Wow, I thought I was long overdue when I wrote my first six weeks post…if that was overdue, I’m not sure what word to use to describe the timeliness of this post!  We just finished our third six weeks (so that portion of this post is on time!).  Here are the highights of both the 2nd and 3rd six weeks (this won’t make for highly entertaining reading…plus I apparently ditched the camera for school-related things during all that time!)

Geography studies: 2nd 6 weeks: We covered Russia, the UK, France, Italy, Greece and Germany.  3rd 6 weeks: We covered the Netherlands, Spain, Canada, and the United States.

Chemistry:  We continued our Chemistry studies supplemented with lots of fun experiments.  We read Marie Curie’s Search for Radium.  The boys each made their own periodic table pillowcase…apparently sleeping on the periodic table is worth “experimenting” with!

American History:  2nd 6 weeks: We covered the Pilgrims (just in time for Thanksgiving, of course!).  3rd 6 weeks: We covered early colony life, Daniel Boone and began a novel study of The Courage of Sarah Noble.

World History:  2nd 6 weeks: We finished up our Early Church and early saint studies and began to move into the Byzantine Empire (using Pandia Press…which you’ll see in just a moment that we didn’t stick with for long!)  3rd 6 weeks: After a King Arthur lapbook (lovingly prepared for Joseph by Auntie Leslie!), we switched programs (again) to Simply Charlotte Mason’s Medieval studies…ahh, love this.  Simple, straightforward and filled with real books.  Perfect fit for us.  And all are engaged in their learning.

Wee Folk Art: 2nd 6 weeks: We focused on harvest time…lots of apples, pumpkins and of course, with fall, leaves!  3rd 6 weeks: We started Winter Wonderland…lots of snow stories and nonfiction about winter and groundhog stories.  Not quite as engaging as our first trimester, but we’re enjoying the reading (and wishing we could visit some snow!)

Other highlights:  We added back in our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd lessons (didn’t realize how much we missed this, until we started back!)  We are continuing our Shakespeare studies, Hoffman Academy lessons (supplemented with Alan Jemison lessons…they’re finally reading music!), and Nature Study lessons using Simply Charlotte Mason’s Nature Study book.  We switched over to Memoria Press’ picture study cards and are alternating our art lessons between Lindsey Volin and See the Light DVDs.

In between our 2nd and 3rd six weeks, we took the month of December for our Advent plans (we always spend the month of December doing school a little differently…we still do our Grammar and Math plans but we spend the remainder of our days soaking up the liturgy of the Advent season…lots of focus on feast days and preparing our hearts for the birth of Christ).  This year we spent Advent studying Christmas Around the World.  All the usual feast day celebrations took place (St. Lucy’s day with our annual tour of the lights; St. Nicholas’ day with card and cookie making; The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, with Grandma Nury’s help to make flan) along with preparation for Christmas (our Jesse Tree, the O Antiphon house, plus the gift making, cookie baking, present wrapping) during this time.  This was our first year using the O Antiphon house, which added an extra depth to those dark days right before Christmas.

For a list of our daily activities including Faith lessons, Math, and language arts, you can glance back at the 2014-2015 plans.