Hurray for the second completed week of our homeschool year!

Kathryn very much enjoys her enrichment classes. In art, they talked about English artist John Constable, who especially loved painting clouds and landscapes. Although he painted in oils, they are working on some watercolor techniques to paint landscapes. In her “American Girls” class, they discussed the Civil War time period when Addy would have lived. And in her “Girls in Grace” class, they decorated the notebooks they’ll use to help them learn Proverbs 31:10-31.

This morning we watched a whole family of bluebirds in our backyard, and finally figured out that what I tried to identify one day in our bird guide (thinking it might be a new bird) was really a young bluebird. Lacy pointed out bunnies and a chipmunk in the front yard. She likes to watch critters out the window, too.

We’ve also been watching hummingbirds all week. I usually put out a feeder at the beginning of the summer, but this year I didn’t. (One of those meaning-to-but-forgetting things.) But I kept seeing hummingbirds in the yard, especially around the honeysuckle vines that grow wild along the side of our yard, so I finally put up a feeder this week. I snapped a couple of photos, but never caught them at just the right moment to really see the hummers up close. Ken patiently waited (and rigged up a flash on the porch), and he caught some great shots, including this female; shutter speed for this shot was 1/200 of a second, and her wings are still a bit of a blur. Amazing!

(click on the photo to visit Ken’s flickr and see more!)

I let these random critter observations be our nature study for the week since we decided to go on an all-day river canoeing field trip next week!

We’re using Ann VosKamp’s Exploring His Earth for geography, so last week we read a chapter, and this week we got a couple of the recommended library books to supplement our lesson. Our favorite is The Home Planet (edited by Kevin W. Kelley). Truly amazing photos of our world from space!

Kathryn is enjoying working on our Homeschool in the Woods American Revolution lapbook projects. She’s been asking to work on it every day, even though we have quite a few weeks to complete it. In this photo, she has famous documents like the Declaration of Independence ready to go in the lapbook.

We’ve been enjoying our history readings. Our focus has been mostly on Napoleon’s reign, and Lewis and Clark’s expedition. Over the summer, our family has been watching “How the States Got Their Shapes” on the History channel (online) because we all enjoy them. During our readings, Kathryn has mentioned numerous things times she learned from those shows.

Lindsey enjoyed her first week of public school, too. Her favorite class so far is JROTC (Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps), which is a program sponsored by the United States Armed Forces. This was the main elective she wanted. Her second favorite class is criminal justice. She is taking French as her foreign language requirement, and she also has the standard subjects of math, science (biology), world history, and literature.

–> See what other homeschool families are doing this week, or link up your own post at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap-Ups!

Jamie

Wife, mom, J-ma. Introvert who enjoys good books, sunshine, and authentic conversation. Often seen with a steaming mug of tea in hand – unless it’s lost yet again in the microwave. Read more »