The First Six Weeks

This post is LONG overdue. I meant to write it during our Fall break, back in early October. But that week was overtaken by rearranging rooms. We bought bunk beds for the boys, moved their room into the schoolroom, moved the schoolroom to the guest suite outside, and moved the guest room to the boys’ old room. Lots of books to move, lots of decorating to do, lots of things to organize. After lugging what felt like the thousandth pile of books through the house, outside, and to the new school room, I actually considered becoming a minimalist with books. Really. For one brief moment, I imagined myself getting rid of all our books. No worries, once the books were moved, I laughed at my moment of insanity. But seriously…I do not want to do any book rearranging again anytime soon. Or even ever.

Now for the highlights of our first six weeks…

Our first day of school, August 18th. Joseph: 7 years old; William: 5 years old; Andrew: 3 years old; Katelyn: 1 year old

Geography studies: We covered China, South Korea, Japan, India, Israel and Thailand.

Chemistry: We began our Chemistry studies supplemented with lots of fun experiments…pretty sure these boys know more about the elements, the periodic table and chemical reactions than I knew after taking Chemistry in high school.

American History: We covered the early explorers including the Vikings, Columbus, Vespucci, Magellan, and a few other early settlers. Then we moved on to John Smith and Pocahontas (which we covered last year and I was amazed at how many details Joseph remembered!)

World History: We continued our Ancient History studies, covering the Early Church, the Age of the Apostles, and the Seeds of the Kingdom. Lots of saint studies, lots of stories of martyrdom, and lots of church history.

Wee Folk Art: This has been a fun supplement to our days! We covered vegetable gardens, dairy, tractors, the bakery, wool and yarn, and apples. After studying vegetables, we visited the grocery store and did a vegetable scavenger hunt; for dairy, we visited the Cheesecake Factory; after tractors, we visited the John Deere Tractor store; we baked bread, made homemade butter, spun yarn (or at least we attempted to using a drop spindle), learned how to knit using a french knitter, and tried needle felting. We made quilt squares with our hand prints and did a ton of reading.

Fine Arts Fridays: We began our Shakespeare studies (which have been a HUGE hit!), continued with our Lindsey Volin art lessons and Spot the Differences, listened to Vivaldi, practiced piano and did our Hoffman Academy lessons, and began our Nature Study lessons using Simply Charlotte Mason’s Nature Study book.

Memory Work: We’ve been doing an awesome job keeping up with our memory work, reviewing each day. The timeline song has been a lot of fun and I’m shocked at how many mental pegs these kids are making.