First week of school!

We started school yesterday and everything went so well! I was a little bit nervous because this is our first year with Tapestry of Grace and I wasn't sure how well Joel and Ivy would adapt to something new. Well, they love it and so do I! All day yesterday, I just kept saying thanks to God for leading us to this new path. It is so much easier for me to have the guide and framework of our studies already planned out for me after so many years of doing everything on my own. And this curriculum is very rich and so comprehensive that we are all learning so much and really enjoying all the discoveries we are making.

Last night, as I was saying good-night to Joel in his room after I prayed with him, he thanked me for being his teacher and then he said how much he loves what we are doing with school now. He said it was awesome and he really really liked it a lot! That just warmed my heart so much to hear him say that - 7th graders aren't generally that excited about school! Of course that was after our first day and who knows if those feelings will continue after 100 days or more! But so far, so good!

Ivy is excited about what she is learning too. She is reading ahead in her books and talking about what she is learning which is really good! Today we did the map work for our geography and she was remembering things from her reading to help explain the geographical terms and labels - like cataracts.

To celebrate our first day of school, Mark took us all out for Rita's after supper last night! We LOVE Rita's! And we also had to celebrate for another reason - we moved into our house exactly 2 years ago! And another reason to celebrate - this very week, 20 years ago, Mark and I first met at college - has it really been twenty years!???!!!!

Anway, back to the topic of school, I took this picture today as they were doing their maps. Yesterday was mostly reading, today was reading and maps, tomorrow will be reading and questions and discussions, Thursday will be more discussions and Friday will be lapbooks, evaluation and hands-on projects. That schedule seems to work well so I think we'll keep doing that. Our kids both enjoy reading so we don't have trouble getting all the reading done. They love their books!

We'll be doing something different for science as well. Although I was planning on doing Chemistry, Level 1 by Real Science for Kids, we are making a switch to Apologia Science. Joel will be doing General Science and Ivy will be doing the Exploring Creation with Botany book. Our package should arrive on Friday so we'll start that next week.

Why switch our science program? I read so many good reviews about Apologia science and it looks very good. I want Joel to have a very good foundation to prepare him for high school science courses and the General Science looks like it will do just that. Ivy chose to study botany and will be doing the elementary level Exploring Creation book. I like this curriculum because it uses Charlotte Mason methods and it is creation affirming and presented well in a real, living, beautiful book. Not a boring, dry, textbook format.

I've added the Tapestry of Grace blogroll and if you click on any of those you will see so many talented home educating families! I find so much inspiration in reading what others are doing and how they are using Tapestry in their families. So many really terrific ideas and I am amazed and also humbled because I feel like I never "have it all together" like everyone else seems to. But that's OK. We are enjoying our school and even though our lives are not perfect and I don't have it all together, and I'm not extremely creative and able to do many of the fancy things, I am so happy to be homeschooling and so happy with my calling to teach and nurture our children!