First Day of School

Wow! Starting school again is always a rush. I think the extra-curricular activities create the biggest whirlwind.

Today we put my schedules to the test and they held up fairly well. I stayed up late last night making a history schedule to rival my biology schedule. I only got the first term (6 weeks) completed, but that'll due for a bit!

The girls had short lessons in Biology, US History, and Calculus (Hannah only)-- I feel like I'm back in Charlotte Mason's method. Ooh I miss those days!

Today we read the first 4 chapters of A History of Us, vol 1: The First Americans.

 

But tomorrow we get a treat: our first Living Book, Indian Captive, a fascinating story "inspired by actual events" about Mary Jamison, a white girl whose family was murdered and who was kidnapped by an Indian tribe. She lived with them for many years and they became her second family. A wonderful story!  Hannah remembers it from 6 years ago so I hope she's not bored.

I have an alternate called Blood on the River, a story of Jamestown. It looks a bit more action-packed, and is written as a series of journal entries. I may let her read that one on her own, but I've also got Sing Down the Moon or The King's Fifth for her to choose from. So many excellent living books for this time period!

In Biology I kept them awake for 30 minutes of Apologia somehow. I find asking them the questions helps. That's what science is all about, right? The "scientific method." In fact, they began singing the old "Lyrical Life Science" songs and that made me feel good. Homeschooling has been working! They don't remember it all, but they got it, somewhere along the way :)

And today they both aced the flashcards I made on Quizlet!

In 15 minutes we squoze (?) in the first 2 chapters of Calculus: P1 and P2. These are review for Hannah. Hopefully by next week we'll get to the good stuff :) I love math!

Most of my day was actually spent running kids around. Jordan had his 3rd Honors US History class. He stayed at the college while I got gas, went grocery shopping, and ran home to help with math and other fun things like Seterra Geography and Word Roots.

Hannah and I picked up Jordan later and transported him to another campus-- only 50 minutes away from the 1st one. Then Hannah and I drove from there to Teelin for her 2 dance classes.

Thinking I had loads of time, I ran to the library and then to Target to buy notebooks- and notebooks- and notebooks. Then I foolishly thought I had enough time to do a little "me" shopping and ended up 20 minutes late picking her up. I was so embarrassed!

I pray tomorrow will be another wonderful day. We have to find our Morning Offering prayer. Today Hannah led us in the Anime Christi (Soul of Christ), the prayer before the crucifix--- my favorite :)

Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, inebriate me.
Water from the side of Christ, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
O Good Jesus, hear me.
Within Thy wounds hide me.
Suffer me not to be separated from thee.
From the malignant enemy defend me.
In the hour of my death call me.
And bid me come unto Thee,
That with all Thy saints,
I may praise thee
Forever and ever.
Amen.

A Day of Planning

So today the family was away and the mouse didn't play, she worked hard planning the new homeschool year!

Several years ago we studied Apologia Biology (the girls were much younger then) and I made these wonderful flash cards to help us learn the material. Today I upped the cool-factor and created the same flash cards online. I found an amazing tool called Quizlet which lets you create sets of flash cards for free and send them to your students! Wow I will be using this alot. I also created flash cards for our SAT vocabulary words, which we are getting from Direct Hits.

Thanks to many wonderful homeschool moms who have done Apologia Biology in the past, I have been able to create a schedule. (I'm only at week 13 but who's counting?)

I also got started on an IEW schedule but writing just isn't my thing :)

Homeschool 101

Today I began seriously creating our homeschool schedule for the upcoming year. Here's what we're doing in our homeschool:

History: US History based on Joy Hakim's A History of US and The Story of US videos

Science: Biology using Apologia, movies, coloring books and more!
              (and of course, robotics)

English: IEW for writing -- essays mostly; getting ready for SAT/PSAT
            Vocabulary for SAT

Faith: Mostly US saints biographies

Math: Calculus (Larson) for Hannah and Algebra (Jacobs) for Kayley

Jordan is taking 3 classes at CCBC this semester, and probably 3 more in the spring so he is covered! Piece of cake!