This was our first week back to school and what a week it was. On Monday, we were enjoying the Labor Day holiday when a grease fire broke out in the kitchen of our new house and spread to the dining room. Below are just a few photos of the damage; both rooms are a disaster with blackened cabinets, blistered floors and walls, melted light fixtures, etc. Further, my husband suffered deep second degree burns on his right hand and arm, and second degree burns on his left arm and face. We were told repeatedly that we were very lucky the fire and injuries weren't so much worse, but still, not a great way to start the week (to say the very least!).




Sadly, we had just purchased a set of eight gorgeous [vintage] Danish modern chairs that matched our dining room table and both the table and four of the chairs were burned. However, this afternoon I received a custom-made oilcloth tablecloth that I ordered from Modern June last month (thinking to protect the table if we did schoolwork there), so at least the top of the table can be concealed until we have it refinished. It is very cheery, isn't it? (The polka dotted oilcloth is just a decorative wrap.)


Tuesday was supposed to have been our first day of school, but since I was at the burn center with my husband, school was postponed until Wednesday. Thank goodness for Homeschool Skedtrack because juggling assignments was much easier than it would have been with my old system! Nevertheless, it sucks starting the school year off-schedule!

For our first day, we revisited the schultüte (school cone) tradition of past years; here's M with hers:


We kept things pretty simple this week because I didn't want to jump into a full schedule right away (and to be perfectly honest, I wasn't quite prepared!). Despite this, we still averaged 6 hours of school per day, which has me very fearful for next week. This is roughly what we'll be covering this year (click on the image to enlarge):


It's scheduled to average 7-8 hours per day (9 hours a day on the two days per week that they'll have outside classes) and that seems like too much, yet this week we only managed a fraction of the work and it took 6 hours?! Yikes! One thing I'll be doing differently next week is borrowing this genius timer idea from Satori Smiles; I've already utilized her clipboard idea and love that it completely eliminates lost schedules!


Language Arts

Grammar was largely parts of speech review (nouns, pronouns and articles). We read the first twenty-four pages of Michael Clay Thompson's Grammar Town as well as four chapters from Grammar-Land by M.L. Nesbitt. The kids completed Grammar Land worksheets for the chapters read.

For our poetry study, we read a number of poems by Eugene Field (who was born on September 2, 1850). The kids also completed a fun research page (see below; click on image for full-size) on Fields from The Lookies. The Lookies was an annual bulletin for children published by Field Enterprises from 1949 through the 1970s. It was designed to be used with World Book Encyclopedias.

Next week, we'll be adding literature, handwriting and composition to our language arts schedule.

Science

The kids read sections 1.1 (units of measurement) and 1.2 (the scientific method) from Chapter 1 of CPO's Focus on Life Science and completed the corresponding "Skill and Practice" worksheets. They also read Millions to Measure by David M. Schwartz and did some research on Francisco Redi and spontaneous generation.

Geography

The kids completed one lesson from Maps, Charts and Graphs, Level D (we're not using the books in order) and their first  Geography and Culture task card from Creek Edge Press. They also completed several geography notebook pages from the World Maps CD by Homeschool in the Woods. This week's task card was about maps and globes and assignments included filling out a black line world map, drawing a world map and learning various geography terms. While I love the task cards, the kids were less enthused. M, in particular, found them too open-ended and thus rather frustrating.


Art

We only managed one day of art this week, and not a very exciting day at that. Typically, art and geography will be on alternate days with art occurring three times per week.

We read about how to look at art and the elements of art: line, shape, form, space, value, color, and texture. We then read Lesson 1 (Line) from Scott Foresman Art (6); the kids completed a sketchbook journal exercise, experimenting with various types of lines using various drawing tools. Next, we viewed and discussed a number of contour drawings by Matisse, then the kids created their own contour drawings. Because I would not let them look at their papers while drawing, this proved a frustrating exercise for them.

Studio 1: Contour Drawing:


History

As usual, history was our busiest subject this week. Here's what we did:

• Read about Thomas Jefferson, the Barbary Pirates, and Lewis and Clark in Chapter 9 of The American Republic (BJU) and completed the corresponding Student Activity Manual pages.
• Completed Lesson 1 from the Time Travelers Early 19th Century CD. Our projects were a foldout book on the Barbary Pirates, a 19th century songbook, and a timeline.
• Watched Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery on Netflix Instant.
• Began reading The Lewis and Clark Expedition by Carol A. Johmann (not the book I'd originally planned, but necessary given our condensed week)
• Completed five pages in the Lewis and Clark Discoveries on the Trail [activity book].
• Each child read a roughly 100-page biography of Thomas Jefferson and created a notebook entry summarizing his life. In the end, these weren't quite the summaries I had envisioned since they each wrote four pages!

Critical Thinking

The kids completed 4 pages from Building Thinking Skills.

Next week, I hope to be adding religion, math and foreign language(s) into our schedule, in addition to handwriting, literature and composition. Wish me luck!