Thursday, November 16, 2017

Morning "Coffee"

Well, this Morning "Coffee" with our homeschool is going brilliantly!  I have a cup o' joe and DD has a latte or hot chocolate and DS#3 has a hot chocolate or apple juice.

We start at 9 am, then go over history and literature because they are tied together.  Then we work on Latin.  2 days a week we add Science and Logic.  After group time, they do their individual work with math, vocabulary, writing and any work left over from the group time. 

The morning starts with low energy, moving slow teens, but after a few discussion questions, their energy increases and they are good to go!  Math scores have gotten better and their writing is is more mature. The Morning "Coffee" has given us much more than I ever dreamed!

There is a thing going around the homeschool community that has a Morning Basket - consisting of a devotional, prayer, poetry, etc.

Well, we are more secular in our home with school AND my teens want to be adults (like most teen do).  So, I thought Dad has morning meetings and most everyone brings coffee to the conference room, so why don't we?  It is like a morning-get-the-day-going meeting.  I usually have handouts - ie, weekly schedule, declension sheets, graded papers, etc.

It also keeps us on a schedule.  I am scheduling appointments and my day around this meeting.  Even if I have errands, we just make the meeting short - only doing history and literature, and then I leave to run the errands. 

So far this week, we have met every morning and it is getting easier for me and they are loving the consistency.  They don't know, but I am training them to get up earlier, eat breakfast and have a morning routine.  It is not as early as public schools, but I always hated that they started class at 7:20 am anyway.  9 am is good for all of us.

At this point, I love all our curriculum choices, but science.  It is the most difficult one to do and not because of experiments, it is just finding one that is secular and can be taught at home.  Textbooks are very dry and not made for homeschool, more for someone with a science teaching background.  Homeschool classes in the area do not teach secular science,  so we just have to push through.  Luckily, -D is doing the experiments with them on the weekends.  He lectures a bit, but it is good for them to get used to that!

Today is the first day this week that I am able to stay home the entire day.  DS#2 is coming in from college and I have work to do!  I am hoping to get 2 quilts finished today.



3 comments:

  1. Sounds like you are off to a good routine! On a side note, how did your closing go? Were you able to keep your lower interest rate?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The closing went fine and yes, we kept the lower rate - it is 4%. A little higher than we wanted, but it was all we could get with the construction loan (which are higher in rate). We want to refinance to a lower interest and a 10 - 15 year mortgage, but now is not the time. We have too much other debt that we need to clear. I know we are taking the chance on interest rates rising, but at that point, the 4% would be good, so it is what it is right now.

      Delete
    2. Good. Glad it went well. Considering how high interest rates used to be, 4% is still decent.

      Delete

Namaste