August Homeschool Recap

In spite of a very disruptive few weeks, we were able to get the school year off to a good start. In good news, Laurel found a kitten in our neighbor's garage. This poor thing was crying for days and Laurel finally coaxed her out and gave her some food. She was covered in fleas and only 3 pounds. We combed out all the fleas and took her to the vet to see if she had a chip. Our librarian gathered up all the books on kitten care that she could fine. We could not find an owner, so....we have a cat now. We named her Shadow and she's a very frisky and social 5ish month old kitten now. In less good news, M broke his arm and had to have surgery to repair it. The first few weeks of recovery were kind of rough, as it was his right arm and he basically could not use it at all. He had a lot of appointments at the hospital and could not drive, which in pandemic times involved some childcare gymnastics. Luckily, he did not have any complications and it's healing up really well. 

So how did we manage to start school despite all of this? First we started the year off with a celebratory breakfast on our porch with our neighbor Marlene. We drafted a schedule to give each kid 1:1 time with me on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Mondays and Fridays are reserved for outings, which at this point is just visiting relatives or friends, or going to a local park to play or hike. We also do group lessons at 3pm every day. Sometimes this also includes our neighbors. They joined us for a science observation activity. 

Laurel started a fifth grade science unit I downloaded from the Core Knowledge Foundation about matter. She designed a little science experiment with cotton balls that didn't work out how she thought it would, but was a good exercise nonetheless. Everybody started working through Khan Academy for math. Laurel and I are also working through a history course on Khan Academy. This month we learned about primary and secondary sources, and analyzing  context and bias. We listened to Franklin Roosevelt's inaugural speech, and then watched some of Joe Biden's and Donald Trump's speeches from the party conventions that happened in August. We finished listening to the book Wild Robot Escapes by Peter Brown, which is a sequel to Wild Robot. I highly recommend this book, it is a beautifully told story and raises many interesting questions about artificial intelligence and what makes something alive. We used the Arrow Guide from Brave Writer for discussion questions and copywork. Music ended up being mostly about synthesizers and recording layers of sound on Garage Band. We read a variety of articles on civilizations in South and Central America and watched a documentary on Machu Picchu. We learned a little about Hinduism and ordered a version of the Ramayana. We talked about how religion can influence a society and your life, even if you personally don't practice that religion. Laurel took a class on Outschool about the legend and lore of black cats. Marko and I started working through a program called Handwriting Without Tears. M reads stories to the kids at night. Norse Myths are in steady rotation, as is James Herriot's Treasury for Children (and we just found the old BBC series, which is delightfully wholesome television).

What I love about homeschooling is that once you set up a structure and some minimum guidelines for what must be learned or practiced, you can give yourself a lot of room to pursue whatever topic sparks interest. For this reason, I'm never really sure what the kids and I will talking about during their 1:1 time, or what they will pursue during their own time during the day. Marko tends to want to know lots of things about the ancient world, myths and legends. Laurel is more curious about American history from the 1800s and early 1900s. Max is very observant about our neighborhood and home and likes to explore these places in more depth. I check off what they are reading and studying about on our subject/book log so I can see if there are things they "should" be covering that their natural curiosity is not leading them through. Based on that log, we need to add more art and music. My neighbor just happened to send me a link to some fabulous art project ideas, so I think we'll do some porch art classes in September.