We're Back

I haven't updated in ages. Personal stuff, involving a lot of doctors' appointments mostly. I had to triage my life and I ordered things in a way that meant this blog took a hit. With those issues resolved I can now move forward.

Our lessons and routine continued even though I didn't blog about it. We did, however, take a 2-week break that was much deserved all around. More on that later.

The question of when our school year will end has been batted around in my head a bit. I had considered schooling all year but decided against it for a couple of reasons. First, I took my daughter out of the public school where she had been accustomed to a summer break. She's been very happy to be home but I think it would be pushing it to tell her that as a result of my decision she was going to lose her summer break. Her best friends across the way are in school and will be off all summer and we would be able to hear them swimming and playing and summering away. Not to mention other friends who are more available in summer. Not to mention, I need a break.

We've made great progress in all subjects. Henry finished his grammar curriculum several weeks ago and I've been making things up for us to do since then. Eleanor has finished the main section of her grammar curriculum and we are working on the extras now. She finished her spelling book and we went ahead and moved on to the next one. History will be finished next week. We have effectively dropped French. We may pick it up once history is finished. We'll see.

We are in the middle of an astronomy unit that should be finished it about 6 weeks. We have a lot of math left. About 35 lessons. Things got a little off-track with curriculum jumping in math but no troubles. We will just continue to do math lessons until the book is finished but in a few weeks I think math will be one of the only things we do. I'm pleased with what we've accomplished in this year. It was challenging. Our first year of homeschool and a few twists and turns thrown at us for good measure. We've come out no worse for wear and learned some things along the way. For what more could we ask?

One of the projects I undertook during the break was to begin building a dollhouse with Eleanor. I bought the kit when she was three-months old and she's been asking about it periodicially since realizing that we had it. I wanted to wait long enough for her to participate and not so long that she'd be too old for it. Tricky. Here are some pictures of our progress.