The Children's Hour by Annie

"Between the dark and the daylight,

When the night is beginning to lower,

Comes a pause in the day's occupations,

That is known as the Children's Hour."

*Longfellow

This poem has been making the cinnamon roll circuit of my mind lately and has finally arrived in the middle. The middle being where action takes place.

There was little I needed to revamp for school this semester, fall went very smoothly (despite a very thorny Rose). The only curriculum things I altered were spreading a week of grammar out to two weeks (filling in with more journaling and poetry), and adjusting a few things on Avonlea's checklist. Avonlea really loves languages and cajoled me to let her take Spanish. She also is very interested in calligraphy. So I bought a Spanish course and a calligraphy book and gave her free hand in them.

The only major change I added was the addition in my day of a Children's Hour. I ask things of my children all day. They, for the most part, obey without grumbling. So many times when they ask me to do something with them I have a legitimate excuse, "Sweetheart, my hands are covered in chicken grease right now," "I don't really think a bike ride in 30 degree weather sounds appealing," "I hate monopoly." etc. So....I told them on Sunday night, that I am setting aside 3-4pm every day for them. NOT for their education, NOT for their nourishment, NOT for their laundry or dust-balls, but for THEM.

So this week, Avonlea, Grant, and I finish afternoon school, get the babes out of quiet time and discuss what we are going to do with our hour. The first day we played sardines (like hide and seek) for the whole time, Tuesday we played red-light green-light, mother-may-I (which I discovered they had never heard of), and duck-duck-goose. Today, they wanted to bake brownies.

So for one hour, I am theirs exclusively.........and it's the best spent hour of my day.

Planning - By Annie

This is about the time of year that I start thinking school, routine, and organization. What that means for me, and what it means for you will be two totally different things. Nonetheless, I feel like I answer the same questions countless times so I'll answer some of them here, for the record.

The first thing I do is buy or devise a planner. I personally block 12 weeks at a time, but some people are happy with 4 or even just 1 to experiment. So I mark out my weeks from now until Christmas. I give us some catch-up days because the unexpected is expected around here. Once I've mapped the days we will be doing school I look at where I want to go. Goals are good. Then I find my average and mark how much of what I need to be doing each day. For example: the nature book that I want Avonlea to finish this fall is 363 pages. I have 49 days of school scheduled for fall. That means she needs to read 8 pages a school day to make sure she's done by Christmas. Math on the other hand is just a lesson a day, finishing where ever we finish. I know that most curriculums are based on a 36 week school year so as long as we stay consistent we usually finish our work for the year on time.

Our day is divided into 2 sections; morning school which involves everyone, and afternoon school which is just Avonlea and Grant (while Rowan and Posy have quiet time). My morning time is very structured and my afternoon time less so. Our school tends to go better if Rowan and Rose are given first attention. Avonlea and Grant have notebooks with checklists of things that they are to do themselves. For example: handwriting, nature reader, spelling, history readers, typing etc. By 3rd and 5th grade they are capable of much on their own. I work with Rowan and Rose plays near us or participates at her will. Rowan does math (Saxon 1), history/geography/Bible (Sonlight PS 4/5) and literature/crafts (literature pockets).

After about 45 minutes we swap. I work with Grant and Avonlea does a craft or plays a game with the R's for 30 minutes (I actually set a timer). When the timer goes off, we swap again. I work with Avonlea for 30 minutes while Grant takes the R's outside to play. Then I get the two younger ones again and Avonlea and Grant finish up their checklist. We start roughly at 9AM and finish at 11:30 and have some free time before lunch at 12! We did this schedule last year and it worked really well. It took a little while at first for the older kids to find their niche with the little ones. Avonlea prefers sedate activity and Grant likes to run them ragged. Sometimes they'll just get a stack of books and read to them the whole half hour. If the day is falling apart on me, I'll put in a movie.

So that's our schedule, roughly. I found a list of weekly and daily schedules on this site under planning. There's lots more to talk about..........next time!