Homeschool

Our school year started a few weeks early

Homeschool at ButterscotchSundae.comThis time last week I wasn’t planning to start our school year until the 19th. Last weekend, though, I reorganized the homeschool-stuff closet so I’d be ready when the time came, and then on Monday one of the kids experienced a moment of Boredom.

And so we started Homeschooling Year 2013-14!

We had a number of pre-planned activities this week — a pool party with Poppy’s AHG friends, an informational park playdate for potential new co-op members and mid-afternoon dentist appointments — so we didn’t get everything on our schedules done every day. The kids did get the majority of their work done, though, and most of it was done cheerfully.

Extracurricular

The kids are doing a weekly LEGO-building challenge based on the LEGO Quest Kids blog. They did the second challenge this week, which was to create a monochromatic design. The both made vehicles, which as it happens was also the first challenge!

Pete’s design “has a button that makes the wheels pop off. It can transform into anything” the LEGO guy “needs. It has a little gun, and that’s it.”

Poppy’s creation “has a driver’s seat and a little place where you can put Lego luggage in the back. And it has 4 extra seats on the side, and it has a little window so if he needs a window when it’s raining he can use his windshield wipers to clean the window. (I didn’t actually put windshield wipers on it. They’re pretend.) The four extra seats can transform into wings. The wheels pop off when he goes to the airport.”

History

This year Pete is a full participant in our “Story of the World” studies. He did a great job remembering details of the story of Indian ruler Akbar, and he seemed to enjoy doing the map work.

In US history we read about John Fremont, about whom Poppy was quite interested because the book said he was handsome. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Reading

  • We started “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” this week, and the kids are full of ideas about what might happen in the book.

  • I’ve suggested to Poppy at least 10 times that she might enjoy “Ivy and Bean” by Annie Barrows, but she expressed zero interest until this week, when she “discovered” it at the library. She then proceeded to read the entire book in about 40 minutes. I really need to create something like a notebooking routine for her free reading.

    Spelling

  • Poppy started SpellWell B this week, and she aced the preview with such alacrity that it made me wonder if I might ought to move her straight to SpellWell Bb. If she keeps spelling every single word on her spelling lists correctly on the first try, I’ll probably start skipping them until we get to something more challenging for her.

  • Pete is doing McRuffy’s Spelling & Word Study. It starts with a simple spelling list — cat, pat, bat, etc. — and I think it’s just exactly challenging enough for him.

    Latin

    We started “Song School Latin” this week, and so far we’ve learned how to introduce ourselves and engage in a very limited amount of small talk. I only bought one workbook, but I think that’s going to work out fine because the amount of writing required is a little beyond Pete’s patience level at this point. So I’ve been talking over the questions with him while Poppy does the written work.

    Wanna read more about homeschooling? Check out the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly linky thing!