Homeschool Life: The first two months.

There are a lot of things I really love about schooling at home this year. But I think my favorite part is getting to spend as much time as we want on things we enjoy learning about. My love of history is starting to be passed on to the boys and I couldn't be more thrilled about it. I have had a bit of difficulty finding a curriculum for history. One I ordered was sent back as soon as it arrived-- it was awful. Another I considered has been out of stock. So, I have come up with my own. We are winging it and it is working quite well so far. We started with Ancient Egypt and spent about 6 weeks on that content-- now we are diving into Native Americans for a shorter unit and we'll start something new after we get back to school in January. I am thinking about ancient Greece :) 

I'm also choosing our science units individually. We started with "Water and Our World," which we all really enjoyed. After Christmas we will start a unit on Geology. History and science are definitely the favorite subjects and I am so pleased to be able to focus on those daily in addition to language arts and math. 

We have taken day trips and hikes and used our nature journals. We have done science experiments, watched videos, read good books, and completed crafts and art projects. They have written an essay on Egypt and presented it to us along with their Lego pyramids. It has been a full two months and I am looking forward to starting back after the Christmas break :)

Native American shields and cuffs.

"Dry Painting" (Native American)

A much needed outing to Lake Tomahawk and the playground. It was empty so I let the boys swing for a bit.

Two page paper on Ancient Egypt-- he spent a full week working on it and it was so good!

Carson's Lego Pyramid.

Water experiment-- learning about the density of fresh and salt water.

Language Arts- the undisputed least favorite subject for both boys.

Studying ocean currents.

And an experiment with erosion.

Bodies of water map with pins and a color coded key. They LOVED this activity.

Egyptian paintings on "papyrus."

Reading about Egyptian Pharoahs.

Working on the papyrus paper.

Hike to Kitazuma. It isn't an easy hike, and the complained for just about every single step. But we made it!

Nature Journal!

The Water Cycle.

Excavating chocolate chips out of cookies to learn about archeology.

Terrariums as part of our science unit.

Our language arts curriculum incorporates things like art and geography-- I love this!

First prizes out of the prize box.

A day at Mount Mitchell, picnic, reading, and nature journals!

Helping make dinner-- learning life skills :)

Science

A hike to Buck Flats and Royal Gorge. This was our very first day of homeschooling and I remember that when I saw this picture, of Carver working on his nature journal after we hiked and had a picnic, I had complete peace about this decision to pull the boys out of public school for this year. I will always love this picture.

I did make a schedule. No we don't really follow it.

Incentives are vital.

Treasure box!

I do keep fairly specific lesson plans, as well as large binders of their work...and folders for each subject with the random worksheets and such we complete. It is a lot of planning and mental energy for sure.

All in all I feel like our first couple of months have been a success. We are looking forward to two weeks off for Christmas. I think we could all use a break at this point.