Back to school-- again!

After a week of vacation and then a week of caring for sick children, we are back to school. Both boys were excited to pull out their books and learn more. What a blessing!

I have a light school schedule planned for the Christmas season, with reading and math every day along with just one or two other subjects and lots of field trips and holiday activities.

My six year old son, we often call him "Turtle", is taking a break from My Father's World 1st grade. It has taught him all of the basics of reading but he needs more practice, so we are switching to Delightful Reading by Simply Charlotte Mason. It meets his needs perfectly-- he knows most of the words very well but it helps him apply some of the new concepts from MFW 1st (like -ight and -tion words).

We also got an excellent deal on La Clase Divertida Levels 2 and 3. We are almost finished with level 1 now and the kids just L-O-V-E it! It is one of two subjects that I never need to fuss/cajole/threaten them to work on. Even my one year old has learned a lot of Spanish by watching most episodes with his big brothers.

The other subject my oldest son can not get enough of is history. We use The Story of the World, Volume 1: Ancient Times. We started with the text book and eventually purchased the MP3 version as well. I read him the chapter once and then he listens to current and past chapters as he likes, learning more each time. Next year we will use My Father's World 2nd grade which includes American History, so The Story of the World will be for fun reading, whenever he wants to pull out his CDs and activity book.