The "Flow" of our Day!

I've had a lot of questions about the "Flow" of our day. What we do, how we are set up, and how I keep track of everything. So if your interested, read on. If not, just skip to the next post ;-)

First off... this is my little homeschool corner:



I also have a bookshelf (beside it), another bookshelf in the laundry room, and each of the kids have bookshelves in their rooms, filled full. I've tried really hard to contain all my home school stuff into one visable room (instead of the alternative - which would be taking over my entire house!)

We start every morning with the Pledge of Allegiance, then onto our calendar board.



Here we cover the date, the color of the day (and sing the color song so we can learn to spell it), our address and phone number, we make the date with money, the weather (we sing and graph the weather for the day), how many days in school (covering place value), memory verse, skip counting, and lastly, our shape of the day).

Each child also has their own school binder, with their own calendar things in it. They all have the weather graph, and Enoch also has place value (days in school), make the date with money, his own calendar, and a page to write the date.


Then we move on to group time, which everyday is different. I make a calendar for the week with the things listed that we need to cover. It looks like this:

From 3rd Week of School

(Don’t let all those “FREE”s fool you. Thursday is NOT a free day, but they don’t have workboxes that day [I’ll explain that later]. Instead, we spend the entire day on our major art project for the week [an art piece from the country we are studying] and working with the Russell’s on our Christmas Cantata!)

We do Bible, geography, science, history, music, and art all together as a family.


Then its off to workbox time! I have a drawer set aside in my filing cabinet for the kids. Each child has a color of file folders assigned to them and they are given up to 12 folders to complete a day. Each folder has a number on it. They are also given a workbox strip, with numbers 1-12. They go to the file drawer, get out folder number 1, do whatever is in the folder, then take the number 1 off their strip, attach it to the folder, and put it in a little black crate next to the filing cabinet to signify its done. Then they move onto number 2, and they work all the way through the folders- then the school day is over! These folders contain a lot of their core subjects (grammar, writing, reading, math, math drills, spelling, etc), but also fun stuff, (like PE, snack, and any fun activity I think they would enjoy [Enoch made a flying pig the other day]), to help give them a little fun time to help the break up the day. I will be honest, it is A TON of work to fill these every night (it takes me about ½ an hour)… but it helps the day run smoother. Each child picked their own character at the start of the year. I love it that Enoch picked Inspector Gadget (that was my favorite when I was his age), and can you guess who picked Hannah Montana?

From 3rd Week of School

As far as planning for this, my weekly planner has little numbers off to the side, and I color coded my children, so I know which activity goes in which folder for the day.

From 3rd Week of School

Then for my legal requirements, the state of MO only requires that you complete 1200 school hours- and keep a log of said hours, and a sample of some of their work. So the first week I was finding it hard to keep track of those hours, I needed a system. So I created this sheet:

From 3rd Week of School

I keep it beside me as we work, so I can easiy jot down how much time we are spending doing what. At the top there is a space for the date, and our core hours (as listed by the state law):

From 3rd Week of School

Then on down is a list of the non-core hours that we usually do, and a little note section to keep track of any important things we did that week:

From 3rd Week of School

It has helped my day flow so much smoother!
I hope that has answered some of your questions, and encouraged you today!

DISCLAIMER: Let it to be known that we do NOT school Mon-Fri, but instead, Tue-Sat. We decided God wanted us to homeschool for 2 MAIN reason. Number 1: to put God first in EVERYTHING. Number 2: Family! Adam works Tue-Sat, so thats when we school. We don't school when Dads off. That way, Mon is left for our family day!