All trundling along, update in term 2

We are almost half-way through Term 2 and all is going well and smoothly.

Everyday start off with Morning Time, which consists of:

Hymn  (only 2 verses)
Bible (we're working through Matthew's Gospel, a little each day)
Bible memorisation (almost finished John 1:1-14)
Prayer
Hymn2  (only two verses)
Catechesis
Folk Song (this term we have Greensleeves, On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at, and In an English Country Garden)
Poetry (memorising various Sarah Teasdale this term)
Italian  (conversation and learning little poems and rhymes)
Folk Song 2
Shakespeare/Composer/Artist/Grammar/SolFa  (Taming of the Shrew/Mozart/daVinci/KISS Grammar & First Grammar Lessons by Charlotte Mason).

After this we move onto

Reading Aloud:  this is when we get done whatever book work needs to be done. I turn to B8's schedule and either I read aloud from one of his books, or I send him to do his own reading on his own (and then he returns to narrate), and I do something with R5.

We are still doing Ambleside Online Y3 for B8 and it's brilliant.

As well as his work books B8's has to do daily:   maths, handwriting, free reading, piano.

and once a week he has to do:
a drawing
fill in his timeline
draw in his nature journal
a handicraft  (this term we are working on perfect bed making, bundling socks, and paper craft!)


Some changes from last term:


Picture Study:
At the end of last term I noticed that, although we were doing picture study every two weeks, somehow their memory of the pictures were a bit fuzzy. So now we look at a new picture one week, I leave it up on the white board all week, and the week after they draw it in their new art books, and the picture stays up for the rest of the week.

(see here for my picture study post)

This term we are doing Leonardo DaVinci and here's an example of a drawing:

Lady with Ermine

Memorization:We are doing this more formally and less haphazardly this term; Bible verses, poetry, songs (Hymns, folk songs & Italian songs) and Italian poems/rhymes.



R5 does daily reading out loud to me, maybe 5 minutes, and then one or two other bits of work weekly (since Sept we have been reading through one child a week from Children Just Like Me, and he has been learning the countries the children are from on our world map. He likes this a lot).
Once a week we also do some simple maths games for a few minutes (I follow this), and he gets read-aloud stories, but otherwise nothing else,  No handwriting or anything else for him. As with B8, we are following Charlotte Mason's wise recommendation to allow children a "full 6 years" before the onset of formal work; time to get good habits in place, and develop a relationship with the world. and lots of outdoor time and playing. He will start Y1 just after he turns 6yrs old.
(But of course he is saturated in all the other things we do...artists, composers, shakespear, catechesis, read alouds, poetry...he listens to it all!)


So that's that! All is going very well in our home school, the children are learning and developing, which is good!

Out-of-the house we are busy as always; swimming, drama, scouts, multisports, park meet-ups etc etc.

Big brother finished doing a chalk pastel drawing tutorial online...so little sis climbed up and did her own thing!

And as for this little one:  well, 16 months old and she is definitely an official Toddler now with and all that comes with it...climbing, pulling things out, leaving a mess...but also a good playmate to her big brothers!