We have had a remarkably busy last three months of our school year this year. But I think that is just how 2020 is going for everyone, and we are within the norm.
At the beginning of October, we went back to Wisconsin for a week. I had a doctor’s appointment for Baby-L, and then we also spent the week cleaning and preparing to move into our new home in Wisconsin. For the last five years, when we have come home during my hubby’s lay off period, we have been staying in my in-law’s home. We had already planned this year to make other arrangements for a place to stay but with adding Baby-L to the mix, we decided now was the time to buy a more permanent homestead for us to come home to.
The second week of October, the girls and I, headed back to Indiana to continue to help take care of my Dad, who was still recovering from back surgery. We stayed there another few week and were home at the end of October, in time for hubby to be laid off for the year and move the rest of the way into our new home.
To not have so much with us while being in Indiana, I altered our schedule some for school, allowing for us to be able to still do school, but be flexible in helping my dad as well. I eliminated our supplemental Saturdays, and instead did regular school on a few Saturdays when we had to miss other days during the week, so that we could stay on track to finish our core schooling in November as planned. We were able to do so, except for a few read alouds, which we completed the first and second week of December during our Advent Study.
We began studying the Properties of Ecosystems in Science and continued to work through that book for the rest of the year. We learned about the different kinds of ecosystems and food chains, extreme ecosystems along with how animals effect the eco systems they live in. We wrapped up in the first week of December by studying about Ecology and conservation to finish the book and our year of science. We did stop science briefly to study Rhode Island, upon our return to Wisconsin, so that we could at least get all the 13 original colonies this year of our geography study.
My last official lunch read aloud (where it was me reading to them) was Hilde Cracks the Case: Hero Dog, by Hilde Lysiak. Then, since it became harder to read aloud with the increased pressure on my diaphragm by Baby-L we switched to Audio Books for the remainder of our lunch time read alouds. The girls listened to The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, and Chocolate Fever, by Robert Kinnel Smith. I then introduced them to a childhood favorite of mine Shiloh, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. They enjoyed it so much we continued to Shiloh Season and Saving Shiloh as well. We finished the year listening to Wishing Tree by Katherine Applegate.
Mouse turned 10 in September, while we were in Indiana, and we luckily got to celebrate with some of our friends there. During school she studied about the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the Westward Expansion of the United States at the end of Core D from Sonlight. I added in for her to read the American Girl Books Caroline, and Josefina to her already scheduled readers. I also let her read Skylark, after she was assigned Sarah Plain and Tall in her readers which she really enjoyed.
She moved right along in Math and finished Math U See Gama by the time we went back to Indiana. She began Delta, which deal with division, but I only had her complete the first 3 lessons in Delta and had her continue practicing her multiplication skill during our Advent season. I am well pleased at how well she started in the lessons for Delta and hoping the rest of the book will go smoothly for her next year.
We stopped at lesson 20 in All About Spelling Level 4. During this time, she learned about different spelling strategies, spelling words with -eigh, and -ue. She also spelled numbers and unaccented a along with a few other spelling steps in the mix. Once she finished the lessons surrounding Summarizing a Reference in IEW, we stopped and only continued and finished her Nose Tree Grammar from IEW until we finished it up right before thanksgiving. The last two months of grammar were all review from what we had learned this year and it seemed like a good place for us to wrap up and finish with for the year.
Thumper was also able to accomplish a lot in the last few months of our school year, even with us making do with a few things left out because of traveling. She finished Sonlight Core A learning about Rainforests and Deserts and then learning about missionaries in the Book “Return of the White Book”.
She was able to finally start All About Reading Level 2 and we made it to lesson 8 before we ended for the year. She was overly excited and eager to begin. She learned about opened and closed syllables, Blends at the beginning and end of words along with three letter word blending and when y can say /i/. She is doing so well and looks forward to reading each new story that comes along. Thumper was able to finish up Math U See Alpha right in time to review all her addition and subtraction facts in our Advent Math for December. She will be ready to begin Beta in January when we start school up again.
We then began our Advent Season the first week of December. It went really, well this year, and I look forward to being this prepared for it again in the years to come. We had to switch around a few days and swap out a few things because of lack of supplies and a doctor appointment cancellation and then rescheduled for during out normal school time. It all worked out though, and the girls seemed to enjoy themselves, as well as all the extra arts and crafts. When we finished we were then able to continue preparing for the holiday season and the arrival of Baby-L.