One Month Down....

Today we finished our first month of our new school year! Wow! It has flown by.....In this post I will highlight some of the parts of our new Brave Writer  curriculum.

We finished our first Jot It Down  Monthly Writing Project! This months project was to create a Photo Journal. The obvious choice to me was to print photos from our recent 3 week Summer Vacation. The kids had fun organizing their photos, arranging them on each page and writing a caption for each page.  This was a super fun project!

The kids have added a few more Nature Journals to their sketch books.. This is my favorite photo! 

I have really enjoyed teaching the kids Grammar and Spelling using The Wand and the Classic Frog and Toad Stories. 

We have had two Tuesday Poetry Teas and Ava loved using her tea cup souviner from Biltmore Estate. 

Last but not least we have also had two "Friday Freewrites". The reason I put that in quotation marks is because we are actually completing these on Thursdays with HIGH HOPES of taking Fridays off this year!!!

Another Writing Component that is not part of Brave Writer, but that I added in is a Travel/Field Trip Journal. This will be a place the children can record what they learn during our immersion learning days! AKA Field Trips! 

For Math this year, I have added in Teaching Textbooks. So far I really like it, but we have not yet hit an area the kids don't easily understand. My normal teaching bent is to use a more hands on approach than this offers, but its working for now. 

Ava is enjoying learning to cook. I think by the end of the semester, she will be ready to take over dinner! 

For Bible this year we are using Kay Arthur's children's inductive Bible Studies. We have started with a study on God's Covenant's. I can only pray that if our children learn to study God's Word in this manner they will make a huge difference in their generation and the next generation of leaders in our country.

 

For Reading this year, I am going to focus on exposing the children to the Classics. Ava {and Samantha} has started with The Secret Garden. The boys have started with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea although I have not captured a photo of them with the book.

Another most exciting thing that has happened this last month is that Zach was ask by his "Brain Gym" teacher to help her train some other therapist who had come in from literally all over the US to learn some of the methods she uses to help children in the Gym. This is a therapy that helps him that is offered by Manegait.

Well thats a wrap for this month! Next month we will begin Story of the World Curriculum for History. I hope you've enjoyed just a little piece of our Learning At Home! 

Tuesday Poetry Tea Time.....and The First Day of School 2015-2016

So...I've never been more excited to start school. I have fallen head over heals in love with Brave Writer. Brave Writer is a lifestyle. A lifestyle that teaches your children to write by making it a way of life.  I purposefully wanted our first day back from summer to be on a Tuesday, so that we could have our first Tuesday Poetry Teatime!

I went with a Dr. Seuss theme because the first two books the kids will study this year are Dr. Seuss books.  While these books are below their reading level, we are using them to explore Writing and Grammar Elements.  I also begin and end every single year with the book Oh, The Places You'll Go! 

The kids were literally at the table by 7:30 AM this morning, going through all their First Day of School Surprises:) 

One Surprise I had for them was a letter from each set of Grandparents! This I hope will be a new tradition that will give them a collection of treasured letters by the time they graduate! 

After a bit, we enjoyed our favorite Raspberry Tea and Blueberry Muffins and dove into some Poetry. I read to them out of The Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein. We laughed and laughed and took turns reading these poems!

Your Off to Great Places Today is YOUR day!