Week 1 Wrap Up

We dove into the core of Ambleside Online this week. We'd used Sonlight history last year but there were a few things that frustrated me about it a lot. I'd always eyed Ambleside but didn't like a lot of things about the website, so when the online forum was set up, I investigated it again. I found a few people who thought like me and wrote out schedules in ways that connected with me. I was sold.

Anna's small pebbles

We have been doing math consistently for a while, along with some spelling, since I'm not completely sold on Charlotte Mason's copywork+narration ONLY approach, but this was the week to begin reading and narrating history and literature books. It was hard. I split one reading for John up into five parts, but was floored by his excellent narration, which he asked me to write down for him. Anna told me she couldn't retell stories right before doing an excellent job telling back an Aesop fable.

John's bigger stones

 I've been trying to learn to do Nature Study - trying to learn to do it well without making it so hard and involved that I don't do it at all. I'm learning that nature study really just means a mom who excited looks at things and who doesn't recoil at finding a huge bug in her bedroom, but instead helps trap it and then find out that it is a centipede and what it means to properly care for it. The bug houses (Anna wants to start an insect zoo, unfortunately she only has caught arachnids and arthropods so far) and rocks were their ideas. We've been collecting, identifying, and pressing tree leaves, watching the robins and wrens in our yard, and generally observing the sky. We're in the middle of the city and seeing more nature each day than when we lived within ten minutes of five top notch state parks.

 I dusted off "Family Math" this week and we did a statistics investigation. John begged to have more books to narrate from and I put my foot down with a firm "No." I'd rather have him begging for more than begging me to stop. I've started timing math lessons and stopping based on the clock, not what we've accomplished. We've been coloring a world map and map of the Roman world, adding a bit in each morning.

An afternoon in downtown

We're still exploring Chicago, loving our neighborhood, keeping busy, and being entertained by little Matthew who cracks us up!