Homeschool Daily Routines

Our day begins in "circle" time, where we go over the Daily Text, and sing a children's song from JW.org , we focus on one song monthly.

Then Lela begins math, while Belle and RJ remain in circle time for me to read a Kindergarten Story to them, from a free public domain book, In the Child's World: Morning Talks and Stories for Kindergartens, Primary Schools and Homes. I printed it and had Office Max bind it.

You can see I put a hedgehog sticker over

what ever graphic was originally there

The direction we are going in at this time, is we use Ray's Arithmetic for math, it can be free online, and you can print and bind it yourself. However, we decided to buy the Mott's version very inexpensively, because it also comes with a parent/teacher guide written by Ruth Beechick. Ruth Beechick has a very laid back age developmentally appropriate approach. We bought used versions because we wanted hard back versions. There is a few editions of Mott's that are still being made in hard back, but most are going to paper back. So if you have a preference, make sure to read the fine print before purchasing.

After I read our Kindergarten story. Belle starts Calendar time, which we use this Calendar Workbook, I printed it and put it in page protectors from Dollar Tree inside a binder, we use dry erase crayons on it. I used it with Lela and now am using it with Belle. For the holiday graphics, I just used stickers I had on hand and put over the graphics... no one is any the wiser! haha

What we mainly use for Language Arts

After math we move on to Language Arts. For Language Arts we use McGuffey Readers, again they are free online, but we bought Motts for the parent/teacher guide written by Ruth Beechick. We also use Primary and Secondary Language Lessons by Emma Serl. This year (2015) we are using Christian Light Education for learning script/cursive handwriting, next year we are looking into Pen Time or Spencerian. Then we read quality secular books as we can. I get a lot of ideas from OldFashionedEducation.com , I LOVE her science book suggestions, and Amblesideonline.org . I do not use ALL the books suggested by these two sites, as some go against my Christian conscience, but that doesn't mean you should follow my conscience, use your own Bible trained conscience on what you feel comfortable with or not. Many books though suggested by both these sites are just fine in my opinion for most Christians to read and enjoy.

For the Belle and Raphael, we use 100 Easy Lessons to Teach Your Child to Read, and good quality secular story books-Richard Scarry, Beatrix Potter, McCloskey, etc etc etc. With Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, people either love it or hate it. My advice is, ask your local congregations literature counter for Learn to Read and Write booklet. The booklet will not be enough to teach your child completely how to read, but it does teach reading and writing in the same format as Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. So you can give our own booklet a test run to see if that would help your child or not. Just remember all children are different, and learn differently and at different ages. We love Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, but I take a very laid back approach and do not expect my children to be able to blend words on their own.. not for a very long time. We are well past lesson 50 and I still help blend and sound out a LOT. And that is ok. If we go through the entire book and they still can not read by themselves, we can go back either to the beginning or the first lesson where they need review and go back through the book all over again. You just have to be very patient with some children, and know learning to read will happen, it just may not be on your time table, really either way. My oldest taught herself to read with out any help at all from me! My two younger ones need my extra help. But, they are both coming along and eventually will be reading on their own when they are ready, and not a day sooner!

After reading lessons for the younger ones, I read a My Book of Bible Story, Story to them. And then choose one quality secular story to read to them.

After Language Arts we move on to Science, History, Geography, Social Studies or Health, or a combination of any of those subjects. We have a few other secular books, for Science we like Berenstain Bears Big Book of Science, and Science in a Nutshell, as well as the books that OldFashionedEducation.com suggest. We just love the living books she suggest for science so far. We also like to observe nature as Amblesideonline.org suggest.

Fruitage of the Spirit program

Other then that we use the broad range of materials that the Faithful and Discreet Slave provide for free to all of us.

We use our magazines, particularly Awake, for science, and health. We will use the evolution/creation book also for Science, as well as the video on creation. There is also health brochures like the Blood brochure and videos, creation/evolution brochure, etc etc that can also be used for health and science.

We also use our magazines like, Awake and Watchtower, for geography-look up on a globe or map any and all of the places mentioned. Of course you can also use the Goodlands booklet for geography as well. And we use these magazines for our Social Studies, as well as our year book, again the year book can really be Social Studies, Geography, and History all wrapped up in one study.

We use the Watchtower for History and Social Studies and Geography.

Bible Reading Schedule Year 

After those type of subjects we move on to music or art. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we use Rod and Staff for music currently. It is a Mennonite based curricula, so far in the music (and we are using the very basic elementary ones right now because I myself do not know music well and am learning along with my children) has not had any kind of religious doctrine inserted. We also pick and choose out of their, Rod and Staff, Health curricula.

We also use the music on JW.org for teaching music and even other languages, like Spanish, by learning the simple children's songs in other languages.

On Tuesday and Thursday we try to do a form of Art or Handicraft.

Then we always end the day with Daily Bible reading. Which I have developed my own daily Bible reading program for the average first grade through around 6th or 7th grader. It has all the references cited that is on JW.org for songs, activities, and so forth for the children's section of JW.org. It is written to be completed in three years, and cycled through twice. (1st -6th grade) And then I plan on making something similar for teens hopefully. Which again would cite all the songs, activities and so forth on JW.org for teens to go along with the entire Bible reading, and be also in a 3 year cycle to be done twice, 7th-12th grade. I share this for free with any one who would like it. The only hang up is, I made it with freeware, called Kingsoft, and it will only open correctly using Kingsoft. I plan on buying a different program soon so I can create pdf's that any one can download and open. Then hopefully it will be more easy to share and more of you can use it.

I use the My Book of Bible Stories, Teach Your Children, My Bible Lessons, and Listen to God brochures and books directly for my younger children as well.

I also made a chart that we use to study the Fruitages of the Spirit. We focus on one Fruit of the Spirit each month. We read a scripture referring to the fruit, as well as sing a Kingdom song that goes along with the Fruit. In my planner pages you will see that referred to as FoS. It was also made and designed using Kingsoft, but I am always happy to share that for free as well.

We use a scripture that relates to the Fruitage of the Spirit for the month, and a scripture from our Daily Bible Reading for the week for Copy Work, to improve handwriting skill.