the gd kitchen: homeschooling wrap-up: September!

We had a great first month back to (home)school! We did homeschooling on the road in South America but it was refreshing to get back into our little classroom. We also started Michael in Classical Conversations and Abeka. CC has a co-op that meets once a week and there Michael is presented the material for the week, by a tutor, that I will then teach and reinforce throughout the following week. We are loving it! He is learning Latin, geography, art, science (Kindergarten science experiments!), and history. They touch on math and phonics but that's where we are bringing the Abeka program in. He loves his worksheets and is learning by leaps and bounds!
Jack, for his three year old preschool, is reviewing his letters, numbers, shapes, and colors. We do art projects (hello again, Pinterest!) He is loving being in big-boy school with Michael and is learning quite a bit by osmosis! He knows all the CC songs and memory work, just by reviewing it with Michael.
We also have a Bible story, a felt song, a weather lesson, the "exercise" of the day, and our Spanish lesson each day, among other things. Michael has a different, three minute presentation on various subjects (frogs, South America, the Great Pyramids, etc) that he presents at the weekly CC co-op, and we work on that daily. We also go on nature walks and record our findings in the nature journal. And at the end of our "day", the boys get to play in their centers that we set up in the school room. School takes around three hours (before they play in centers solo) and we are lucky that my mom can spend one-on-one time with Gabriel during this time. Lots of reading, a stroller walk, and his morning nap are the daily agenda for those two!
All in all, I'm very pleased with our schedule and set-up for this year. We had a great first month and we'll see how it goes from here!

the set up, in my parents' library!

puzzle center

mv's desk, my great-grandfather's antique roll-top

creating michael's nature journal

'all about me' unit! family tree

making their faces in 'all about me' unit

abc work with jack

one of our Bible stories for the month was Creation

my mom added some new felt! look at that tiger!

and this peacock! she's amazing.

first day of CC co-op!

we are reviewing/studying our letters, uppers and lowers, with jack this year

and reinforcing our numbers

michael starting his abeka program! math and phonics, k5. it's mostly review for him but he's enjoying it!

one week, we did an apple unit!

slicing apples for apple pie!

finished!

apple stamping

apple trees!

B week!

practicing, practicing

reviewing our cc materials at all meals

this kid is getting to be a geography whiz!

our Ancient Egypt week! so, baby Moses was our Bible story of course...

pharaohs with their homemade necklaces!
or, as jack says, "the pharaoh-est of them all!"

reviewing his number sticks that day

mama made "papyrus" out of cheesecloth and construction paper and then the boys painted their ancient Egyptian art on top!

hieroglyphics lesson

we had an egyptian dig!

we found ancient gold jewelry... :)

gold coins!

and ancient pottery!

learning about vibrations in cc class

and decomposition

so proud of this boy.

learning about camouflage...

and how animals burrow to keep cool in the hot Texas sun!

learning to take direction in art class

review games with Mrs. Loren!

science experiment on pollution

art project on Kandinsky's abstract art

michael loves Mrs. Loren

michael is very thorough and doesn't usually have time to finish his art in cc class so we bring it home and finish coloring at home!

for our science, we chose the Charlotte Mason method and take nature walks every afternoon, collect various specimens, and illustrate/take notes about them in our journal!