First Week back to School

While I would love to do a weekly report every week of the school year to document what we did that week, I know it isn't going to happen. But I figured I can at least do this week since I have a moment now and hopefully I can get off to a good start.

 First day of school was spent going to the orthodontist. Sophie gets her braces off at the next visit. They are going to do a fake tooth on her retainer to fill the gap where the cleft is. She is very excited to get the braces off.

 So Monday didn't end up being the first day of school really, since we had to go into the Bay Area. We did run into our favorite old library to return and pick up books. We also stopped in on some friends to chat and play for a bit.  Great way to start off the school year!

Tuesday the official school work began.  Molly of course wanted to make breakfast. She insisted on Merida's Scottish Scones.

 They turned out yummy. I used craisens rather than raisens.

Then we got to work. After starting with our scripture/devotional time we jumped into History. We are doing Story of the World Volume 4 this year and it started with Queen Victoria and the crystal palace. So of course we built one out of paper.


This week we also read a bunch of books about Victoria, Charles Dickens and England. The chapter also had a section about the British in India so later in the week we watched Lagaan.

The three older kids are all doing Saxon Math and they enjoyed starting their new books because the first few lessons are all review and they could get through them quickly.  Molly started doing Math Mammoth addition. I didn't have a math book for her so printed out pages from Math Mammoth that I bought for Henry years ago. It seems to be working out fine.

Molly has also been doing her reading each day. I haven't been moving ahead yet, mostly review what she is has already done. We haven't been dilligent about reading lessons over the summer so she was a bit rusty.  We will get there!

Molly's selfie.

She is also still very excited about her cook book and we finally got around to cooking that sheepherd's pie. Ours wasn't nearly as beautiful as the picture in the book and didn't come out in a nice square piece like they displayed in the picture but everyone agreed it was tasty and that we should make it again some time.

 So far so good with the Disney Cookbook.

We did the first week's assignments in our Physics too. We did all the experiments and even made the hovercraft. I only had large yogurt tubs to make the hovercrafts out of and the boys would like to try other smaller cups or tubs but these worked and the boys had races across the table blowing their ships along.

So lets see.... Math, History, Science, Cooking, Reading.... oh yeah there was a little spelling practice that went on this week too. The kids each are still slowly making their way through their Spelling Workout books that I got them last year. I guess it won't hurt to finish off last years books before moving onto something new.

Sophie started her Williamsburg Intermediate classes on Wednesday. She loved getting back into the groove of waking up early and getting to her class. She really does love those classes. There was mostly orientation type assignments this week but she already has the checklist for assignments and readings for next week. She better get started! The list looks long.

We also found a new treet for the end of the day. Microsmores. We cover a plate with animal crackers, sprinkle on some chocolate chips, Then place some mini marshmellows on top. We microwave the lot for about 20 seconds. We take more animal crackers to "top off" the smores and then gobble up the sticky gooey mess.

 Everyone seems to enjoy these treets.

Our Audiobook for the week was Wonder by R.J. Palacio. It was great and the kids flew through the disks because they wanted to hear more and more of the story. They would listen in the car and bring it in when we got home.

We talked a lot about kindness and being different.  Great book for discussion!

Molly's favorite book this week. Falling for Rapunzel.

She loved the rhyming text and the funny things rapunzel kept throwing down. I think I read this one everyday this week and she got the other kids to read it to her too. She couldn't get enough of this one.

Peezy keeps us on our toes. She is getting big like a cat but is still very playful like a kitten. You have to watch out for her as she runs, jumps, pounces and climbs on everything.

That was pretty much our week.  I hope next week goes as well. We got done pretty much everything I had planned with a bunch of extras thrown in too. That almost never happens.