Obstacles to Keeping a Homeschool Routine

I have tried many different routines. With my husband working shift work, our day to day routine seems to constantly be changing and for homeschooling, I really have to work to make it happen in the part of the day I can count on. We often homeschool Saturdays and take a day off during the week when my husband is home. When he works night shifts, it is up to me to make sure the core of our school happens in the morning, because if it doesn't happen then, then it often doesn't happen since he's home in the afternoon.

But whatever routine I choose, there are many reasons it still might not be working and the problem is not necessarily the routine itself.

Sunday Morning Breakfast

I really went all out and made a big Sunday morning breakfast. 

Tips for Caring for a Newborn

Learn to Breastfeed While Lying Down

Lying down to breastfeed has some great benefits. Most importantly, it allows mama to get some rest. Feeding baby often in those first weeks is very tiring and lying down allows mama to doze off while the baby eats. Secondly, it gives mama's back a break. My back always hurt terribly after labour and it would take the pressure off my back to be able to lie down to breastfeed. 

A Pair of Red Clogs

We used A Pair of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno last week for our Storybook Study.

The Art Lesson

I enjoy using Five in a Row's idea of reading the same story for five days and using it as a jumping point for different areas of learning.

For our storybook we read The Art Lesson by Tomie dePaola. It's a story that Tomie tells from his childhood when his first love of art began.

Watercolour Dinosaur Skeleton

We are doing a dinosaur unit for science right now and of course the kids are loving it! 

I tried this dinosaur skeleton craft I found the idea for at The Do It Yourself Mom. Ahead of time, I used a white crayon and traced a skeleton from our dinosaur encyclopedia onto watercolour paper. The kids were so surprised when they started painting and discovered dinosaur bones on their paper!

Five Boys?!?!

Crazy how time just flies by and increasingly faster! For the last 7 months I have had 5 children ages 5 and under. My oldest just turned 6 and we start the school year continuing on with more vengeance what we've been slowly touching on here and there over the summer. My school plan is much more doable and I'd love to share it with you yet in a post later on because I try to make our "school" time as much fun as it can possibly be.