Monday - math, science, break/snack time, banking, pick recipe, shop and food prep, photograph meal, story board
Tuesday - math, science, break/snack time, recipe write up, computer menu, cursive, social studies, story board
Wednesday - math, science, break/snack time, piano, vocabulary/grammar, Reading Series, story board
Thursday - math, science, break/snack time, keyboarding, Newspaper Review
Friday - math, science, break/snack time, educational games, field trips, social studies activities
So as you can see, each day will begin with math and science. This will give us structure and will also serve us in other ways. It will naturally become his non-fiction reading and comprehension. The reason I don't have reading listed everyday is because it will be a regular part of doing all of the subjects. I have also found a fiction series that we will use whenever we have down time or on it's given day. Writing will also be a natural part of the other activities. In particular, science will give us ample opportunity to write and hypothesize. I am intentionally steering away from the "read this paragraph/answer these questions" format that is used by the school. I want Wes to stop thinking of reading and writing as unhappy work and start to realize that they are just part of doing.
Monday may be our most unique day and also the day that incorporates things necessary in running our home. Banking is how we will do our practical hands on money math. I bought a cash box and have started it off with a set amount of money. We will use this money for our outings during the month and incidentals. It will also be used to pay out allowances. Each of my sons have a "bank account" (envelope in the cash box). Wes will be in charge. He will count the money to make sure it's all there. He will keep track of receipts. At the end of the month he will figure out how much money we need to add to the bank to bring it back up to its set amount. The boys will also earn 3% interest on the money that they keep in the bank. Wes will learn how to calculate the interest earned. It will be hands on money managing.
Monday is also recipe day. One of my ideas to keep writing and reading fun is to keep a recipe box and start building up a menu. When we have enough recipes we like, we can publish our menu and open up a restaurant. Wes can cook, serve meals and even write up reviews. Cooking, besides being an important life skill, is a great way to reinforce math concepts. It helps you learn how to think on your feet and strengthen fine motor skills. We will also do our shopping on Monday. Wes will help cook dinner each Monday night to test out the chosen recipe. We will take a picture of our finished dish that we can later use on our Menu.
Story Board. At the end of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we will post what we have studied on our story board. This is a large bulletin board on an easel. The purpose of our story board is to give us a visual reminder of what we are learning and an easy way to review our materials. The story board will be used to put together our Newspaper on Thursdays.
Tuesday will start with math and science and then Wes will write up the recipe from the night before and file it in our own school recipe box. If the recipe passed our taste test, Wes will type it into a file on the computer where we will start to compile information for our menu. This will also give us practice is different forms of writing. We will need to use lots of juicy adjectives!
Tuesday will also be cursive learning day. I have a workbook that he will used to learn his letters and how to join them and we will learn some each week. We will also introduce our social studies subject on Tuesday. We will be studying other cultures and history. I plan to cover all of the basic subjects covered by my school districts curriculum as well as others.
Wednesday, in addition to math and science, we will be studying a vocabulary and grammar concepts and focusing more on our reading. We'll also have a piano lesson or explore music in some other way.
Thurdays will start with math and science as always and then we will publish our Newspaper. I have purchased legal size paper so that we can fold it over to look like a newspaper when we are done. We will look at real papers to incorporate some of their elements, but our paper will be a mixed media work of art. Things can come right off the story board and be pasted onto the paper. We will write short articles about each of our topics of the week and so on. It will be our way of reviewing all that we've learned in a creative way as well as working on our writing and organizational skills.
Friday will start with delivering our Newspaper to Dad during coffee time and relaying all that we are learning. Then on to math and maybe science. This will be our lighter day when we will play educational games that coincide with our subject matter. It will be our day to take field trips or do crafts that relate to our social studies topic.
So that is basically our week. We will focus on holidays when they come along and recognize major events. Future posts will include more detail about what we are actually studying and I'll take some pictures to share. I will also do a post on what materials I'm using.
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