Planning Tea
At least once a year, the girls and I have what we call a planning tea--we work together to whip up a sweet treat and steep a nice pot of tea, then sit around the table discussing our educational plans for the coming months. This gives me a chance to outline my plans for them, along with any changes we'll be making, and gives them a chance to give feedback and bring up any special interests they want my help with. This year we decided to go all in and create a formal three-course afternoon tea with tea sandwiches, scones with clotted cream & jam, berries, sugar cookies and a chocolate mug cake, and the makings of iced milk tea (because it's Hawaii and it's hot). Scrumptious!

Academically and otherwise here's what we're up to. But, before we get into the core academic subjects, here are things the girls expressed interest in that we'll be pursuing along side their usual lessons:

Lion wants to learn Irish step dancing (not real lessons she specified, just videos at home. Whew! I don't know that we can find that in Hawaii! Thank you YouTube!). She also wants to add more creative writing to her composition lessons (story writing and poetry).

Bug, as usual, has an ongoing list of craft projects (mostly textile crafts). She's also interested in learning to draw animals and human figures and has requested we add art museum visits to our list of outings. She also recently been building Rube Goldberg machines across the study table, and would like to do more hands-on STEM projects.

Monkey is interested in learning American Sign Language (There's an app for that! Several actually. We're working finding one she likes), and in learning about how filmmakers create the special effects for live action movies (between YouTube and our DVD collection, we should be set). She's also requested more regular visits to the climbing gym, since she's pretty much conquered the nearby trees, and the gym changes up its walls every month.

All three girls have developed an interest in chess. I found an app that gave them move options for each piece as they played, but they quickly learned those and proceeded to set up multiple chess sets around the living room. There's usually at least one game ongoing at this point. Lion in particular is likely to play both sides if she can't find an available opponent.

A rundown of the academics:

Language Arts: For spelling, Lion will continue working her way through the units from K12Reader that Monkey and Bug recently finished. Now that they're middle schoolers (when did that happen?!), they've moved on to a vocabulary program called Vocabulary from Classical Roots that teaches them vocabulary based on Latin and Greek word origins. All three girls will continue using the Institute for Excellence in Writing workbook assignments for composition and Daily Grams for grammar.

For reading, Lion and I recently finished Charlotte's Web, and she's jumping into our group read aloud of The Series of Unfortunate Events. She's been listening in, but when we started (10 books ago), her reading skills weren't quite up for it. They are now! We love this series--not only is it a fun read with a compelling story, but the girls have definitely expanded their vocabulary and learned about a variety of literary devices. Also, now that Netflix put out a great TV series, we have a fun comparative analysis to do whenever we finish a book. Of course, the girls also have books they're reading independently: Lion is on book 2 of the Harry Potter series, Monkey is reading the Artemis Fowl series, and Bug is currently reading an edition of Little Women that comes with sidebars about the author and the Civil War era.

The girls are also practicing cursive handwriting and typing. Lion and Monkey are still working their way through the Typing.com program. Bug has actually finished the program, but still practices typing almost everyday through writing assignments, her email correspondence with friends and relatives, or adding to her collection of favorite poems. All three girls are practicing cursive using a Reason for Handwriting workbook that will keep them busy until Christmas, when I'll have them switch to using cursive for more of their assignments.

Math: Khan Academy still suits our needs (for now, but we're looking at different curriculum for math beyond 6th grade). Bug finished 5th grade earlier in the year and is about 30% done with 6th already. Monkey just finished 5th, and Lion just finished 3rd. Family tradition says they get a bit of a break before started up the next grade, but there's some overlap between grades, so neither of them will actually be starting at 0%.

Social Studies: For history, we're continuing to read through Story of the World, Vol. 2: The Middle Ages. The girls have decided that trying to create a video for every unit is a bit too intense, so we'll be switching between videos and illustrated note cards depending on the subject matter. In addition to looking up the locations that come up in our history units, the girls are doing map studies--making their way around the globe memorizing the locations of countries using atlases and dry erase maps.

Science: We're continuing our explorations with no formal curriculum, but LOTS of learning--through completing hands-on projects, watching videos, reading books, and (with Google's help) answering the stream of questions that come up everyday.

Spanish: The girls are making their way through the Rosetta Stone program, and--except for some difficulties with my laptop's microphone--we're really enjoying it.

Music: All three girls are still loving their instruments and their teachers! Actually due to a scheduling conflict, Bug switched violin teachers over the summer, but she and Miss S are getting on very well. The girls recently decided to skip their school's fall recital (in which they'd be plugged into random groups and given a video game song to play) in favor of forming a quartet with our pastor's wife, a cellist, to play "Amazing Grace" during a church service at the the end of October.

P.E.: In addition to the hours spent riding bikes and running around outside with friends and going on family hikes and beach days, the girls will continue studying taekwondo, and this week soccer season starts. We were able to register on time this year, so all three made it onto teams!

These last things are just life--not academics--but perhaps even more important!

Growing in their faith: We're still attending church, of course, where the elementary Sunday school class is doing an in-depth study of the Gospel of Matthew. The girls are still cheerfully doing their weekly homework and memorizing Bible verses. In fact, Monkey and Bug are technically supposed to move up to the youth Sunday school class, but they got permission from the children's and youth pastors to stay put until the study is finished. At home we're making our way through Training Hearts, Teaching Minds, a daily family devotional based on the Shorter Catechism. We don't always agree with the commentary, but it's led to really great discussions.

Life Skills: AKA doing chores and generally helping out around the house. Friday's our official clean-the-house day, but they assist with kitchen and laundry jobs on a daily basis along with any special projects and tasks that come up. I can also now hand them half the grocery list to gather and meet them at the check out, where I pay and they bag everything.

Tired yet? Me too! But life is so good with these girls, and I wouldn't trade it for the world!