We are enjoying our school year this year! We love our homeschool group- Eday is one of kids (and my) favorite days of the week. The kids love all their classes and hanging out with friends. I'm glad we're starting at 1030 instead of 9 which is fantastic! Not so rushed and get some regular school in before enriching :)
We have really loved having all the kids studying the same time period. K is still following Ambleside Online but the rest of us are loosely A Modern Charlotte Mason. All studying Middle Ages. It's so much more fun learning history now!! I think I'm getting a much better idea about it than I did as a kid :)
We have watched some great movies that have added to our history fun like
Pendragon
Polycarp
Ben Hur (but the shorter animated version :)
and some
Drive Through History. We've also enjoyed
Animated History with Pipo and recently found
Prince Valiant.
We've just started reading
Good-Masters-Sweet-Ladies-Medieval and we're really enjoying it!
Kids are reading lots and we just finished listening to Tales of King Arthur and the Round Table. Next audio book is
The Little Duke. I remember liking it when we read it a few years ago and now that I realize it's set right before the Battle of Hastings I really want to listen again. The kids already think I'm obsessed with that battle and they've grown a lot bigger since then (I read it sometime in Baltimore, so it's time to listen again. That battle isn't any more special to me than any other but I'm trying to teach myself and the kids to have place hangers in history that you can know when something happened in relation to something else. Somehow we started using Math U See 100 blocks to talk about our timeline. so now whatever you're talking about we discuss which 100 block it would be on and where on that block. whatever works!!
We're also enjoying our Spanish and Latin books- both by
Linney. A Modern Charlotte Mason recommended for Latin and we liked it- now it's a super addition to Spanish Duolingo.
Math U See works well for us for math- when someone mentions a math curriculum they love, I just plug my ears and say we're sticking with MUS- again if it works don't change it. (Plus if you've already bought almost all the teacher books, who wants to start over :)
K started Middle Ages IEW which again I really like- I think our tremendous trio (C, T, KG) will start IEW in January. We can't do it all at once. But the kids are all doing well with Spelling Power and Fix It Grammar.
K is following Ambleside Online Year 7. We are using Apologia Anatomy and learning lots!
Eday is terrific- K loves his 4 classes: Ted Talks, American History meets Critical Thinking, Public Forum, and of course Math Counts. Math is probably his favorite, then Public Forum. He went to his first debate tournament this weekend and really enjoyed it!
C enjoys scrabble and he and Trey both love their free period for soccer!
Peacemakers was a fantastic class this fall that will help the boys in life. C is going to teach c in the spring! T is also really enjoying Math Olympiad.
KG has 3 classes this year- Budding Ballerinas, Elementary Art, and Hands On Science. She really loves Art!
c is in her first class (besides playground:). She really loves Budding Ballerinas and looks forward to it all week!
V is the PE mascot and enjoys playground time.
I'm helping teach my first class- PE. This year in addition to enjoying the classes and fellowship time, I'm really enjoying not starting until 1030. We aren't so stressed about getting there early and we get so much done in a short time Wednesday mornings. Love it!!
I'm sure there's a lot more I could write about our school year- I didn't include anything about Bible, vacations, field trips, piano practice, soccer, tennis, dance, park days, or the time we have at home to work on character, chores, relationship... but I'll end by saying we're very thankful for this opportunity to homeschool!
