The Jump Start

I'm still going through and answering the questions Jenn asked when I posted my daily routine. She asked about our Jump Start to our day- what the history of the day is and about our geography drill.

First, the name Jump Start comes from my classroom teacher days. I named my warm ups Jump Start. When the kids walked in the room they had to take out paper and answer a few question to get their brains thinking science.

At home, I use the time after our read aloud to arrive down in our school space to get some written work started. We are learning all the time (such a homeschool cliche but oh so true) so the Jump Start isn't really about starting school. It's about changing gears a bit and getting our written work started for the day. Essentially, four items make up our Jump Start with the fourth sometimes being part of math.

1. History of the Day- every morning we start with This Day in History from History.com. E12 usually reads the headlines to us and if we want to hear or learn more we take a little time to check things out and/or to discuss them.
2. Geography Drill- the geography drills come from our studies with the Trail Guide to US and World Geography. The manual has a format which includes a drill four days a week. There are two questions per level and I usually have I8 do the primary level, R10 do the primary and intermediate, and E12 does both of those and the secondary level.
3. The Daily Quest- this is when the quest for the day is revealed for the kids. They can choose to work on it right then or finish it later on, but it's due by dinner time.
4. Math 5-a-Day- these are the five math practice problems the kids do each day. Some days we save these until after our math adventure/lesson for the day.

The Jump Start is just a way for us to gather together at our school table and to begin to focus on the written work for the day.

What are some ways your family begins school for the day?

Daily Routines

For readers who have been asking about our daily routine, here you go! First, you should know that we are more the relaxed set of homeschoolers and though I'm a very structured classroom teacher, I am not at all that way in my homeschooling. One of my Hall of Fame Posts is a Day in the Life kind of post. You can see here how we did things when we had a full-fledged toddler in residence. Things are easier now that our youngest is five. Five!

Last spring I put this together and it's worked pretty well. I had to back off from the workboxes because they were too controlling on our day...but as you can see in recent posts, they are working more for US now rather than the opposite. That is not to say workboxes are all bad! Some families are thriving with them and that is wonderful. They were just too rigid for our homeschool goals. I am more comfortable with how we use them at this point. They still allow us to be creative and spontaneous which is a requirement at our house! At the same time, they help me to stay focused along with this "routine".

This is the first draft of last spring's grid- I still have it hanging next to my desk and it's missing LA! Guess I need to replace it with the below. Tweaked it based on my notes there.

Keep in mind this is a "routine". I purposely do not have times on the grid. It is a framework we use to do our work. It's pretty self explanatory I think. We don't do all of everything every day. That should make some of you feel better! One thing I love about this weekly routine is that if we get behind or we have to go out unexpectedly, I just pick up where we left off. So, if one morning gets shortened and miss the history lesson, I don't cram it in the next day. I leave it for the next scheduled day. If that makes sense.

I also listed our our daily and weekly chores. Say...if you see something up here that is obviously missing let me know! For example, if washing curtains is on your weekly list, you won't find it on mine. What else would you do weekly?!

I like the idea of using this to keep the pattern of our day consistent. I've tried times and times make me crazy, but I can do the pattern. Feel free to check out our official Weekly Routine document below. I have it colored so that I can easily tell meal times and the morning, afternoon, and evening batched items. Feel free to ask more questions if I've left anything unanswered!

Weekly Schedule

Workbox Labels

So, I thought it might be a good idea to list the labels out for you specifically...just in case you are interested in seeing what non-typical things I came up with! Perhaps some of these will be helpful to you.

• Math- we are Math on the Level users so we do a family math approach. This is the box we keep our things in.
• Geography- we use the Trail Guides to World and US Geography (see resource drop down list) because my kids adore it. What can I say?
• History- we are following Mystery of History and adding in Story of the World and TruthQuest resources. This in addition to our normal unit studies. Mainly, I wanted to blend secular and biblical history while getting in some ancient cultures- something we have not hit much in our unit studies thus far.
• Nature Study- once a week we do a challenge with Barb over at the Handbook of Nature Study blog or we just do our own observations.
• Unit Study- this is classified as non-FIAR unit studies. For example, The Photography Amanda Bennett unit for E12 and the Portraits of American Girlhood for R10 or just our own studies
• Language Arts- writing and grammar which is usually done as an extension of our unit studies or for this month NanoWrimo, etc
• Word Challenge- this could be a dictionary assignment or daily quest on a word or a word game, etc.
• Passion Pursuits- refers to approved activities we do after our other school time is complete. For example, sewing, computer programming, sports practice, snap circuits, etc.
• Programming- Scratch, Alice, and NXT
• NXT- LEGO mindstorms. We have a personal kit (and a team kit we store) along with some books and of course there are websites.
• Timeline- this is a box for our timeline FIAR style. On Fridays we put pages in according to what we've learned that week.
• Math Challenge- puzzles, more difficult problems, math journal assignments, etc and sometimes computer math. We like The Puzzle Site.
• Art- art materials for our assignment will be here. We do this as a family all together.
• Spelling- materials for All About Spelling
• Five in a Row- unit study materials when it's a FIAR book we are rowing. The younger boys are doing mostly FIAR so that is what their unit study box is labeled with specifically.
• Beyond Five in a Row- same with this box. When we are doing a BY book, this label takes the place of the unit study label
• Reading- mainly for Reading Made Easy for J5
• LEGOS- for the younger boys mostly...a time of building during Passion Pursuits
• Silent Reading- we normally don't need this. Our kids read anytime and often, but it's there when I need it
• Games- If I want them to play a game during the afternoon, I will put up this card on a box with a card inside telling which game or how to choose a game.
• Sewing- R10 almost always has a project going so this is a place for storing it while not in use. I give her hand sewing and machine sewing projects and encourage her to try new things. I8 has in interest in sewing as well so we can sometimes insert a project for him. He's all about the sewing machine though...hand sewing- not so much.

 Next up, I think I will further explain a few of these in further detail.