A Week in the Life of us- Week 5

We went camping last weekend, so our week got started a little oddly. We got tons of nature study in, though! This was the first week to try our complete schedule for this summer. Because our co-op starts in September, things will get changed up a bit then. For now, we are enjoying this new plan and the freedom it gives us, at the same time getting lots more done each day!

Touch the fish, Colby! 

Tuesday: We were still camping Tuesday. We read some school books and did lots of nature study. The kids played and played in the woods. We worked on some navigation, finding our way around in the trees, and did a lot of plant identification. They were happy to find some gooseberries to munch- very sour, green gooseberries, but still yummy!

Wednesday: We headed home from the mountains, and on the way we stopped by a river so Jeff could teach the kids how to pan for gold. After we got home the kiddos did school all afternoon while I put away camping gear and washed laundry. We did about a half day, getting in all the core subjects but skipping things like Spanish, music, and poetry.

Part of Caiden's rock collection, just because
I didn't have a picture for Thursday. 

Thursday: We got everything done really quickly today. The new schedule was amazing, and the emphasis on time instead of amount of work done really freed everyone up to do their best. They don't know it, but they are actually getting more done then they were when I required a certain amount of work! We got to do some drawing and handicrafts along with all our regular things. Math was a breeze, reading lessons went without a hitch, and everything was just really nice and peaceful.

Learning place value. 
Look at those eyelashes! 

Friday: We didn't get our nature walk in today, because the baby slept in for a couple of hours. ( I really should stop calling him the baby!) Abby had a little trouble with math and phonics today, but later she said she was just having trouble with her brain. Silly girl. We worked on our timeline pages and listened to our composer. We also studied our artist's picture for the week.



Saturday: Things went really good today. We went on a nature walk early, and noticed how quickly the corn has grown. We talked about wind pollination and many other things. We got started with school at a good time and sped right through. I had us stop for lunch before we were all starving for once. After we ate, we did our house-cleaning chores right away instead of waiting till the learning was done. It worked nicely that way, and was a relief to know it wasn't hanging over our heads for later.  Spanish went really well today, and I am loving our new book. Caiden even said spelling was his favorite thing of the day, which shocked us all, even him!

Working on maps of the Eastern U.S.