Christmas Term began the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. We changed up our schedule a little and added some chores. The day usually begins with them practicing their instruments for 15 minutes, then doing math, then practicing another 15 minutes.
On of my favorite times of the day comes next: sitting on the couch for an Advent devotional, then doing Wordle and Connections and the Mini Crossword together. After we get our word games in, they read out loud to me from our Open Court Readers. We have been working on expression, accuracy, and paying attention to the flow of language.
After our Couch Time, we have been learning a little bit about Astronomy. We studied the Moon for the first week, the Solar System this past week and are moving on to galaxies, nebulae, and star clusters this week. This has been taking more time than I had thought it would, but we are all enjoying it.
Once we get tired of Astronomy, or we have been working on it so long that we have to move on to something else, I go over their other assignments. For Grammar, they are journaling, and then correcting any mistakes. And they each have a month long writing project that is divided into daily and weekly tasks. Then they get to work, breaking for lunch. When they are all done, I let them play their math facts games, put away all their stuff and be done for the day.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are slightly squished because they have Spanish, and I teach Literature. Every other Wednesday is completely different because we have instrument lessons. Then we have random things thrown in, like meetings, a playdate, and a trip to get Malcolm a new violin rental.
We are halfway through and this term is flying by. Most of the time we are having a lot of fun, but I am feeling more rushed than our usual schedule. This also sounds like our days are a lot more orderly than they feel in the moment. Usually it feels like we are only barely hanging on.
