We are having a big week! First of all, we started school on Monday. This year we are using Tapestry of Grace Year 2 - This covers from the Fall of Rome. through the Revolutionary War. Here is a run down on what we are using this year:

Bible: Catherine Voss Children's Bible, Calvary Bible Sheets http://children.calvarychapel.com/site/curriculum.htm

Hymns for a Child's Heart (one per week)

Math: Sam and Luke - Horizons Rebecca - Teaching Textbooks, Calculadder and Flashmaster for all

Science: Apologia Astronomy (fall) and Apologia Botany (spring) and lapbooks from Knowledge Box, assorted experiments from Steve Spangler's science web pages

Literature, Writing, Geography, History, Church History, and Government - Tapestry of Grace

Phonics: Horizons and lapbook from Hands of a Child

Preschool: Horizons and Interlock preschool from Alpha Omega

Our first few days have gone well, with even the littles getting into our Medieval theme....we've hauled out the playmobile castle and added a few Toobs of knights, dragons and woodland animals. I LOVE those things! We used them last year for Egypt and Sam spent hours imagining with them. They really loved making the shirts off this website for a science project

http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000032 and have been working on them for several days as I read aloud from The Famous Men of the Middle Ages. This week we were talking about the barbarians who contributed to the fall of Rome. Luke surprises me sometimes, for a boy of so few words. I asked him if he knew what "pillage" meant. He thought for a moment and said "happily destroy?" I never would have thought he knew that word! He is doing very well with his reading and work.....I anticipated this week being a bit of a battle, but he is really adjusting to his new work level well.

Lilly has enjoyed our first week as well, although she almost immediately demanded her own stuff...."where's MY schoolwork, mommy?" I tried printing some stuff off the web for her to color and do, but she was quite dismayed that it wasn't in a colorful workbook like the boys have for their phonics. She keeps trying to highjack the older kids stuff and attack it with her markers. I found a few colorful preschool workbooks at Walgreens today, so we will see how that goes. She is enjoying playing castle and dragons with Samuel. She is such an easy and pleasant child to have around.

Yesterday Brendan worked from home in our kitchen, while he tried to solve some problems with his hook-up to his office. It was so nice having him here during our school day. It was so peaceful and relaxed (most times) and I was glad to have him see how well the kids work during the day. He usually gets home at the craziest of times when everyone is tired and cranky, and I think he thinks it's like that all day, because he always seems very sympathetic!

I am looking forward to making our salt maps to familiarize the kids with geographical terms...they get to make maps of imaginary places with bays, rivers, buttes, etc. We will work on those tomorrow. All in all, we are on schedule for the first week! Yay!