All in a Day's Lessons: Term 2 of Year 3 and Year 1

Juggling two students in two separate years can be challenging. When I first began this school year with Royal (Year 3), it was more difficult than it is now because he wasn't reading as much or as well as he is now. AND it took Alice (Year 1) several weeks before she was able to gain some traction with the pace & challenge of the lessons.

Now that we have one term behind us, things are moving along a lot more smoothly and easily. And it really helps that Royal is able to read more of his books himself. (I was really praying for this last year because I was a tad concerned about getting it all done!)

So today I decided to keep track of our lessons just to show how a typical day can go with students in different years. 

We begin at 8:30. (Actually today we began at 8:40 because the kids were late in getting their morning chores finished. She this post about how we now do our morning schedule with alarms)

~ Morning Round-Up

• Read & tell together: Exodus 20:1-17
• Memory Work - Philippians 1:6 and Sara Teasdale's Twilight 
• Read from A.A. Milne's Now We are Six
• Spanish: Calendar, weather, review of family tree and listen to/sing José Luis Orozco's "de Colores"

~ Math Drill
~ Alice & I read from The Blue Fairy Book's The Master-Maid (continuing the story - this is Day 3 of this selection by the way. We should finish tomorrow.) & Royal reads by himself This Country of Ours' How the Colony was Saved (finishing from yesterday). He tells me how the chapter ends, then...
~ I go over Alice's Math pages for her to work on while Royal & I buddy-read Our Island Story's How a Woman Struck a Blow for Freedom (he on the Kindle and I out of the book)

10:00 Snack Break; Royal chooses to begin reading "Along Came a Dog" (from Ambleside's Year 2 free reading list)

At 10:15, when Break is over...

~ Alice finishes Math, with a little help from me. I start Royal on Ch 11 of Children of the New Forest (He listens to the audiobook while following along with the story on the Kindle); Mom fixes lunch! Royal tells me everything that happened in Ch 11 (talks about 5 minutes - he really likes this book!)

At 11:30 we eat lunch.

At 12:30 Royal and Alice do some cleaning duties for 10 minutes to pay back their tardiness from this morning before they have some free time outside.

At 1:15 Almanzo goes down for a nap.

~ Alice & I continue reading Shakespeare's As You Like It (started yesterday) & Royal works on his Math word problems
~ I work on some reading skills and word-building with Alice.

~ Alice does her copywork.
~ Alice & I read from 50 Famous Stories:  The Inchcape Rock.
~ I check Royal's math and help him with one he couldn't figure out.
~ Almanzo wakes up from his nap & Alice plays with him for a few minutes while Royal does copywork.
~ Royal and Alice do Music Study with Almanzo listening in. This is our 2nd week on Paul Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice. We review the story/poem and watch the short video clip of Disney's Fantasia on YouTube.

3:00 - We are done!