How much time do we spend schooling???

My schedule with the kids feels a bit out of sync this year. Although we are covering a lot and enjoying quite a bit of it.

The older two, 7 & 10 do two or three workbooks (math, english, etc. dep. on the kid). They are supposed to do so many pages per book per day. That's just an easy way for me to keep track of progress.

The younger two, do schoolwork as well. Not nearly as structured. They do a lot of coloring, cutting, pasting and playing with playdough. Jaden does some bookwork, but not much.

Then I have tons of extra school material this year. I am a product reviewer for The Old Schoolhouse. I have so many products to review... it's like Christmas a couple of times per week. There are some not so great products, and then some that I adore.

Right now, we've added All About Spelling to our schooling. Hands down, it's the best spelling program I've tried yet. My "can't sit still" hands on, 10 year old LOVES IT. No traditional spelling lists... hands on... repeat til they get it.... He's so getting it. My 7 year old asks to do more... uh, yah! We are doing it at an accelerated rate because I have to get through a certain amount of material to do my reviews. So, you can see this throws a wrench into my structured bookwork.

Then we also got this amazing kids programming class... Logo Adventures. It uses a particular program... Josiah and Jed are having tons of fun learning basic programming. Fun and educational.

So, I'm in the middle of trying to find a balance. We are having a good time... and with Rod off of work, it turns out that it is nice to be a TOS reviewer, because I didn't have cash to buy school material for this year. Funny how those things work out.

Let's see we try to spend from 9 to 12 doing regular schoolwork. Then we normally take the afternoon off. We do our together stuff like All About Spelling, Spears Art (another product of many) and Logos Adventure after dinner a couple of times a week.

We are not really traditional, but i'm keeping track of hours through homeschool tracker, and we are WAY above "suggested" hours... so I feel pretty good about it all.