Hey, friends! Today I'm going to give an update on our first nine weeks of school.
For five of the nine weeks, we were on our roadtrip to the northeast. While we were gone, we brought along our books, took a lot of field trips, and lots of nature studies. We listened to audio books as we drove. We watched documentaries and learned about our future visits. We learned history of towns and found new favorite places to visit again. It was a very successful trip. It was an amazing experience to give to the kids.
We are loving science. Each week we do some sort of project or game. We are loving the hands on approach. Our first science project was an edible cell and various candies to represent their organelles.
It didn't turn out like we thought, but, it was a fun project.
Another project was to make a human figure from clay. This project was to show the purpose of bones in our bodies.
We used toothpicks to represent the bones.
Sterling added hair to her human.
When we started our school year, math proved to be challenging this year (it's an every other year event for us). Every year math gets more comprehensive and I need to be more patient. What I've done is slowed down the lessons. Some lessons will take more than one day, and that's okay! When I teach any subject, I want my kids to understand the concepts, not just move on to the next lesson. A perk to homeschooling! This year we all have our own iPads so I can have them mirror their screen when they are doing problems and walk step by step with them. And stop them when they miss a step. When they do their practice sheets, if they get a problem wrong, I have them fix it.
I've also started making lessons to go with their lessons. My kids used to go ahead and do the lessons, but with so much frustration this year, I'm going to teach it first, and then they can do their work. We'll do this for as long as they are comfortable.
Language Arts. Finding a curriculum is what proves to be challenging. We started using FixIt! Grammar (IEW) this year and are loving it. Then I felt like we needed something with structure for writing so I gave The Good and the Beautiful a try. Again. Every year I give the LA program a try. And every year it's not for us.
For quarter two are will be using Structure and Style from IEW. Since we love FixIt! Grammar so much, I'm hopeful that structure and style will be what I've been looking for.
All other components of LA are going well.
Our quarter two schedule
No worries. We have bad days too. We are human after all. We have some days where we just don't want to do school. Some days we're tired. Some days we have no patience.
So, how do I handle our bad days? I use discernment. If one has a bad attitude, they push through. Sometimes they do school in their room. If they have growing pains, they get extra rest at night. I look at the situation and talk with the child to figure out what's really going on. Some days, not often, we'll call it quits early and everyone takes a mental break in their rooms. Including me. I actually look forward to my quiet time 😂
Happy Thursday!
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