Weekly Wrap-Up: July 31

At the request of Lucy, we started school back up this week, but just for 2 days, since my mother-in-law came for a visit the rest of the week. So Monday and Tuesday we started into our new curriculum, and a new approach for us this year: the classical method. I feel like the Charlotte Mason method, which we used last year, started us toward this, with the emphasis on great books, dictation, copywork, and narration. I bought The Story of the World to try out for history last year, because it seemed to fit in well with the Charlotte Mason method, and Lucy and I absolutely loved it. In fact, Lucy's decided that her favorite subject is history. So that got me interested in looking into the classical method more, since it's primarily history based. Also, I decided to read the Well Trained Mind, which is written by on of the authors of The Story of the World. I actually read it about 3 times before I was convinced to try it. It's a more rigorous method than Charlotte Mason, but I feel like it'll give my kids a very thorough education. It's also very systematic and organized, which appeals to my organizational side. While it seems like it's going to be more work for us both, the fact that it's so systematic seems like it'll actually cut down on the planning aspect, in the long run.

So anyway, we jumped into our new method and curriculum (see my July 24 post for our curriculum list) on Monday and Tuesday, and it went pretty well. Of course, Lucy's always excited at the beginning. It's much harder to keep up the enthusiasm a few months in! Wednesday through Friday we enjoyed a nice visit from my mother-in-law. Wednesday we visited a town a bit to the north of us, but the rest of the time we hung out at home, and the kids had fun playing with grandma. Grandma also helped me with some yardwork, which was wonderful.

Next week we'll attempt to do 3 days of school (starting up slowly), though we also have playdates with some school kids to fit in. The schools here don't start up until after labor day, so by then we'll be into our schedule full time.