A Day in the Life of Chestnut Grove Academy….

Typically we start each day at 9am, at the kitchen table for circle time.


Circle Time consists of:

Song (we focus on one Primary song from church each month, each year the primary kids (ages 3-12) give a presentation during church service (Sacrament) and they sing songs, have speaking parts, etc….

Prayer

Pledge

Calendar

Virtue (We Choose Virtues)

Article of Faith (We are working to memorize all 13 Articles of Faith, which are statements of our belief)  I found these cute pictograph printables at 3Dinosaurs.com, we also sing the article of faith song. 
Musician/Artist – from Classical Composers Monthly
Devotional – we read a story from the Friend magazine (an LDS publication) and my oldest reads from the Storied Scriptures.
Chinese – we do a short Chinese lesson from betterchinese.com curriculum
Then we do either History or Science. This week we are doing a Unit Study on Dolphins, so we have been working on that.  I try to give the littles subject oriented materials to keep them busy during the lesson. 
We may also watch a short clip from Brain Pop, Brain Pop Jr, or some other media to go with our lesson.

Circle Time can last from 1-1.5hrs, depending. 
I am planning to add in some Calendar Notebooks, and some Church History learning when we officially start the new school year after the baby arrives. 

After circle time they divide….the youngers do their workboxes, some of which are independent, others which require some one on one attention from me.


My oldest goes off to do his workboxes as well, most of which are independent, though he comes to me with questions and to check his work.  Here he is doing his Reading assignment. (below).  We also have desks in the schoolroom area, that he typically sits at to do Math and other writing work.

Then we eat lunch….we are typically done with the ‘school’ part of day by 1230/100p.  There is usually a snack time during the morning as well, so a 100 lunch is tolerable.
After lunch, we will have free play, watch some shows that are related to the school topic we are studying (this week we watched a Netflix documentary on dolphins one day and some episodes of Flipper (the classic TV show) another day. 

We also have computer/iPad time in the afternoon.  Computer time consists of a Chinese program Petralingua and a piano program Adventus (review coming soon) for my oldest, and then he can choose from a few others for(Reading Kingdom, Grammaropolis, Little Passports, PowerMyLearning) for a total of about an hour of computer time.

My youngest do Time4Learning (review coming soon) and/or ABCMouse.com on the iPad with me (using Photon Flash Browser) and then can pick from a wide variety of other learning apps to play (including Looney Toons Phonics and others)…for a total of about 30-45min.

This is followed by some more free play, and sometimes they watch some PBS shows in the afternoon (especially on days when I tutor) - Wild Kratts, Word Girl, Ruff Ruffman, and The Electric Company.   Other days we head to the pool or have gymnastics class. 
That’s a typical day in a nutshell! 
One day a week is Field Trip Day, and every other week we have one day a week of co-op….those days run differently (obviously). 
We year round school, and though our work load may vary throughout the year, we TRY to maintain a similar schedule…the kids do much better when we stay in routine.