School ~ Week 2

I love home schooling. Just love it. All of it. I am immeasurably blessed to have this opportunity to teach my own children and spend so much precious, fleeting time with them.

My beautiful, sweet second grader. How did that ever happen?

Viola loves her math lessons.

She pretty much loves everything.

A Living History of Our World is a dream.

For Viola, too, sans journal ... illustrative narration is plenty.

Kindergarten suits her.

Can you see Bugsy in the background peeling the paper off of crayons? Preschool at its finest.

These two are kindred spirits.

Delaware ... our first state (well, our first state study, too).

LOVE 106 Days of Creation

Very first true printing lesson.

Judah digs the soy rock crayons.

And Bugs prefers the block beeswax crayons for the shading effect. :)

Next week we move from the Ancient Americans in history to Leif Ericson and the first explorers. I can hardly stand it I am so excited. We will be reading Yellow and Pink with 106 Days of Creation and I have yearned to teach evolution through this book for years ... now is my chance. I'm giddy. A Child's Geography is on the books to begin as well. Ann Voskamp's writing is fluid, drapey, and pure ... how incredible to learn about God's wondrous world through her voice. Mae began cursive today and I found myself a little weepy at how much she has blossomed in the last two years of true home schooling. Gosh. It takes my breath away.

I am sprinkling in more and more Charlotte Mason studies as we progress and the girls thrive with it ... this week we studied the painting Black Rock, A Two Kettle Chief, Western Sioux, Teton  by artist George Catlin. Gorgeous and relevant. Mozart kept little minds busy throughout our days and next week we will learn more about the brilliance of this composer himself with word searches and coloring pages. I resolve to be more intentional with our nature studies next week, as well. We are still settling into our new "normal" and each day is a brand new experience for James, so we're taking things sloooooooowly for a while so his new world stays small a while longer.

The girls (and myself) are avid readers ... as a family we are reading How's Inky by Sam Campbell, Jessica's First Prayer, and The Jesus Storybook Bible; Mae is reading The Cobble Street Cousins: In Aunt Lucy's Kitchen and Pathway Readers; Viola is reading Andi's Pony Trouble and Pathway Readers; and I am (re-)reading A Charlotte Mason Companion (I love to sit down with this at the start of each new school year), Room by Emma Donoghue, and Radical Hospitality: Benedict's way of love (a little school, fiction, and non-fiction). 

To a restful weekend ...