We started back to school this week, what Melissa would call “high-tide homeschooling.” At least we tried. I had to be gone a lot taking my parents to doctor’s appointments, visiting the hospital, and running errands. So the urchins were on their own some of the time. They did quite well, considering.

History:

The Story of the World, Vol. 1 by Susan Wise Bauer: The Library of Nineveh, Nebuchadnezzar’s Madness, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon read to Betsy-bee and Z-baby.

Karate Kid and I read about Pericles, Phidias the Sculptor, Herodotus, the Father of History, and Thucydides, the historian of the Peloponnesion War. Then we began reading about Alcibiades, the archetype of a teenaged rebel, except that I don’t think he was nearly that young. (We’re reading Greenleaf’s Famous Men of Ancient Greece.)

Brown Bear Daughter is working in the history/literature curriculum, Ancient History: A Literature Approach by Rea Berg (Beautiful Feet). She’s studying the Greeks right now just as Karate Kid is. We also used Michael Macrone’s book, It’s Greek to Me! as a reference, and I read Goddess of Yesterday by Caroline B. Cooney, the story of a girl living during the time leading up to the Trojan War, review pending.

Language:

First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind by Jessie Wise. With Betsy-Bee, age 8, and Z-baby, age 6, I reviewed the five poems we learned last semester, started learning a new poem, Dancing by Eleanor Farjeon, and discussed nouns, pronouns, and initials.

Betsy-Bee and Karate Kid did Dailygrams each day.

Math:
The older students use Saxon math, and the younger two use Miquon. We follow the philosophy of “slow and steady” in math, just making sure we do a lesson or a page or two each day, rain or shine.

Books read to and with Z-baby, age 6, this week:

The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Seuss.

Several Berenstain Bear books.

Science:

Brown Bear Daughter is working in Apologia General Science, and the rest of us are reading about the human body. This week we talked about eating and digestion. Z-baby is taking a class at our homeschool co-op called The Human Body, and the others are just reading and discussing. We’ll start reading from our book I Am Joe’s Body again if we ever figure out where we put it before Christmas. The book, based on a Reader’s Digest series, has a bit of evolutionary nonsense in it, but I just skip those parts.

The bane of my life: misplaced books and lost learning tools (pencils, pens, scissors, tape, stapler, hole punch, etc.)

The joy of my homeschool life: children who come together and do school and learn whether I can be here or not.