Square peg into a Round hole

one thing leads to another at my house, I never know what I will be call upon to do next.

While I was shining my kitchen sink, I reflected about scheduling:

4th grade CORE schedule

Math: 5 lessons a week

Science: 3 lessons a week

Social Studies 5 lessons a week

Literature: 5 lessons a week

-Composition 3 lessons a week

-Spelling 5 lessons a week

-Grammar 2 lessons a week

-Vocabulary 2 lessons a week

Health 2 lessons a week

P.E. 3 hours a week

Art 2 lesson a week

Music 2 lesson a week

( 4 hours) STUDY ISLAND / Class Connect:

Blue Ribbons:

( .33 hours) 1 math

( .33 hours) 1 language arts

( .33 hours) 1 science

Class Connect

( .75 hours) math

( .75 hours) language arts

( .75 hours) science

( .75 hours) assessments

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4th grade Magnus actual schedule

( 4 hours) Math: 3-4 lessons a week

( 3 hours) Science: 1 DVD / 1 experiment/ read 1 Unit a week

( 3 hours) Social Studies 2 DVD Episodes a week / Read1 book chapter /Oral assessment

( 4 hours)Literature: read about an hour a day, 1 lesson a week

( 2 hours) -Composition 1 lesson = Monthly: type 100 words / grade (4th grade: 400 words) to a prompt, week one rough draft, [week two, week three, week four] edit draft

( 1 hours) -Spelling 1 list a week (Spelling City)

( 2 hours) -Grammar 1 lesson a week

( 2 hours) -Vocabulary 2 lessons a week

( 1 hours) Health 1 DVD / lesson a week

( 3 hours) P.E. 3 hours a week

( 1 hours) Art 1 craft a Month / 1 trip to Pearl a quarter

( 1 hours) Music 1 Piano lesson a week (1/2 hour lesson / 1/2 hour practice different day)

( 4 hours) STUDY ISLAND / Class Connect:

Blue Ribbons:

( .33 hours) 1 math

( .33 hours) 1 language arts

( .33 hours) 1 science

Class Connect

( .75 hours) math

( .75 hours) language arts

( .75 hours) science

( .75 hours) assessments

what I learned then and now:

http://magnusleeamundsen.blogspot.com/2011/08/5th-grade-curriculum.html is how or materials day goes:

first we get 83 lbs of materals, that is just insane, but since this is a turnkey system not everything will fit every child, pick what will, and set aside will not so that you and your child are not overwhelmed.

what we ended up with is 3 books / 7 work books. that is all. they would all fit in a backpack if need be. then we break those down with post it notes, work to this point and stop. work to this point and stop. we start on Monday, and we work for a couple of hours and we stop. take a break. work for a couple of hours and stop. do some one the computer, watch a DVD or Netflix, and stop. run outside, go to the store, go to the park, and stop, we do some baking in the kitchen and that is the best chemistry set in the world, we eat our homework. before we go to bed, we do some reading, in the kindle, something we like, talk about it, and go to bed. happy that we had a wonderful adventure. we do enjoy being a child while we are still children, but we build into that the fact that there WILL be MELT downs, there will be days that we just flat our can not focus. we have fallbacks, DVD's and online 'games' that help keep us learning. brain pop, spelling city, kahnacademy, everywhere you look is an opportunity to love learning. sitting in a classroom for 7 hours a day and force feeding data into an ity bity brain is not a solution, finding out about science down in the bayou by HEB, now that is aquatic science to me. and perfectly acceptable.

the hardest most difficult part was giving myself permission to trade one lesson for another, but now, I just answer the questions myself, and move on, it is my personal sand paper to get a square peg to fit into a round hole.