Homeschooling a 2nd, K5, and a Tot - Week 9

I wish I was able to remember to do this weekly.  What am I wanting to remember to do weekly, you ask?  Give you a weekly update of our schooling.  However, I've only been able to do this 'report' twice before this and they have been spaced almost monthly.  So I am not going to give you a time frame of when I will recap our schooling, but I will be doing this throughout the rest of the year so that you all can read about our ups and downs while we traverse the waters of homeschooling.

Last year, we got a bit behind in our history.  It wasn't that we got stuck, or didn't know how to do it, or that we did not want to do it.  It was due to a lack of remembering the instructions.  I  was supposed to be doing several lessons per week for our history and only one per week for our science.  Somehow I had reversed the instructions and was doing several lessons per week for the science and only one per week on our history.  Therefore around March of this year, when we were very close to completing our science, but not yet half of the history, I realized what had happened.

Last week we completed Mystery of History Volume 1.  Arianna was a bit upset.  When I asked her why she said "I like history."  I then had to tell her we weren't finished for the year.  We were finally caught up from getting behind last year.  And when I told her I already had this years' history in a box ready to go, she was quite excited.  We've started our second week in it this week, and so far she is loving it.  This year we are focusing on the Middle Ages, from about 400 AD to 1500 AD.  We are in lesson/chapter 2 this week.  So far the girls have eaten like Roman soldiers and flown on a "magic" carpet (which they both know is not real, just pretend and that there is no such thing as magic - just silly people who use that word.)

In science we are using Christian Kids Explore Series.  This year is Volume 2 - Earth and Space.  So far we have learned about the earth's structure and plate tectonics.  Each lesson has an experiment to help cement the lesson and the one on plat tectonics was fun - and they got to eat the results. :)

Math we have been doing a mixture of worksheets that I can find on the Internet.  I have been working on strengthening Arianna's multiplications skills (0-5) and began working on fractions.  She enjoys math and has her daddy's ability with it (which will be good for her later.) 

We have also been steadily working on our Latin (we started chapter 5 today of Memoria Press' Christian a Latina  I) which has helped teach simple English skills.  I have also been supplementing that her grammar work with worksheets focusing primarily on nouns, verbs (action ones) and adjectives.  We also are working consistently with spelling, but I'm thinking we may change our approach in the next week or so.

We make sure to read our Bible in the morning every day (either a psalm or proverb of the day) to help instill quiet time as a necessity for centering ourselves on the goal of life - to be Christ followers.  In conjunction with Bible reading we have been working on certain character traits.  We've covered obedience, attentiveness, and are now beginning with respect.  I'm doing them in an order that makes sense with current 'bad' traits we are seeing.

Art, music and nature study are a little less formal and more free-form.  However we have been following along with The Handbook of Nature Study for weekly prompts of focus.

Well, that's it for now.  I realize I haven't spoken much about what Audrie and Seanan have been doing, but I will try and add them in next time.  I would love to hear what you all are doing.  How are your weeks going?  Are you making any changes in your original plan?