Settling In

The classroom is almost complete! We just need some curtains... eventually. Things are coming together in other ways this week too. I have finally set up something remotely like a routine. We now have a weekly schedule that I try to stick to. Calvert provides a suggested schedule, but it wasn't working for us. Calvert's schedule has History two times a week and Mythology two times a week. I found that we needed more time for History and less for Mythology, so we borrowed a day from the Mythology schedule and compacted it. We like to really immerse in the History discussion, so we do!

I had another 'duh' moment this week. As I've said before, the Spelling list is definitely below level for JT. I hadn't really even looked at the book closely. I would pull out the list, orally pretest JT and throw it back on the bookshelf for a week. This week, I happened to look at the book closely. It turns out, the entire Spelling list is in Spanish in the back of the book. Over the summer, we started a little introduction into Spanish and I had been planning on adding Spanish to our day. Now I have my material! I guess I should investigate all of the material they sent me a little more closely.

We went on a nature hike on Wednesday. We wanted to find some Monarch caterpillars and we came home with two. Now we just need to wait for them to turn into butterflies. JT is keeping track of their every movement in his Science Journal.

Also this week, the Reading assignment included a short version of a story of Sacagawea. So, we went into a little more detail. I had JT read a more thorough version of her story. In Geography, we were learning how to measure distance on a map, so I incorporated the Lewis and Clark journey into that. I had JT plot the route on our large USA map with a dry erase marker. Then we measured the distance.

None of these things we've done this week are part of the curriculum provided. I have been staying up until midnight every night planning the next day's work. That will have to stop soon! I think now that we're getting a rhythm, I should be able to lay out at least a couple day's worth of work. Overall, things are good. Every morning, JT and I have a prayer to start our day. This week he thanked God that his mom could be his teacher now. That simple thought makes it all worth the effort.