Summer 2009

Wow! Where has the summer gone?

Big Sis graduated and starts college .....gulp.....tomorrow. Big Brother has moved out and is ready to join the Navy. We painted and re-arranged rooms so the Big Sis has her own study/sitting room adjacent to her bedroom. This means that we once again have a dedicated schoolroom/playroom. Since we didn't have enough going on this summer we also decided to rip up the old floor and lay down the new. I guess it is not a surprise that we only got about 6 weeks of school done this season!.

Our basic schedule hasn't changed much. Charlotte went through a phrase this summer where she did not want to participate in the morning activities so instead we did lots of informal activities throughout the day.

Starting around 9am with Sam we did MFW 1 , MUS, IEW Poetry, Nature Reader, Speech work, Song School Latin and our alternated readings

M- Geography ( Seabird)
T- History(D'Auliare Selection)
Th- Burgess( Birds)

Sam is reading his Bible reader. He has a selection of books that he can read all by himself and he spends about 30min each day reading all by himself. I have been so impressed with MFW 1 reading instructions. It is everything that I have been trying to put together on my own with our CM reading instructions. It is so awesome to just open the book and have the lesson planned out for us.....not too long....not too short...not too many manipulative......just perfect.

Sam has memorized 4 poems from IEW Poetry. The poems are interesting enough that he is motivated to learn them. He enjoys impressing friends and family with his poems and it is also good speech practice.

We've been doing SSL just for fun. If I find a Song School Spanish or its equivalent we are going to try it. We would have more use for Spanish but it never made it into our schedule this past year.

It's been an interesting summer but we are looking for a cooler, less hectic Autumn!