Homeschooling in our Tiny House

Homeschooling in a tiny house looks a lot different than in a bigger house. All our books have to fit on two bookshelves. My amazing husband built a large drawer for under the sofa for all my flashcards, school supplies, and anything we do not need on a daily basis. 
School takes places at the table, on the sofa, outside, on trips, out in nature and everywhere we go. 

Going from a whole room dedicated to being just a school room to two book shelves in the living room is not without its challenges. 

Our curriculum is a mix. We use Memoria Press for some things. They have a curriculum for kids with special needs called Simply Classical. One of our kids uses a different math and English. She uses Schoolaid Math and Climbing to Good English. For reading the kids are doing Pathway Reading. They really enjoy the stories and they have workbooks to go along with it for comprehension.

After this school year we will be switching two of our kids to Teaching Textbooks for math. For now however one is using Rod and Staff for math and he other is using Schoolaid for math. We really like Rod and Staff for our kids who are struggling with math because it helps build a good foundation and works on helping them remember their math facts. 

For History we do a lot of read alounds. In October we read and learned about Christopher Columbus. In November we read and learned about Pocahontas, and The Thanksgiving story. In December, Sarah Morton’s Day- a Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Girl. For January, we will read and learn about Benjamin Franklin. In February we will learn about George Washington and Betty Ross,.

Every month we work on learning a new poem, bible verse, and hymn. 

So far the kids have learned the poems Something Told the Wild Geese by Rachel Field, Snowball by Shel Silverstein, and are currently learning The Wise Old Owl. 

In Spanish they have learned how to count from 1-20 now in Spanish. 

In Bible they have learned Ephesians 4:31-32, Luke 2: 7-14, and this month they are working on learning Isaiah 40: 28-31. 

We also work on learning about a composer and artist every month. This month we are learning about The Stary Night by Van Gogh and George Fredrick Handel and the Messiah. 

This is our circle time board. We work on this throughout the month. At the end of the month I update it with new poems, bible verses, and things to learn. We do this in addition to our work in Simply Classical.

A hike in the forest

Our son made a home with the mommy/teacher in the front and all the children/students listening. 

learning about where recycling goes after it leaves your house

We do not have trash or recycling pick up so we take it ourselves

Learning how to build a deck with Daddy

Our Church held a Night in Bethlehem for kids where they had all kinds of activities and crafts 

painting ornaments

shepherds keeping watch over their animals

bread making

learning to play the dreidel game

making pinch pots

making their own hammer

festival of trees

helping chop wood

Signing at church

a hike in our forest

helping Daddy put together their merry go round

We read Sarah Morton, Pilgrim Girl then wrote a sentence and drew a picture to go with it. They are working in the Simply Classical Level 3 by Memoria Press. This workbook works on everything from learning how to write sentences to letting the child learn how to make sentences more interesting by choosing adverbs and adjectives to make their sentences. Each story has about 4 different days work in the workbook. The start of the work starts with figuring out the main ideas, and what are supporting details. It also works on understanding common nouns, proper nouns, which words are capitalized because it is the first word of a sentence and which is capitalized because it is a proper noun. 

Part of the curriculum is reading the stories that teach kids History and then this workbook goes along with the biographies we read to help build understanding and comprehension in what they have heard and learned about. At the end of each story, the kids get to make up their own sentences based on what they have understood in the story and then draw a picture to go with their sentence.

There is so much I love about this workbook! 

Working on their math

Reading The Story Bible together