We had a few months in between moving out of our old house and being able to move into our new home, so we stayed with my parents for a lot of the summer.
We began our school year in July, so our first day, and our first term, were spent at their home.
We kept the tradition of doughnuts on the first day (although Abi opted for pop tarts instead).
Our temporary school room: My parent's dining room
We took it over. I felt bad, but they said we could, so we brought along one of my bigger shelves and one of my smaller shelves, and a LOT of books and supplies.
The night before school we did our traditional fun dinner and new books. I made this little display which I later put on the dining room table for our first week of school.
We knew we would be doing physical science this year, but we wanted to take advantage of my mom's amazing yard, so our first science of the year was Botany.
We had some fun with this (especially Maddy!). They put seeds in plastic bags with paper towels. We hung these on the laundry room window to watch the seeds begin to grow.
We also planted seeds in soil that we put on the back deck.
There was a lot of book work as well. And Maddie and I went on many walks observing the different trees and bushes. We brought home leaves and blooms for Abi to observe from the safety of the house. She is not outdoorsy, to say the least.
My mom knows much more about different flowers than I do, so on one of the mornings she took the girls around her yard showing them the different plants and telling them their names and information about them.
We picked a few flowers and were able to look at them under the microscope, and then make a craft with them.
We also looked at the top and bottom of the leaves we collected under the microscope.
Our morning studies for the term consisted of reminders of our biblical heroines, a study of our countries symbols, habit training, the music of Bach, our history, and the art of Da Vinci.
Instead of assigning reading this year (besides the books that are incorporated into their individual studies), I made a genre book challenge for them. They can pick the books they want to read, but I make sure they are reading widely.
For geography this term we are studying Europe.
Our history was reading this book exploring William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. Bruce is Doug's ancestor (and therefore theirs) , so I wanted the girls to really know a lot about him.
They are both doing math on Teaching Textbooks this year, which is nice because it does the teaching, assignments, tests, and grading for me.
Maddie's language arts consist of spelling, grammar, reading comprehension, and....
...writing.
For her writing this year we are doing a Brave Writer program. One of the main components are fairy tales. We read 2-3 different versions of the same fairy tale over a two week period and watch an adaptation if there is one. Then she has to write her own version and illustrate it or make a craft that goes along with it
The first one of the year was The Three Little Pigs.
Abi's language arts are the Honors High School course from The Good and the Beautiful.
She also has a lot of personal electives like creative writing and drawing.
Working hard.....
Maddie wrote the cutest Christmas themed story of the little pigs, and her artwork was 3D.
The first term was a lot of fun. It was a bit hard doing it out of our own home and trying to get it done with all sorts of other things going on (building a home, moving into the home, etc...) but they did a lot of good work.
