Changing Up Our Week

I'm beginning something a bit different in our week. We are lightening our load by adding more! Sounds impractical and contradictory, except for what we are adding.

I've had a burden since the beginning to include more arts, music, and subjects that delight, inspire and set apart our learning from the learning the public school kids get. My motivation is truly heart driven because of passions that have been handed down through my family, as well as the inspiration that comes from the little individuals that God has put in my care.

It took me a long time to come up with a plan for this, and it's still not a complete plan, but is taking shape. The way that our week usually flows makes setting apart Fridays wonderful timing. We have few Friday interruptions. We are pretty full of math and spelling. Sometimes, I've finished certain lessons and it has ended as a short day. So it should be perfect.

What We're Adding
We are going to include art appreciation, observation, and practice. Continuing with our art calendar, I hope to take one picture (each?) from the week (chosen by the children), examine it more closely, really discuss it and include creatively imagining what the artist may have been thinking or doing when painting that particular picture. Another idea is to look at the picture and make up a story about it. I think my kids would love this!

It will be our day for getting out our art supplies and books, art curriculums and project guides and creating. I know this will require more order than heaping them in a pile and saying "dig in", but I haven't gotten that far yet.

We will focus on a particular artist and composer for a certain period. It may involve nothing more than looking and listening, but may have some study to it also. I like Ambleside Online's layout. It's a very comprehensive scope and sequence!

We'll also have both children's piano lessons that day. I've been very bad at having more consistent time with them and keeping their practice moving forward.

Doing the Green Hour Challenge is on the list. I still haven't started this because the weather has just paralyzed me. I hate the cold! I still think it is something we will greatly benefit from at this time.

We're going to learn the Hebrew alphabet, to start. We'll just be looking for recognition, pronunciation, and possibly writing. "Teaching the Trivium" by the Bluedorns talks about this more. I have this book which makes it very easy!

As we finish off four days of Judah Bible lessons, we'll end the week with a character study from the passage. We've been doing this all along, but aiming for Friday for it, will be new.

This will also be the day where we practice penmanship apart from our regular notebooking activies. Though we write daily, I hope that I can come up with something particularly different and productive to inspire both children to neater writing.

We've missed our Mr. Pipes series, too, so plan to begin reading another book from the series. They are very enjoyable and inspiring!

Lastly, the good 'ole Home Economics. It's time these children began to learn some basic cooking, sewing, tending, skills. They really want to, but I keep putting it off.

We jumped in yesterday for our first go 'round. I was most impressed with how much more relaxed we all were. It was nice. I wish that could happen for math and spelling! The kids had fun creating a project from our Artistic Pursuits book. Love that series! Son was a bit resistant to listening to classical music since he's discovered the Beatles. Drat that IPod. Delete! He's always liked classical music, so a little "bending" in the right direction should remind him of that! We all enjoyed having music in the school room. It makes me wonder if it would be possible all the time, even during MATH!

The Hebrew book was the biggest surprise. They loved it and really wanted to write the letters. Even my four year did a good job! More legible than my 8 yo. Hmmmm. It was fun talking with them about Moses putting down what God told him, in Hebrew. That totally got it!

I think we're on to something good. I know it's a lot, but I usually set pretty lofty goals! It doesn't disappoint me too much if I can't do it all because we usually make steps in the right direction. But I think this will be a day that we won't be too anxious to be done with. I like that idea! Also, since we year-round school, it's just as good a time as any to tweak and turn and continue improving what we've been doing. Something I learned from business about examining what is going well, what is not going well, what could be improved and what can revolutionize, has had me doing some thinking.

I'll post more of this as we go along. I have a feeling we'll have a lot to share!