Homeschooling resumes after the holidays

I was expected something between light gnashing-of-teeth and complete anarchy when the holidays ended and it was time to get back to work, and I was very pleasantly surprised to be wrong. Maybe the kids are maturing, or perhaps we were all just well-rested and ready to get back to normal, or maybe it’s the yoga I’ve been doing every morning. Whatever the reason, this year’s Return from Christmas Break was the smoothest transition we’ve ever had, and I’m grateful for it.

Social Studies

The kids finished Volume 3 of “Story of the World” before the holidays, and I decided to hold off on starting Volume 4 until next school year. We’re going to focus on US Geography for the rest of this year. I have several geography textbooks, teaching guides and notebooking resources, and I’m using a little bit of each of them to cobble together our own curriculum. We’re going to try to cover one state every week.

We kicked things off this week with a South Carolina study. We did some map work, filled out a fact sheet and started a biography of civil rights activist and educator Mary McLeod Bethune. We were going to try some basket weaving, but the yarn I thought I had in the basement had at some point been unraveled to serve as a cat toy and was subsequently trashed. So it goes. This afternoon we made sweet tea, which we’ll be sipping as we snack on the homemade cheese straws we’re going to make once the butter softens.

Language Arts

Reading

We didn’t read it at all over our break, so we’re still working through “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” It’s beginning to feel like we’ll be reading it for the rest of our lives.

Pete has been reading his assigned books suspiciously quickly. I know he’s a fast reader, but I’m concerned that he isn’t taking the time to absorb what he’s reading. So we’re changing things up a bit. He started reading an adaptation of “The Jungle Book” out loud to me. I’m not sure how he feels about it, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I haven’t been read to in a long time.

Writing

Poppy asked repeatedly over the holidays if I’d ordered Level 4 of Writing Strands for her yet. I had, and she very happily started it this week. The kids are also working independently on mystery stories featuring our cats.

Grammar

We’ll be finishing “Grammar Island” early next week, and I still haven’t bought “Grammar Town” yet. The series has really clicked with both kids, so I’d love to continue with it. It’s $300 for the full package, though, and that’s a very big slice of my homeschool-budget pie.

Memorization

I was expecting to review Washington through Cleveland for awhile, since we didn’t do it at all over Christmas break, but both kids recited it with no problem on Monday to we moved on to McKinley through Harding.