First Week of School 2012

Well, today wrapped up our first week of homeschooling for 2012. Yes, I know it's July. No, I'm not a mean mama, making my kids forgo summer break. Actually, we love cool fall weather and don't love this crazy 100-degree heat we've been feeling. So being in the AC during the summer afternoons and trading some free days in fall? Good deal. 

Plus, when Baby Number Four gets here (soon, please!!!), this gives us flexibility to take some time off. 

We're doing most of our school in the afternoons, leaving the mornings free for summer fun. Case in point: on the first morning of the first day of school, what were the chickens doing? Blowing bubbles.

Curriculum this year:
Iain, first grade (what!?!): Sonlight Core A, Singapore Primary Math 1, A Reason for Handwriting 1, Explode the Code 1, Sonlight Science A. So far, he's loving it. And I'm loving hearing cheers when I say it's time for school.

Handsomest First Grader around!

Iain says his favorite thing about school is the experiments. Cory calls them "experience." And today at dinner, Cory rattled off the definition of what he calls a "hy-pop-asis: an idea you can test." (But in all honesty, he got that from watching Dinosaur Train this afternoon, not from our science experiments from today. In fact, when he got the Sonlight definition of "hy-pop-asis," he corrected it. And actually, Dinosaur Train's is better.

Cory's in preschool again (technically). He's been doing Core A with us, though I'm not requiring him to. Handwriting Without Tears Get Set for School. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. Random math book from B&N. Sonlight Science. He's really quite good at math. He listens in on Iain's lessons and tries to answer first (often getting it right!), so I think I need to find some real math for him. He's also doing GREAT at reading.

He says his favorite thing about school is handwriting. And math.

And he's funny.

Laina is...making things interesting. Sometimes she listens in when I'm reading aloud. More often she yells, and we try to read anyway. I made her a bunch of busy bags, which work well some days and not on others. But the show must go on!

We're also doing Timothy again, but Iain's the only one who gets fall classes, thanks to some new rules (no preschoolers!). He's taking a cool science for boys class, and I can't remember what the other one is. Great. It starts mid-August.

In keeping with the tradition we started last year, here are our beginning-of-the-year school pictures. Laina cooperated this year, so she gets one too.