This is our first weekly report in awhile because for the past two months the kids have been doing much of their work independently. I got very busy with my job, but also needed to take some time away from our more teacher-intensive work to rest, reevaluate and recharge. Happily, the kids did really well during this time, though they missed the hands-on activities and read-alouds. Now, we're back to "school as usual," or at least, doing as much as is possible during this oh-so-busy time of year. 

Religion
  • We continued reading daily from Saints for Young Readers, Vol. 2.
  • This week, we resumed memory work from the St. Joseph's Baltimore Catechism and are still on the first part of Lesson 2.
  • The kids are also now taking religious education classes at the parish school twice a week in preparation for the sacraments of First Reconciliation (Confession) and First Eucharist (Communion).
History



Language Arts
  • This week we set aside our Seton readers and workbooks to try something different. M began reading I, Coriander and J began reading Brendon Chase; they will be doing a report upon completion of the books. M also began reading Little Women.
  • For vocabulary, the kids completed one lesson per day (M-Th) from Vocabulary 5 for Young Catholics.
  • In Voyages in English, the kids started a unit on adjectives and completed one lesson per day.
  • Daily copywork from the Bible and George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation, part of the Time Travelers: Colonial Life unit.
  • For composition, we studied sentence writing (primarily, ways of making sentences interesting) and the kids completed several exercises from Alhambra Denning's Methods and Material for Composition.  I also had them record examples of interesting sentences that they encountered in their reading and we discussed these.
Science
We began a study of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). The kids read one chapter per day from Along Came Galileo. I had planned to include a few experiments from Galileo for Kids, but we ran out of time. Hopefully we'll get to those this weekend.

Math
One lesson per day from their Singapore books.


Unfortunately, we didn't quite get to everything I had planned this week, but it was still an incredibly full and *busy* week!

© Country Living
The past couple of months have been unexpectedly busy, not affording me time for the usual fall/holiday planning and preparations. With things settling down and cooler weather forecasted for the next week (finally!), I've started searching for some new fall recipes to try. Here's what sounded good:

Sweet
Savory
Beverages

Also, from my newest cookbook, Holiday Fare: Favorite Williamsburg Recipes: Peanut Soup with Cranberry Sauce and Lardoons, Butternut Squash and Pear Pottage, Sugar and Spice Crusted Pork Tenderloins with Red Cabbage and Pear Compote, Gingered Pumpkin Muffins, and Applesauce Buttermilk Biscuits. Yum!