Year 2, Week 21

     Happy New Year and happy back to school!  We are back on track with homeschooling and Classical Conversations.  For those of you interested in Classical Conversations, this is the month to start checking for Open Houses or informational meetings in your area.  Next month will be the time to sign up and register and if homeschooling is growing, much like our community did from when we first started (It went from two groups to 7!) then you're going to want to get informed and get signed up asap.  You can look for a community close to you by clicking here.  If you'd like information from a tutor's perspective, feel free to post questions in the Comments section and I will answer them as best as I can.

     The New Year brought some changes in our homeschooling routine.  I use a mix of the Charlotte Mason method and Classical Education in our homeschooling, so in order to really nail in the kids' memory work from CC, they read what I've written on the board and then copy it down.  For all the subjects in CC except math, I've either created or found a double-sided sheet for them to do their work.  (This gets placed in a notebook which I'll share later on.)  They would do one side on one day and the other side later on in the week.  History and English would be done on Monday and Wednesdays, Latin and Science on Tuesdays and Thursdays, leaving Geography and review on Fridays.

    However, the kids would often jump ahead and just complete both sides.  This would also, unbeknownst to them, make their school day longer.  So, I changed it so that they complete both sides of the copywork/worksheet on one scheduled day instead of coming back to it later in the week.  This also made it easier for me (and them) to track what was done or still needed to be done.  Now our schedule now looks like this:

Monday:  English Grammar
Tuesday:  History
Wednesday:  Latin
Thursday:  Geography
Friday:  Science and Review

     It's more streamlined and they're done with all their work earlier.  Applause all around!

     Week 21 we also finished our reading of The Wind in the Willows.  My kids LOVED this story, even more so than Peter Pan, which we finished prior to this book.  I don't think I ever read The Wind in the Willows, or at least I don't remember reading it, but we thoroughly enjoyed it.  This is just another reason why I love English Lessons Through Literature by Kathy Jo Devore.  I like that we get to read great classics together and that the kids' work comes directly from the books we read.  My kids even put on a skit for their dad showing him one of their favorite parts of the book.

     That's about it for now.  I'll be back soon, hopefully!

   

100th Day of Homeschooling!

     Last year, with one child in public school and one child in homeschool, both kids had different things going on that the other wished they could participate in.  Things as big as field trips or as little as the 100th day of school.  With that in mind, I had planned on celebrating our halfway point (last post) and our 100th day of school, which happened to be today.  It's raining right now, and after a meeting I had this morning, we decided to kick off our celebration by ordering pizza for lunch when we got home.  My kids said it was the best pizza EVER!

     Then for dinner, since we're such carnivores, we decided to treat ourselves to Ruth's Chris Steak House.  We all wanted a good steak and this particular location had just opened up very close to us, so we went for it.  It was a nice (pricey) dinner, but the kids felt really special and frankly, I needed something special too.

     This also marks our 20th week of school.  Last week was our last meeting for Classical Conversations before the Christmas break.  Before bidding farewell to our community until after the New Year, we had a joyous time at the annual Family Christmas party.  All the kids showed off their knowledge of our history timeline and each class played a tune on their tin whistles.  My class played part of Jingle Bells.  They did a wonderful job.  All the kids did!

     That's about it for now.  Can you tell I'm ready for our break to begin?  This is our last week of homeschooling until everything, (CC plus our homeschooling schedule) begins again after the New Year.  I.  Am.  So.  Ready.
   
     So, have yourselves a merry little Christmas and may you ring in the New Year surrounded by love, food and merriment and may blessings be poured out upon you and yours!