School Weeks 1, 2 & 3

I guess on a blog that is supposed to be about our life, with homeschooling being a big part of that, I should give it some space here. 

I'll start with our school room, which after three years of using the dining room table, I am absolutley loving.

This room is supposed to be the formal living room and it is through double glass paned doors immediatley when you walk through the front door of our house.  I'm thankful that we can just close the doors up if we don't want it (the mess) to be noticable.  Even though the doors are mostly glass, it still closes the room up quite well.

On the left is Christopher and Matthew's desks.  (And the printer sitting on a makeshift box 'table'.  One day we'll give it a proper spot.)  Four Walmart type do-it-yourself shelves fit perfectly along the back wall.  We are using our old kitchen table as the school table for Gabe and I, although he would like his own desk as well.  You can't see it in this picture, but to the right, just in front of that swivel office chair is a tiny little utility stand about 1 1/2 feet high that Gabe has been using as a makeshift desk.  Why?  Because I joked one day with him, when he asked when he would get a desk, that he could use that as a desk, and he thought I was serious.  It's quite awkward for him to work at, but it's funny that a desk is so important to him that he doesn't mind the awkwardness. 

So that's where most of our homeschool business gets done.  We usually do read-alouds in the living room or outside on the patio table, and science in the kitchen quite often, but other than that, the kids and I like working in there.
Our daily routine has been pretty much the same from last year.  Our mornings are free for playing, cleaning, running around town, etc, and when the girls take a nap after lunch at about 1:00, I take about a half hour to just sit and rest (me time) and then we start our school day and finish up around 3:30 or so.  We don't take breaks and apart from the short complaint about english or math being "the worst thing ever", the boys keep focused and get their work done pretty quickly.  Sometimes I juggle helping the boys with their work and doing Gabe's first grade work with him, and other times I wait until the older boys are done and then Gabe does his school work. 
I'd like to have the boys do some school in the mornings so we don't work so late into the afternoon.  Christopher has a friend from public school that likes to come over at about 2:30 or 3:00 and I like for Christopher to have time to play with him before dinner. 

Chris also wants the boys to start a typing program as well as a computer Spanish program and I have the kids do math facts practice on a computer program as well (www.factsfirst.com).  So I have to figure out how to fit that into our day as well with minimal freaking out by the kids.  So we'll see what changes happen with our schedule in the near future.
So...first day of school!

We didn't do quite as much special stuf for the first day as last year, but the boys didn't mind since they were so excited about their Phineas and Ferb activity pads (Target Dollar Spot!)

In fact, their first day of school pictures weren't even taken on the first day!  (Shhhh!)

I did, however, wrap a bright pink sheet around myself and pretended to be Roman slave, in charge of tutoring the children of the home.  It was a fun act and everyone wanted a turn with the sheet/robe.

We did take a break for a snack that day...a typical (sort of) Roman snack.

We are all really enjoying the books we have been reading for Bible (How the Bible Came to Us), History (Anicent World, Streams of Civilization, The Roman Empire, Augustus Caesar's World), and Science (The Human Body for Every Kid, First Encyclopedia of the Human Body).  I'm so thankful that MFW did all the legwork of finding great books to use.

When I looked ahead to these years of the My Father's World curriculum we're using, I wasn't very excited.  I always thought ancient history was a bit boring.  MFW uses really good books and makes learning about everything interesting though.  I love the part of school that I get to read these books aloud to the boys.

We've read about Romulus and Remus and Julias Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra and are now up to the point in Rome when it becomes an Empire run by Augustus Caesar.

We learned to play an old Roman game called Odd or Even and that was enjoyed by all the boys.  Gabe had a hard time when he was behind in his number of pieces of corn, but that's the norm these days with him.

To play, you have 20 pieces of corn (well the book said they used beans, but we didn't have any), ten for each player.  One player puts some of his corn kernels in one hand and the other player guesses whether he is holding an even amount or odd.  If the other player is correct, the first player has to give one piece to him; if he is incorrect, the first player gets a piece of his corn.  Simple, but fun. 

The boys started out learning about cells in science, then moved to learning about brain functions, and now we are learning about the senses. It was fun to test our involuntary reflexes and the kids enjoyed making a cell out of jello that was edible.

Another science experiment.

Matthew was excited to start learning cursive this year (I'm not joking!) and he's doing really well with it.  His printing is not the best, and he still gets letters like d, b, k, p, and a backwards, but it's easier to keep letters going the correct way when using cursive writing.   

Gabe is really into his phonics lessons and is eager to do school everyday to learn more.  He does really well at reading short vowel words and is doing great working at the first grade level.

Each week Gabe learns about a new subject in science.  This week was plants and we found some flowers outside to look at and we chose one to pick and dry in a book so Gabe can make a bookmark out of it to give as a gift to someone later. 

We soaked some seeds so we can examine their insides and we also are going to watch one grow in a clear jar, held up by a wet papertowel.  Fun stuff!

So, we've enjoyed our first few weeks of school and are getting more and more used to our new home.  We've found a church that we really like, the kids are starting Awana soon, we've gone on a couple more outings with homeschool groups, and the moving boxes are nearly gone. 

We've entered our new "normal".