School Summary - The First Two Weeks of 9th and 7th grades

I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!

Right away, I can tell this year is going to be different.
For the past 5 years, we've done school together. My Father's World is parent-led. That's fine because most ages learn together. So I only had to teach one science, one history, one art, etc. This year they're learning everything separately. You can see what we're using here: 9th-grade curricula and here: 7th-grade curricula.
With lots of new programs, we're figuring out how it all works as we start the school year.
To get started we celebrated with back-to-school gifts.

Soprano was given a horse bookmark, some candy, a horse placemat that we'll hang in the schoolroom, and a new Bible.

 Tenor was given a math toolset, mechanical pencils, some candy, and a new Bible.

We also took first-day-of-school pictures.

Tenor worked on:
Math: Has gone much better since we started Algebra 2 over. His first test was even 100%! I'm not sure if he just ran out of steam last year, if his brain needed to mature, or if redoing lessons he's already done is just plain ol' easier, but math has been great thus far.

Grammar/Literature/Vocab/History: Supposedly, the first few weeks of My Father's World AHL is extremely difficult and a huge change for students. They even recommend starting your high schooler two weeks before your other kids start so you can spend lots of time with them getting them adjusted. I didn't do that because I only have two kids and knew that Soprano would be working mostly independently. But either Tenor's not working hard enough (unlikely), it's not as bad as they say, or he's had enough prep (I'm hoping this is the reason why) because he's not struggling at all.
He's finished all of his assignments as scheduled and finished his first high school argumentative essay without any difficulty. I am thankful. :)

Bible: Reading in Genesis and Job for AHL and working through Genesis in Bible Road Trip. I really like his Old Testament Challenge text. It's not graded; it functions more like a devotional, but it also offers opportunity for discussion.

Science: I forgot to schedule this the first two weeks so he'll start it on week 3.

Fine Arts: Tenor started his Harmony Fine Arts plans and turned in a decent short essay on de Palestrina. He also started a short guitar course from Schoolhouse Teachers. I need a little more time (aka money) to buy his emedia.com course.

Foreign Language: Greek was just review for the first two weeks. He'll begin copywork in week 3.

Electives: He did a few chapters of logic over the summer so I didn't schedule this for the first few weeks. I figured we'd need more time to get adjusted to school and the higher level of work required.

Soprano worked on:
Math: She had 3 chapters in Life of Fred Ice Cream to finish (week 1). She'll start Jelly Beans in week 3. Jelly Beans is the last of the elementary series in LOF. She also did a lesson of Saxon math all of the other days.

Grammar: English has been a struggle this year. The only reason is that she has some kind of a mental block about it. She got behind on day 4 and hasn't caught up yet. I ended up cutting one of the writing assignments and substituting a different assignment from Uncle Sam and You. We need to figure out what's going on here and see how we can adjust (either attitudes or work) to have less weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Mine and hers.) :)

Literature/Vocab: Soprano's first literature book in History of the Horse is King of the Wind. She did some geography map work, researched Allah and the Quakers, and completed comprehension questions.

 

Bible: I changed the suggested Bible Road Trip schedule to stretch one week's work over two week's time. I think her favorite part so far is watching What's in the Bible? DVDs that go along with the book(s) she's studying.

History: I scheduled Uncle Sam and You for the whole year putting the holiday lessons as close to or on their exact date of celebration. So Soprano started her year with the Fourth of July lesson and then ended week 2 with National Aviation Day. For now, I've made the Picture It assignments optional but later in the year, I'll probably require more of them.

Fourth of July lesson - America's birthday poster

Fine Arts: Soprano started the 8th grade Harmony Fine Arts plans. Her first artist is Renoir.

and her first composer is Tchaikovsky.


Foreign Language: French. I'm dragging the depths of my brain for anything I learned in French to help her with pronunciation. There's not much there I'm afraid. I did, however, learn that the French chef in Disney's The Little Mermaid says "Tout a l'heure! I have missed one!" Not what I always thought he said...which was not that. :)

Extras: We did some Fire Safety worksheets (to fulfill what I'm required by the state to teach each year). And we saw the Budweiser Clydesdales

 

That was about it. I'm trying to get us back into the school mindset and figure out all our new curricula. It's been an okay start. Day 1 was amazing! The rest, not so much.  Week 3 starts...now. :)