Weekly Wrap-Up ~ Our First Week Back!

Our first week went great!

Our back-to-school actually started last week with a little "orientation". We spent time on Thursday (11th) organizing ourselves and getting ready for the new school year. I reviewed with each child their plans for the year. We looked over each subject, checking the textbooks, workbooks, novels, and making sure we had all the binders and notebooks we needed. We talked about scheduling. I explained how often we needed to do each subject in order to be done by June. You can see our curriculum choices (with links) here.

My requirement is that everyone is ready to do school work at 9am. If someone is ready before, which is usually the case with Andre (he's my early riser), then he can start on his independent work if he has had his breakfast, is washed and dressed. This might sound a little strict, but if I don't put that in place, we would very often be in pjs all day long! I don't mind pajama days, but not all the time.

On Monday, Tuesday, and Friday we completed our Math and Language Arts lessons. Adrienne and Andre are continuing with Teaching Textbooks, Algebra 1 for her and TT 7 for him. Celeste is working with Saxon grade 2.

We started using Vocabulary from Classical Roots this week. We have never done this type of vocabulary work, so this is new for Adrienne, Andre and I. This first week went well, and I am pleased with how much information the teacher's guides have.

Another new curriculum for us is the Gage Language Power grammar workbooks. Not as much of a lesson in the workbooks as Growing with Grammar, but Adrienen and Andre have done grammar for several years now, so I think this will work out fine.

Celeste and I started Writing with Ease. She had to do copywork and a narration. It seemed a bit easy for her, but it is only the beginning.

We also started Lightning Literature. Adrienne has the grade 8 and Andre grade 7. This seems to be a great choice too. There was a lot of information on how to use this curriculum which I thought was wonderful.

As you can see, this was a great start for us. A bit of a slow start, but I think it was perfect. We were finished in about 2 hours on all 3 days, which reassured me that we will still  have lots of time left for our other subjects as we start adding them in our schedule. The kids were all happy to get back to work too, there was minimum whinning or complaining!

As for the rest of our week, we took two days off because my in-laws came to visit us! We all had a great time. We went mini golfing, watched movies, played games, and more.

We also had a great time with our homeschool group at the local splash pad! It was perfect summer weather.

Finally, I will leave you with two photos of the latest creation at our house.

We had a big box lid from a garden bench we bought (got to love end of summer sales!). We have used box lids in the past as backgrounds for playing. This time, Adrienne decided to make a zoo out of it. She painted all the different zoo areas, the parking lot, the exhibits, different habitats...It's perfect for their hot wheels cars and their figurines!

How was your week? Are you back to the books too or taking a little more time off? Leave a comment and let me know!

Thank you for all your comments for my last post "What I have learned". It was so nice to read your positive feedback!

If you would like to read more wrap-up posts, you can visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see more links to other homeschooling families.