually bouncing him or rocking him to sleep as Grace and I are discussing something. I take him upstairs, sneak him into his crib and come back down. I do some dishes, clean up, check email or whatever until the next mini-lesson is needed.

10-11 Grace works on Just Write (book 1), and Italic Handwriting. To mix things up, I
might have her write a penpal or use Kidspiration software to make a storymap or "report". If her hands are too tired that is-I don't always dispute that. We're starting memory work again.
10:30-11:30 Elli starts her Usborne Adventures in Literature. (It's one of their 10 Terrific Weeks curriculum sets.) It's very clearly marked Monday-Friday what to do.
-Elli has a journaling topic and assignment in the Adventures in Literature. She likes to write pages rather than paragraphs so she often takes longer than necessary. I try to steer her away from this and rephrase assignment topics to help her unlock her Writer's Block or narrow her focus.....She loves to write but instead of this being fun, sometimes it's a chore because she wants to write so much (instead of the little paragraph they have in mind). Drives me crazy knowing she's a great writer and seeing her sit there sulking about this. When she eventually turns in her work, we're amazed and love to see the results of her being stretched in these specific lessons having to do with plot, imagery, developing the characters, etc. Baby Karson usually wakes up sometime this hour (short 1/2 hr-1 hr nap). When Grace is done, she gets free time until 11. She also has to take the dog potty sometime around here. Suddenly I see it's 11 or quickly approaching and say it's time for Story of the World.

11:00 Story of the World for Grace 11:30 Online Lit/Comp class for Elli
-Hopefully I've planned this out the day before at least, but sometimes during that 9 ish bouncing-baby-to-sleep time at the table, or the last 5 minutes I've given Grace to play outside before starting SOTW. At any rate, we start right about 11. The first day we read a section of the chapter, answer the discussion questions from the activity book, and she does a dictation of that section. Then we try to do something more fun. Depending on how much other writing she's done in her other classes, I may have her do the mapwork, or do one of the crazy things like build a cocoapuff-melted marshmallow "stone" castle, or make Chinese paper lanterns, etc. They're fun and easy to do with stuff I have on hand. I have looked at chunks of chapters ahead of time and starred the activities I think we're going to do (based on appeal, ease of finding materials, etc). Sometimes they're more complicated types of things that I need to purchase specific stuff for, so on a Monday I usually notice that activity and plan to do it later in the week on Wed or Friday. I buy the stuff Monday or Tuesday afternoon.

12:00 The girls make lunch together. They make sandwiches, grilled cheese and soup, or heat up leftovers. I'm usually busy with baby at this point and I think it's good life skills for them. They usually include me in their lunch plans but occasionally forget and say "Sorry mom- didn't know you were hungry." Other times they serve me first and are really sweet about it. It totally varies. My main expectation is that they get their lunches made and eaten before we have to leave to take Elli to school. (She needs to be there anywhere between 12:15 and 1, so there is definate leeway there.)
We're working on Elli getting her chores done during this time, too, because on days when she goes straight to ballet after school, it's not getting done by 5 and I can't make dinner in a messy kitchen. I could clean the kitchen myself or make her sister do it but since unloading or loading the dishwasher is a reasonable expectation out of her, I'd rather make her develop the discipline of getting the task done on time. It's not working totally yet but I think we're making progress. I'm trying out different things like giving her more work to do or letting her sister do both jobs for her with Elli having to reciprocate that the next day.

1-ish we come back, have a little break, and then Grace does math. Sometimes Karson has fallen asleep in the carseat and we let him nap a whopping 10-30 minutes while Grace does math and I do laundry. She loves her math and is proud to show me what she's finished. I usually star what she gets right and give her a sticker on the main page and let her take a break until 2. Sometimes she's so quick and into her math, she'll do lots of assignments. Othertimes she'll do the one assignment and then take a 30 minute break reading a chapter book on her favorite step. Whatever, I'm flexible. I just want 1 math lessons done a day.

2-ish I take our cue from Grace. If she's tired and still reading a good book, I'll let her just read the rest of the afternoon. Or we might do more from Story of the World, do a BF History of Science or BF History of the Horse assignment (especially if it's a horse book she's been reading). Occasionally I'll realize she's dinking around playing Miuchiz or with toys, and ask her if she'd like to do something special like paint. (We have this great Painting like the masters kit. That's not the exact title I don't think but it's cool.) If it's been a long time since we've worked on one of those Beautiful Feet history guides, I'll just say "now it's time to do History of the (whichever)." Or we'll have a French Lesson. She's so easy and agreeable. It's so fun. Baby is Mr. Busy during this time, having floor time crawling, climbing, and trying to walk. Seriously! He walks behind one of those push toys already. It's crazy. He just turned 9 months old!!! (My girls didn't walk until closer to their 1st birthday.) He also likes to ride in the laundry basket full of clean clothes as I haul it into the living room. It's a boat! He likes to help me fold laundry by pulling out articles one at a time, waving it, and flinging it on the floor. Or unfolding what I've just put on the coffee table.

3-ish, school is officially done. There are rare moments when Grace has had free time ever since we dropped Elli off from school, and I realize oh! she'd better do some school. So I make her do her math and 1 free choice educational activity of her choice (but it no longer includes me). If she was reading a book that whole time, I might let that 1 free choice educational activity slide because it's not like she was goofing off from 12:30-3. But other times, she'll ask if she can play Typing Tutor on the computer or a math or something else from the Elementary Advantage pkg. So obviously I say yes to that! Instead of saying no, you're done with school for the day, why don't you come watch TV? By this time, I want a nap, baby is fussy and needs a real nap (as opposed to that cat nap he had when he fell asleep in the carseat), so I get him to settle down, plop down on the couch, and take a break. 3:40 Elli is home so I get back into mom mode and figure out what else needs to be done for the day, but "school" is over.

So this schedule is working out great. It has the flexibility I need but the structure to get everything done that is "required". I definately have to multi-task somewhat with a baby, but it's not bad at all. It was much harder when he was littler. I still juggle making the bottles, heating them up, etc, as I'm talking with someone or working through the next phase of an activity with Grace. Often it's during SOTW's dictation that he fusses and I have to do bottles and stuff and I'm repeating the line I gave Grace, or have to go change his diaper and come back to see she's copied the next sentence already (after looking in the book). I'm not majorly scientific about the dictation. I read it to her and give her correct spelling on major hard words or names (Abu Bakhr for example, which not looking it up I might have spelled wrong just now). Later in the week or month I might give her a true dictation where she has to do it without any help, if I see that we need to. She often gets it right anyway, so it's not really an issue to me. My goal is for her to have a correct paragraph completed that summarizes what we read. This cements that lesson in her mind, and simultaneously teaches her how to write a paragraph summary. Anyway, it's fun with baby. As the weather gets nicer, we'll take longer trips taking Elli to school and stopping at the park before heading home. One of these days I'll figure out how to go to the fitness center for a workout without messing up this routine.

I don't feel bad about using the afternoon as a time to run an errand or two while Grace and baby are in the car already. Combining errands, finding the "right" workbooks for us, and trying to keep a routine (if not an exact "schedule") are what make the difference for us. One day a week we're doing the parent partnership program now from 9-1:30 and the only thing I usually do for Grace after that is llatl since baby has fallen asleep on the way home and there's a window to do it easily.