Wow, it’s almost November and I’m just now sitting down to post about our school year starting.  No, we aren’t just now starting but life has been crazy busy so blogging has taken a bit of a back seat.

We started the 2015 school year in mid August with a reduced schedule.  After Labor Day we ramped up and added in more subjects.  We also joined a new homeschool co-op that our 2 oldest participate in every Friday.  Our co-op is so much fun and the girls look forward to it each and every week.  It does not take the place of any subject but is an enrichment program.  It’s such a blessing to find like minded families on this homeschool journey!

This year Natasha is doing her own science with Apologia.  The course is preparing her for more independent work as she moves into high school in a couple of years.  It’s been a great experience for her so far and she really enjoys all the experiments.  She can do most of them on her own and invites her siblings to join in whenever possible.  She has lab reports to complete after each experiment and this course is also helping her to get used to the amount of reading and writing that will be needed in high school.  For those wondering, yes Apologia teaches science from a creationist, young earth view.  We have no problem interpreting the days of creation in Genesis to be literal days and don’t believe that evolution is settled science.  Don’t get me started…. that could be a blog post all by itself.

The girls still do history, geography and spanish together.  With Natasha doing her own science I’m only teaching Belle and Alex the swimming creatures this year.  We didn’t get far with it last year but what I’ve learned is that they basically repeat everything in middle and high school so I’m not worried about it.

We’ve really kicked it up a notch this year and have stayed on a consistent schedule.  We’ve had fun and accomplished a bunch already.

Without further delay here is what each amazing and wonderful kid is studying!

Natasha – 7th grade… I know!  I can’t believe it either!

Science – Apologia General Science
Math – RightStart Level E
History – Mystery of History
Geography – Exploration Expedition
Spelling – Spell to Write and Read
Typing
Spanish – weekly class with 3 other families
Writing – Institute in Excellence in Writing
Language Arts – First Language Lessons
Co-op – they have short lessons in science, history, art, theology, peacemakers and medieval games.

Mikayla – 5th grade

Science – Apologia Swimming Creatures
Math – RightStart Level C
History – Mystery of History
Geography – Exploration Expedition
Spelling – All About Spelling
Reading – All About Reading
Typing
Spanish – weekly class with 3 other families
Writing – Institute in Excellence in Writing
Language Arts – First Language Lessons
Co-op – short lessons in science, history, art, theology, catapults

Alexandra – 1st grade

Science – Apologia Swimming Creatures
Math – RightStart Level B
History – Mystery of History
Geography – Exploration Expedition
Reading – All About Reading
Language Arts – First Language Lessons
Spanish – weekly class with 3 other families
Daily Notebook – calendar work, handwriting, math and reading practice, weather graphing, clock work

Jonathan – PreK

Daily Notebook – calendar work, handwriting, math and reading practice, weather graphing, clock work, letter sounds, art.  Jonathan also loves to sit in on the girls science, history or geography lessons.

And of course I have to include random pictures of Katherine!