First Week Back...

After coming home from Ireland, I had planned to take the last two weeks of the summer and get cleaned up and organized. Summer was really crazy for us with music camp, fundraisers for Ireland, then the trip itself so I had quite a few things that I had planned to get done but didn't. I spent the first week getting organized and cleaning house...a couple days stuck at home due to a hurricane was a big help. Then Haley asked to start school on Monday.

Her brothers were still home and I had yet to get their needed school supplies and some new jeans that fit (they seriously need to stop growing so quickly...Ha!). Plus my sister-in-law and niece are only here for another week so we want to spend as much time as possible with them. So, I knew it wouldn't be the relaxing, Mommy and Haley at home learning kind of week, I had planned for our first week of school but I got out the books and we started anyway. Who am I to stand in the way of a child asking to learn?

Most of the schooling was done in the car during the 2 hours we spent each night watching Dylan practice football but, hey, it was learning. I changed my mind on a few things I had planned back in the summer.

For one, I cannot find Best Poems and think I must have put it back in the basement with the books I returned to bins so that is going to wait for a few months since I also had purchased the Michael Clay Thompson reading program and Haley was keen to start reading Alice in Wonderland.

The other change is math. She really does not like Saxon 76 and seems to dread it. I had her take the Pre-test for Art of Problem Solving Pre-Algebra and she did very well on it so she is going to give that a try along with the Thinkwell Pre-Alg program she has already been dabbling in. We'll see how that goes.

Our week went well. We did a variety of subjects and a few projects. Haley is really liking Mapping the World with Art by Ellen McHenry. She did the Babylonian Clay Tablet project all on her own (see above photos). She did a great job and they tasted good but were about the consistency of an actual clay tablet...think need to dip in milk.

Haley is going to have her classical violin lessons once a week this fall and will start back today. She is looking forward to learning some new notes after a month without lessons.

The boys start back to school on Tuesday. We will take the long weekend to spend time with visiting family who will be leaving us late next week, have a fiddle lesson, and enjoy the weekend then it is back to routine for us.