Back to School!

We started back up with school this last Monday.  It was a little rough at first, but so nice to start getting back into a routine.  We just worked on our WWII unit, no math yet. 

I'm loving the two read alouds we are doing right now, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and Parallel Journeys by Eleanor H. Ayer and Alfons Heck.  They are both such wonderful books. 

Parallel Journeys is so powerful because it's two first-hand accounts of WWII by a Hitler Youth German and a German Jew who had to flee Germany with her family to survive.  The children and I are learning so much.

The Book Thief I had already read on my own and  loved.  It's a bit hard to read aloud, the language and point of view and even the set-up of the book make it a challenge but it's such a lovely, tragic book and I think the kids are enjoying it.  

We also are trying to watch more documentaries, we finished 1940's House which was excellent and also watched a PBS documentary on Winston Churchill called Churchill's Deadly Decision, which talked about a part of WWII we knew nothing about; the French surrender to Germany, which violated an agreement France and Britain had, and Britain taking over the French warships instead of letting them fall into Hitler's control.  Very interesting and makes it all the more real to us what difficult decisions are made during war.

All week I had been fighting a cold and Thursday I finally gave up and stayed in bed for the day.  Caitlyn and Brett both read their books, Cait is reading Under a War-Torn Sky and Brett is reading a biography on Albert Einstein.  Friday I just read to them from The Book Thief and took it easy.  We have our final Disney vacation coming up this week before our passes expire and I didn't want to take the chance of being sick during the trip.  Thankfully Cait and Brett are recovered from it and Jody is almost recovered.  We are so looking forward to going back to Disney, a little sad our passes are almost over but it was such a fun year and it's time to put money elsewhere.  We plan on trying to take some day trips this coming year instead, one definitely to Savannah. 

I have a big pot of spaghetti and meatballs simmering on the stove, Brett is playing online with friends and the girls took baby Maverick on a walk.  He is 11 weeks today and every day it seems he does something new.  He's so smart already and very strong. 

Here are the books and videos we are currently using:

Build Your Library WWII unit
The Book Thief
Parallel Journeys
1940's House
Churchill's Deadly Decision -Currently available on Netflix
Under a War-Torn Sky
Who Was Albert Einstein?

It's fall!

Trying once again to blog.

I'm a Mimi now!  I have a beautiful, sweet grandbaby.  Here's Maverick Finn and his beautiful parents.

The Harmon Family

We homeschooled through summer until this little guy was born in late August.  We had gotten up to WWII in our Modern History study and started doing a unit on WWII from Build Your Library Curriculum.  I think we were in week 3 when we stopped for Maverick's birth and are currently taking our fall break.  School will start back up the first Monday in November. 

During our break we are still learning.  I'm reading aloud The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder and we just finished Coraline last night by Neil Gaiman and had planned on watching the movie today, but we remembered we gave the DVD away because honestly, the movie was creepy and disturbing.  I had watched it with my oldest daughter a few years ago and we agreed we didn't care to see it again.  Of course I had forgotten all this and I don't see it on Netflix or Hulu.  I really wanted them to see the book come to life, so I'm going to see if our library has it.

Caitlyn and Brett have made a few short videos, that's their "thing" now.  They're currently working on props for a video they plan on making with their friends on Halloween.

They've skated some and played tennis together.

Skating in St. Marys

We took some good beach walks, some of which I'll blog in a separate post.

Exploring Big Talbot Island

Beautiful driftwood on Big Talbot Island

We explored historic St. Marys, GA again and visited the Cumberland Island and War of 1812 Museum, they faintly remembered doing that about 7 years ago.

Brett seeing how he would look in the early 1800's

 

Brett is on the 7th Harry Potter book, he had taken a break from the series a while back and recently read the 6th and now is on the final book.  Caitlyn has been reading some Manga, one series I know she is reading is Bakuman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I signed up for a class on Laura Ingalls Wilder, he life and writing with Canvas Network, I'm currently reading Laura Ingalls Wilder:  A Writer's Life by Pamela Smith Hill, who is also the professor of the class.  It's been very interesting and I'm learning a lot about Laura, the Little House series, the autobiography she wrote and her daughter and her own writing career.

Caitlyn is, as always, working on her anime drawing.  She is currently working on her own anime, making mini food from clay and let me tell you, it looks so realistic.  Very cool.  Today she is moving into sewing.  She wants to make clothes for cosplay so she is making her first outfit for her Halloween costume.  Her sister has been teaching her how to use the sewing machine.

Learning to use the sewing machine

I think that's a pretty good catch-up.  I used to love blogging, but with Facebook and Instagram I've gotten lazy and it seemed so redundant to keep a blog.  However this is a better way to share and record our lives and learning so I'll see if I can remember it's here ;)