This was the first week of our 2015-2016 school year, and it went remarkably well. Especially when you take into consideration the fact that I forgot to buy or prepare at least three things.
Here’s a little of what Pete and Poppy worked on this week:
Language Arts
Reading
The kids are both working to finish up their Barnes and Noble Summer Reading journals. They’ve both read a lot of “Wimpy Kid” books this summer, but they still have several books to go to get the free-book prize.
Our first read-aloud of the year is “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.” We normally kick the year off with the next book in the series, but we started early this year. Good thing, too, because “Goblet of Fire” is a million pages long.
In assigned reading: Poppy is still working on the “Holes” literature study, and Pete is reading a biography of Amelia Earhardt.
Spelling
I am very much wishing that Pete and I had continued his spelling work over the summer. Hello, Square One, my old friend.
Vocabulary
Poppy and Pete are both doing Wordly Wise 3000. Poppy recommenced where she left off, and Pete started Level Two on Wednesday. Because I forgot to add him to our account until Monday, and it takes a few days to activate it through Homeschool Buyers Co-op.
Writing
Remember how I forgot to add Pete to the Wordly Wise account? I also forgot that I was going to start him on a writing curriculum this year. It should arrive sometime next week.
Grammar
The kids picked up where they’d left off on the Michael Clay Thompson books, and so far it seems that they’ve retained all of their knowledge of nouns, pronouns, prepositions and the like. I’m pleased.
Memorization
This year Pete is working on some of the poems Poppy learned a few years ago, and Poppy will be reviewing them. The first poem on the list is Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Bed in Summer.”
We’re also going to work on memorizing all the presidents in order, using some mnemonic goofiness. We’re starting with “Wilson’s ants just made Molly and Jessica vanish.”
(Do you remember “Johnny Mnemonic”? What a terrible movie that was.)
STEM stuff
Math
The first few days of math were a little shaky, but Pete and Poppy had both regained their confidence by mid-week. It’s all long division and telling time over here.
Science
I found some circuitry kits marked half-off at Target over the summer, so we’re starting the year with that. The kids had a blast working through the first four segments of that today.
History
We’re learning about Napoleon this week. We also talked about the British navy, and our end-of-week project was making hardtack. It was flavor-free and hard as a rock, as advertised. But now we’re pretty much ready to spend a few weeks at sea, I guess. (That’s not even remotely true.)
Extracurricular
Our usual month-off from extracurricular activities turned into a month and a half off. This week the kids resumed piano, guitar, tennis and tae kwon do, and I resumed thinking that they have too many extracurricular activities.
We also had a trip to the art museum today. The kids took a tour through some of the galleries, and then Poppy made mono-prints with all of the other kids except Pete, who declared that he would not be making any art today.
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