A Typical 1st Grade day

Well, here's what our daily schedule seems to be settling into (when we start on-time, that is):

9-9:30 am The girls clean up the family room while I straighten up the kitchen, and we have a healthy snack.

9:30-10 am Sierra reads a Bob book, Dr. Seuss, or something similar to practice her reading skills, then we do one lesson from Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. (Sometimes Bailey also reads a Bob book to me during this time).

10-10:15 am Sierra does one page from Spelling Workout A and practices her handwriting (either by writing letters to people or doing a page from her Zanner Blosser work book).

10:15-10:45 Sierra does her math lesson from Horizon's Math 1 workbook. If Bailey wants, she gets out her mazes, pre-school work book, and dot-to-dot pages to work on.

(Sometimes all of this takes less then an hour, and sometimes it takes 2 hours. We just start at the beginning and go to the end).

10:45 am-1 pm We do grocery shopping, play groups, outside play time, etc. Lunch.

1-2pm Blake goes down for a nap, and the girls and I go to the living room for either science or history. For science, I am simply reading a library book or two on the chosen topic (currently different animals), and then the girls color a picture about that topic (the animal pictures I am using are from Dover coloring books and National Geographic's on-line coloring pages). While they are coloring, I ask Sierra what she remembers about the subject, prompting where necessary, and write it down.

For History, we read one section from The Story of the World, Ancient Times, do a coloring page or map page, maybe look at some library books on the subject, and write down what Sierra remembers. We also use the activity book that goes along with the text which has questions for Sierra to answer, pictures to color, and the black line maps, as well as some fun projects. When we do the projects (like building a pyramid with sugar cubes) I have Sierra tell me what we used, what we did, and what we learned, and I write it all down.

And that's it. Oh, there's the occasional Signing Times Video, trip to the museum, nature walks, etc. But those are all extras.