Home's Cool: Week One

This was our first official week of our  new school year. We do continue school through the summer, but it is mainly supplemental and used to keep them in the habit of doing school. I have learned that extended breaks are hard on my kids, especially my oldest, so we just keep chugging along no matter the time of year.

This week we had highs and lows, but overall it was a great week. I did a lot of tweaking of our schedule over the summer and so far it seems to be working out. It seems like every year I get a little more organized. Maybe by the time my kids are teenagers, I will have this all figured out!

Last year we struggled to get through breakfast and jobs in a timely manner and always seemed to be starting our day late. So this year, I told them from the start that we will begin our day at 8:00 a.m. If they are late, then they will have to go to bed early that night. So far, no one has been late and we have started on time.

Our days start with Bible and quiet time in the living room. Our curriculum, Adventures in My Father's World, includes a Bible lesson but we also use a devotional book during this time. Thanks to youtube we have access to some praise song videos. So after our Bible lesson and talk, we sing praise songs together. This week we have been learning "Our God" by Chris Tomlin and "Oh, Happy Day" by Tim Hughes. Then we find our quiet corners of the living room and spend time in God's Word and praying individually. I can not tell you how precious this time is with my children. I don't direct what they should read or how. They are on their own. This is a special time between them and God and I leave it at that. Isaac started reading Revelation this week. Heavy stuff! And Julia read about Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection. Wow! God has His hand on their hearts. My prayer is that they will continue to surrender to Him and follow Him.

This week during Bible time we have talked about their names. On this day, we made name bracelets.

Every time they see this bracelet they are reminded that God knows them and loves them.

The kids did name acrostics. Isaac came up with these words to describe himself... interesting, significant, active, amazing, and cool. Julia's words to describe herself were... joyful, understanding, lovely, inventive, and active.

After Bible time, we stay put in the living room while we do our history activity which usually has some read aloud texts. If need be, we move back to the table for the activities. This week we have learned about the pledge of allegiance, the U.S. flag, the U.S. and the world maps, and vikings. We read about Eric the Red and his son Leif Ericsson. We have started our timeline, which we will add to throughout the year. We also started learning the song "God Bless America".

Map work

Learning about the U.S. map

Next, Julia goes to the living room for book bucket time. I have this bucket full of books related to our lessons for this and next week. She spends time reading and looking at pictures while I work with Isaac on spelling.  Isaac joins her after completing his spelling. He has started Spelling by Sound and Structure. I was not expecting this to be a struggle for him but by the end of the week the spelling tests about did him in. He detests being wrong on anything. Kind of makes it hard to teach him sometimes. I am constantly reassuring him that he doesn't have to be perfect, he just needs to try his best. Little by little, we are working on this concept.

Isaac working on spelling. Can you see the enthusiasm?!

Book Bucket time

Book Bucket reading

Following this, we come back together for either science or art depending on the day. We have begun our Apologia book, Exploring God's Creation with Botany. We also use the Encyclopedia of Science. Art will change as we go through the year, but this week we used Come Look with Me as we discussed George Inness' painting The Lackawanna Valley. Yesterday, the kids went outside to draw a landscape picture with one detail that would tell a story. I bet you can guess who took right to this assignment.... my little artist Julia! We also used Draw Write Now to help us draw a U.S. flag.

Shoe taxonomy. We learned about how botanists classify plants. We tried it with our own shoes!

Nature walk

Beautiful flower held by a beautiful girl

For the rest of the day, Isaac and Julia do work individually. Both will be using Singapore for their math curriculum. Isaac is on 2A and Julia has started 1A. Math is still a struggle for Isaac. Not because he doesn't understand it but because he has a hard time trying to be perfect. I came to the realization this week that math and spelling are boiled down to one right or wrong answer. This may be a lot of pressure for someone who can't stand to be wrong. He does not have these same issues with the other subjects and assignments.  So this is just something we have to continually work through.

Isaac  will be using Bob Jones Language Arts, Magraw Hill Reading,  and Explode the Code 4 1/2. I am taking Julia through the reading activities from MFW first grade. She will also work through Explode the Code 2 1/2 and will begin reading chapter books next week as we start the Circle C series. She is super excited about that! They both work on writing through their journals and will be learning Spanish this year using Rosetta Stone.

Working on Spanish with Rosetta Stone

When Julia has to pronounce something and can't she ends up saying it louder and louder until she is yelling at the computer. I guess she thinks she will pronounce it correctly if she yells it! Funny stuff!!

 I have already gotten the question, "What do you do with Caleb during school?" Well, for the most part he just plays. And by plays, I mean he gets into things!!! On one particular day he colored on himself, the floor, and the wall with marker, spilled an entire container of teeny tiny beads, and climbed up on the kitchen counter to plug in the griddle which was set for 400 degrees. That all happened within 10 minutes! Whew! It is exhausting keeping up with him during school. But as he is getting older, he has started to enjoy doing big boy things like drawing and playing with play dough. I am going to have to come up with some other creative (and safe) ways to keep him occupied. He is still my curious little monkey!

Once the kids finish with all their school for the day, they do chores. This is the first year I have assigned kitchen duties to them, and for now they love it! We will see if they are singing the same song in a few years! 

We had to unload and reload the dishes the first time Isaac had kitchen duty. He thought he could just pile them in the dishwasher and be done with it. He is such a male!

 

Folding laundry

 

Julia took cleaning the kitchen pretty seriously

While Caleb takes a nap, we sit down together for read aloud time. This week we are reading the last few chapters of the Chronicles of Narnia series. I will post more about that later. I LOVE reading to my children. Such a special time we share together.

 We ended our week today with a nature walk around our neighborhood. We brought along our school books and did Bible, history, and science at the park!!

As you can see, it has been a very full week of learning. I love it though! I feel like we accomplished a lot this week while still enjoying learning together. And even though we had a rough patch on Thursday, I am still counting this week as a success. Now I am off to get ready for Week Two!!