---

Our homeschool day starts before the kids are even awake.

While I’m making breakfast, I set out our morning time materials at the kitchen table. When the girls come down, hit the ground running. Today we warmed up with a few trivia questions while they ate.

Because it’s Monday, we reviewed the Bible verses we memorized last week and I assigned new ones for this week. After that we read The Bible Recap for Kids and covered Genesis 22–24. If I think it’s appropriate for the topic, I’ll let them watch the video that accompanies that day’s Bible recap, even thought it’s made for adults and not kids.

Next we opened our Countries Around the World book and read about Peru. That tied perfectly into one of our favorite Monday traditions: Mail Monday. Every Monday I read the kids a letter from one of our letter subscriptions. Today’s letter was from a fictional explorer named Florence from Letters From Afar, and, perfect timing that wasn’t at all orchestrated by me, she was writing from Peru.

After we read the letter, the girls each wrote a letter to someone they love. I keep a stack of fun blank cards they can choose from, and we send them off in the mail.

Reading about Peru led us down a small rabbit trail (which is one of my favorite parts of homeschooling). We watched a quick YouTube video about Machu Picchu and learned about spectacled bears.

Then, we wrapped up our on-going lesson on Giotto. We talked about how he painted a lot of emotion into his work. For their art project, I wrote different emotions on slips of paper and had the girls draw one from a cup. Their assignment was to create a drawing that clearly showed the emotion they picked.

By then they had finished breakfast, gotten dressed, and were ready for the day. They worked on their art and finished writing their letters.

Mondays are also Book of the Week day. Usually I pick the book, but today I set a few out and let them choose. They’re responsible for finishing their book by Thursday.

We try to start core subjects by 9am. I sit with each girl individually for her math and language arts lesson while the other one works on a piano lesson through Hoffman Academy. Then they switch.

After the teaching portion, they complete their independent math and language arts work while I do a little preschool lesson with my three-year-old. She begs for school, so I made simple activities in Canva and slipped them into dry-erase pockets so she can reuse them. Today we did those together and read a book.

Later in the morning we did a little science. This term we are focusing on Physics and Engineering in our co-op and more of a nature study on the other days. I introduced the concept of ecosystems and we talked about one right outside our back door: the swamp behind our house. We made a food web together and talked about what would happen if just one piece of it disappeared.

Then it was time for lunch.

During lunch I read from our current family read-aloud. I’m a fast eater after years as a nurse, so it’s easy for me to multi-task and the kids listen so well as they eat After lunch we have quiet time. The girls listen to Yoto stories or audiobooks and play quietly in their rooms, and my three-year-old takes a nap.

By 2pm quiet time is over, and we ease back into the afternoon with nature journaling. The girls spent 20 minutes working in their little naturalist journals, which I created and made a post about last week. It’s a free download!

We finished the day with an ASL video lesson via Bill Vicars, and just like that school was done for the day. I did a rough tally of how long school took, just scroll down to see.

Third Grader

• Morning time(Bible, Geography, Art History): 1 hour
• Tangent into Peruvian Bears and Machu Pichu: 15 minutes
• Letter writing (Character, Handwriting) : 15 minutes
• Family Read Aloud time: 20 minutes
• Art project : 30 minutes
• Piano: 20 minutes
• Math: 40 minutes
• Language Arts: 45 minutes
• Ecosystems and Food Web: 15 minutes
• Naturalist Journal : 20 minutes
• ASL video: 20 minutes

Total school time: 5 hours

First Grader

• Morning time(Bible, Geography, Art History): 1 hour
• Tangent into Peruvian Bears and Machu Pichu: 15 minutes
• Letter writing (Character, Handwriting) : 15 minutes
• Family Read Aloud time: 20 minutes
• Art project : 30 minutes
• Piano: 20 minutes
• Math: 25 minutes
• Language Arts: 15 minutes
• Ecosystems and Food Web: 15 minutes
• Naturalist Journal : 20 minutes
• ASL video: 20 minutes

Total School Time: 4 hours and 15 minutes