Thursday, August 23, 2012

First Week Back at Homeschool

Even though have done some school over the summer (mostly with review items), Monday was our official first day of the 12/13 Homeschool Year.  Instead of jumping right back into a full schedule, we ease back into our year starting with a few subjects, then adding a few more until we are back to our regular school day.  We still work on a 4 day a week schedule saving Fridays for errands, grocery shopping, art class, and the park.

The children were excited to get back into the school year.  So much so that we actually did more than I had planned for the first week.  I had planned on starting with our "together" morning work for the first week.  We are reviewing a P.E. program called Family Time Fitness (review will posted around September 12th) and are starting our day with it every morning.  We had Apologia's Who Is My Neighbor as a review this summer and we got started back on that everyday.  Mondays and Wednesdays are history days and this week we finished the first 3 lessons in Mystery of History Volume 2 along with Memory Cards, timeline figures, and a map of Paul's missionary journeys.  In science, Swimming Creatures of the 5th day, we completed week one's reading and notebooking assignments.

Chelsea (11th grade) worked with us on P.E., Bible, and history (she completed a few additional activities for MOH.)  She is also still working on Time 4 Writing and MUS Algebra that she started over the summer.  She had also completed a few of her Chemistry lessons over the summer and started up where she left off.

Anthony (7) was very excited about his new Math book (Math U See) so even though I wasn't planning on doing Math this week we went ahead and got started.  Alex saw him working on Math and wanted to get started on his too, so we did.  Alex and Anthony both wanted to work in their handwriting books and have completed several pages this week.  Anthony is reviewing a program called The Reading Kingdom (review will be posted around August 31st) and does at least one lesson everyday (sometimes two!) even on the weekends.  Anthony, Christian, and Lily have also been enjoying watching their Speekee (review will be posted around September 7th) videos everyday.

The most difficult part of getting back into our schoolwork (besides of course being sore from Family Time Fitness because I am out of shape!)  has been Emelia.  Ever since our first year homeschooling, we have homeschooled with babies and/or toddlers, but I have never had one like her.  Most of our children by the time they were that age were quite content to sit and play quietly, color, or look at books with the other younger children.  Not Emelia.  She does not want to play.  She thinks every time I sit down she needs to be nursing.  That wouldn't be so bad, but she doesn't just nurse quietly.  She wants to be up then down then up and down again.  She kicks the books and reaches over and takes things out of my hand.  If she is not in my lap she is crying, and that little girl does not just cry, she screams.  I am hoping that as we go along and she gets more used to the routine she will get better.  Two days this week she was being a monster (Mon and Thurs) and two days she was really good and did sit and play quietly with her brother and sister and had ate a snack.  Even with the baby not cooperating, I think we got a lot accomplished this week!

Next week we will be adding in Math (Math U See)  and Essentials in Writing for Nick.  Alex will get back to work on All About spelling.  We also should have 2 new review items. 

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