We went ahead and started on our regular school schedule when the girls started volleyball practice at the end of July in order to get into a good routine. Joel still enjoys the ability to get through most of his schoolwork fairly quickly which usually gives him the afternoon to play. The others, not so much, so we have to keep Joel out of their hair. We finished up the first 6 weeks in mid-Sept so catching up on posting.
For bible, we do family devotions after breakfast, a few minutes of journaling, and prayer. Joel is reading a devotional book called Starting Strong for school this unit as well as a daily selection of scripture and memorizing a passage each week.
We are in the second half of US history. Our spines are The Landmark History of the American People, Vol 2 and The Children’s Encyclopedia of American History. We are listening to or reading through some patriotic songs in Wee Sing America. We started with a book about William Wilberforce. We also do a timeline activity and current events each week.
Read alouds started in on tough topics with the civil war. The first one was The Great Turkey Walk, then Across Five Aprils. We also have a couple of poems a week from How to Eat a Poem.
Joel continues to do well in math. We are working through Horizons 5 and using Prodigy for supplement.
In Language, we have spelling with Sequential Spelling 2, a cursive assignment each week, vocabulary with Wordly Wise 3000, Book 5, and a creative assignment each week. This unit Joel read By the Great Horn Spoon, Freedom Train, and Turn Homeward, Hannalee.
Joel says he wants to work at a zoo but he doesn’t like science experiments most weeks. But we get through them. Our main book right now is How to be Good at Science, Technology and Engineering with selections from National Geographic: How Things Work and our experiment book Discover and Do: Level E.
Joel doesn’t have a sport right now but he isn’t bored. He plays drums every other week for church, has children’s class on Tuesdays and Royal Rangers on Wednesdays. He is in the oldest age for his group so he got promoted to Patrol Leader so he gets a little bit of responsibility. He got to plan and lead a whole class on evening. Nate convinced the boys to go through a round of Insanity (a workout program) with him so they do that almost every day. He gets to go to a lot of volleyball all over Texas and hang out when we have the grandparents, aunt, or gram come to watch as well. And every now and then he get Nate to take him to the river to play on the swing.
