First week of school

The last few mornings the kids have been playing really well together. I have a hunch it's because after breakfast I say, "Ok, ten minutes and then we start school" and they disappear and quietly play for as long as they can. ;) So this morning I took full advantage of it and sat in one of our chairs by the living room windows, grabbed a heavy blanket, my cup of tea and had some peaceful quiet time. It was lovely. It came to an end once the kids started fighting got bored with their game, so then we started school. ;)

I've really been enjoying homeschool this year. It's hard work but it's fun work, and it's neat watching the kids learn. I'm always amazed at just how much they can take in and memorize in a short amount of time.

This week we learned/memorized:
7 types of biomes
8 parts of speech
7 continents & 4 oceans
Acts and facts from the world timeline (and what BC & AD mean)
Learned about a man named Charlemagne
Counted by 2's, and worked on double digit math
Latin: 1st conjugation endings present tense (simpler than it sounds)
Practiced our writing and reading

Phew! That actually felt like a lot in one week... and I was proud of the kids for working so hard at it.
It's fun to see what things interest them. Selah is sharp and a fast worker. I love hearing her process through things. She loves to write and learn facts. Jude loves math and focuses really well on it. It's by far his favorite subject. He also does a great job with memorization, especially when it's set to music.

Ben has been doing a great job keeping busy while we do school work. He joins in on some activities, but does his own thing most of the time. I'm really thankful for the set up of our school space with bookcases on two sides because I can set out lots of activities for Ben to choose from at his height. 

The kids love these math cubes that came with our math curriculum. 

Jude built this tall tower one morning. He immediately noticed the amounts of each color of cubes and sorted them by color and amount and then built a tower. Largest chunks of color on the bottom, all the way up to the smallest on top. I can appreciate his thinking because anytime I use to eat a bag of m&m's I'd sort them by color and eat them in order down to the point when I had an even number of each color, and then I'd eat them in order from that point on. Perfectly normal. ;)

We've been indoors a lot more since the rainy season has begun. I love hearing the rain on the roof. It's comforting and cozy. 

The other day the kids built a fort out of chairs and blankets, then thought it would be fun to camp in it, so they set up sleeping bags and pillows and asked me if I'd make them some warm cider. ;) ...it may be time to get Ben his own sleeping bag?

I love these cuties.