Back to School And Word Of The Year

Our seventh year of homeschooling commenced today.  Seven years officially but ten technically. I feel like a pro at this, a tired pro to be exact.  It is always hard to transition from vacation to back to school.  Today was a long day especially for the oldest but over all it went very smoothly aside from the usual frustration over some Math problem by the younger kids.  After perusing the oldest child's Religion book I decided to make it everybody's textbook for the year. It is a seventh grade level text but there is nothing in it that my younger kids cannot understand or have not heard of before.  The text is a companion to St. Joseph's Baltimore Catechism no. 2 which, I think, is intended for middle-schoolers.  Other than that, the oldest is doing independent work.I was so impressed at how he really took responsibility over the lesson plans. It will be a good year for him.

For the fourth and sixth grader I am lecturing in Science, History and Latin, the rest is independent work. For the pre-schooler and first grader we are reading, singing, playing and just having a ton of fun while the others do they schoolwork.  The goal for the first-grader is Reading and Math proficiency.  

We are doing a five-day school week instead of the usual four, temporarily.  I figure since we have just come out of Summer vacation, there's no reason for us to take a weekday off yet.  I say temporarily because once the long Winter days have set in we will most likely need a weekday out to counter cabin fever.  As in all plans, they are changeable according to need. I'm not writing anything in stone.

My homeschool word of the year is - IMMERSE. I've been pondering this word for awhile in relation to my vocation. With so many distractions pulling me every which way I knew I had to re-focus my energies on my primary vocation of mothering, teaching and praying. I will write more about this journey of immersion I'm sure. In the meantime, here are some of our first day of school pictures:

schultute 2014

I love this student prayer especially where it says "pour fourth your brilliance upon my dense intellect", I don't think anyone can acuse St. Thomas Aquinas of having a dense intellect!

poring over his Math homework

The Baking Girl doing homework on the kiddie table in her pajamas

fourth-grader doing online Math drills

the almost-seven-year-old and his reader, he didn't want me to take his picture

a gratuitous photo of my morning fuel

I hope you are all having a good school year so far.