November Homeschool

November was...a lot. I really don't even know how to wrap my head around a lot of what happened in this country over the past few weeks. We tried to do a civics unit on the election process, but it's kind of difficult to wade through some of the speeches to use them with kids.

We got an epic library order from Ms. Molly, our beloved children's librarian. Everything is curbside right now, but she picks the best books, and there's always something we haven't heard about before. 

We started watching documentaries to learn about people who have different experiences than us. On the heavier side, we watched the Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, which is a fantastic movie, but very sad and scary at times. On the lighter side, we watched a series on Disney called Becoming, which features actors, comedians, and professional athletes and what they had to overcome to get there. 

Marko started working on a lapbook project on Greek gods. Laurel became very motivated to sell nuts and magazines through Girl Scouts and did great at the sale, torching her goals and becoming one of the top sellers in our troop. Max started to sound words out a little bit and I gave him an official "reading lesson" from some of my decoding materials. Some kids don't need very much instruction in decoding, so we'll see if he asks for more lessons, or just starts reading. Marko is almost done with the second grade math curriculum. I'm not sure what to do about that for the rest of the year. He does Handwriting Without Tears every day with me and that does seem to be helping his penmanship a lot. He continues to balk at righting in a journal, but he does like dictating stories into Google Docs. 

December is always a tough month for school, whether in a building or homeschooling. I think we're going to ditch math for the month and double down on art and music. We made some silhouette art for the front window that is gorgeous at night.

Happy Thanksgiving! I am so grateful for friends and family who have adapted to new ways of staying in touch with us and making us feel connected and loved during this crazy year.