our dozen beautiful feet

We made it through our second week of school!  Everyone is doing great!  Meryn is having a great time at play school each day, although she missed three days this week.  Tuesday was a celebration of a Hindu festival that was on Wednesday, so she didn't go either of those days.  Thursday, the minister in town decided it was a holiday that day as well at the last minute, so all the schools were closed again. Happy times!  But we made it through with Meryn at home, and learned a lot! This week in Tapestry, we studied Napoleon.  We learned about his birth, and that he was actually born in Corsica, and grew up speaking Italian, and always spoke French with a funny accent.  We learned about his military career, successes, and character flaws, his marriages, and his rise to Emperor.  We also learned the basics of the French Revolution, how it was influenced by the American Revolution, the causes leading up to it, and the leaders involved in its succes...

We had a great first week of school!  I am loving our new schedule this year.  It seems slimmed down and more to the point, and easier to accomplish, which leaves all of us feeling great.  And I'm confident that we're getting plenty of learning in! This week we reviewed the Presidency of George Washington, and talked about the highlights of John Adams' Presidency.  The kids are both making a "Presidents" book, with one page of facts and pictures of each President as we go through this year and next.  I had thought about starting their timelines this year, but I think we'll wait until we go back to Year 1 again.  I don't think they would really get it yet... Chemistry was fun this week!  Since Chemistry can be kind of boring (at least all the factual information), Elemental Science decided to start it off right by making ice cream.  Since my refrigerator has two small ice trays that hold about 12 miniature ice cubes each, we didn't have enough...

We started our school year today!  I made some last minute changes to my plans and our schedules, which I think will be much for the better. We are doing five main subjects each day, plus Tapestry of Grace.  Then each day we will have an elective, something we do once a week.  Our five mains are: Veritas Bible, Math-U-See, All About Spelling, Classical Writing, and Elemental Science Chemistry.  Once a week we'll do: McGuffey Readers with questions and copywork; Piano; Song School Latin; Art; Classical Conversations Geography Trivium Tables. This seems like a much more focused approach to me, and one that is really manageable.  I love the idea of this and hope we can feel like we're accomplishing a lot while still enjoying life.  Today, even with the back-to-school-blues, we were able to finish everything (including Tapestry!) by 2:00 p.m.  Awesome. : )  It frees me up a bit to do those extra subjects once a week, rather than feeling like we h...