Homeschooling at the Academy, Part 3

After the girls finish math, we take a long lunch break, at least an hour and a half. We eat, tidy the kitchen, and the girls practice piano.

1:00 - 3:00 - This time is set aside for history and geography, writing, literature, and science - but not all on the same day. Mondays and Tuesdays are for history and geography. Wednesday we wrap up history for the week and start their writing assignment, which is usually related to the history assignment. Thursday and Friday are science days, and they also work on the writing assignment. The literature they work on throughout the week.

Geography is not really a separate subject - we just study the geography of whatever area we are reading about in history that week. Literature is also tied to the history - they read book written during the time, or written about people or events of the time period. We are studying Greece right now, for instance, and last week Aubrey read The Librarian Who Measured the Earth (about Eratosthenes) and Kora read Archimedes and the Door of Science. The girls all study the same time period of history, reading books and doing work on their own levels. This week Kora and Aubrey each read biographies on Alexander the Great, just on different reading levels. This year in science we are studying Botany (see right hand sidebar if you want to see what we use).

Fridays are a little different around here. We go to the library, and the girls do science, have piano lessons, go over Latin and Greek vocabulary and chants, and we alternate doing a little music and art appreciation: one week we do music, the next art, etc.

As for Hailey and Lauryn, they mostly do what they would do if their sisters were off at institutionalized school all day... they play and generally make a mess of the house. :)


But they also listen to me reading books, help me with laundry or making cookies, play games, etc. One thing that amazes me is how much the younger ones pick up from listening to the older girls. I've read teachers from the one room school house days write about this same phenomena.

The rest of the day is spent reading, playing, doing corrections, chores, dinner, and any evening activities. So except on unusual days, the girls spend about 5 hours (8:30-11:30 am and 1-3 pm) on academic pursuits (Aubrey actually doesn't spend this much time as her work load is lighter) plus time for corrections, which usually takes no more than 10 minutes. No homework in the evenings or weekends either. Plus we can take off whenever we want or need and not only during the summer. We wouldn't trade it for all the quiet, clean houses in the world!