Weekly Reflection - Week One...

We kicked off the 2016-2017 academic year this week.  Overall, things went well, but I have decided to make a few changes which I've noted below...

RileyAnn - Year 7

Rather than having Riley draw the same map four days in a row for two weeks, I am opting to have her draw one day, label the next, draw one day, label the next, so on and so forth.  Drawing and labeling every day was just too much.  Because we based our geography schedule off the Classical Conversations schedule, which is only a 30 week school year and ours is 36 weeks, I added an extra week to most continents.  In the end, this will give her more drawing and labeling time so I feel the every other day schedule is sufficient.

I've decided against Latin for Children and will be returning it to CAP.  We really didn't even try it so I can't give an adequate review.  Something in my gut just told me it wasn't right.  We will try something else for Latin, I'm just not quite sure what yet.

So far, Riley is loving her studies, particularly history and science.  Her online math class doesn't start until next week so I'm having her do some review from prior years and fact practice in the mean time.  The first day was a bit rough, but by the end of the week, she was actually smiling and said math got better as the week went on.  I just hope her experience and attitude continues to be positive throughout the year.

Ruben - Year 6

Ruben started strong, but did wear a bit thin by the third day.  He's just not big on academics regardless of what we use/do.  He likes most of the books we're reading, but the writing assignments are taxing him so I'm modifying them.  I allowed him to orally dictate his written narration to me while I typed it.  He then pasted it into his history notebook.  I'd like him to learn to type this year so he can type his own narrations since the physical act of writing is difficult for him.  I'm adding typing to our list of work.

Levi - Preschool

This little pumpkin was such a trooper.  The first day, he refused to leave the school area and really wanted to participate with everything the big kids did.  He loves his new books and supplies.  However, rather than wanting to read the Before Five in a Row story again each day, he opted for a different book each day, which was fine.  I want his academic experience to be very low key at this point and time.

We all loved having Friday off!  RileyAnn turned 13 years old today, which is so hard to believe. Another mother/friend, her daughter, Riley, and I had a girl day.  We went on a local art tour.  We made 14 stops and viewed the craft of over 30 artists, ranging from pottery, stained glass, mosaics, fiber art, metal art, drawing, painting, jewelry making, etc. It was fabulous!

Around the web, recently Mystie Winckler from Simply Convivial kicked off a new audio blog podcast series.  I did get a chance to listen to the first episode this week and it was wonderful.  It was very well timed for our first week of school. Quality over quantity is a principle I'm hoping to put into action this year.

Have you kicked off your 2016-2017 academic year?  If so, I'd love to hear how it's going.  Feel free to share in the comments below.