School Happenings

I'm fairly certain a twice-a-year school update will not be enough this year! We are only two months in and I'm enjoying capturing our learning in photos. (Shocking news to all of you, I know!)

So, here are our school activities so far!

Bible - I discovered a website with some great Bible lessons based on a theme. We began with My Brothers Keeper and now are now studying Fruit Of The Tongue. I loved being able to choose themes I knew I would love for our family to study!

History - This is one of our favorite subjects to dive into. We are focusing on American History and it's so fun to come up with various ways to make learning each history lesson interesting!

In this picture Lorelei is looking up some ruins as well as a Viking museum you can see virtually. (This was covering the various people who America...)

Viking Alphabet

Geology is a bonus subject Makin would like to study. Lorelei has her own that she chose to do in addition to the core subjects.

Geography - We are spending the year going through all 50 states and it has been so much fun! We fit this in two days a week and research one state each day.

The book on the left was a fun find at Half-Price books and I read it as an intro before they do their research on the state. Each child has Geography a binder, which contains what they are supposed to look up about the state as well as mapping. Their binders a slightly different based on age, so they share their information at the end.

Reading - Well it is no secret that this is a favorite for the Stahl family! I discovered this amazing reading journal. It asks all the comprehension questions they need (similar to what you would find in a reading book at school) but you can use this journal with ANY book! It has been so much fun to choose the books. Lorelei and her friend Anna from Kindergarten are doing reading together because Anna (who lives in New Hampshire now) is also homeschooled! They came up with their entire list of books, and it is absolutely one of my favorite things about homeschooling for Lorelei this year. They talk each week about the book they are reading. Anna loves books as much as Lorelei! Makes my heart so happy.

Makin has an entirely different set of books we are going through. I like that it gets him to branch out and try different books, but we still choose books that seem interesting to him! I'm thankful for the many booklists I can find online that recommend books for his age!

Hoot was the first book he chose to read and he really enjoyed it. The added bonus was that it was made into a movie, which of course, we had to watch as soon as he finished!

Lorelei and Anna discussing their book!

Experiments - We have had some interesting experiments as we kicked off science! 

Fettuccini/pennies - How many pennies will it take to break the piece of fettuccini!?

Lorelei had a cabbage chemistry experiment. She used purple water (from boiled purple cabbage) to test out the acidity of various items.

Makin built an awesome earthquake-resistant structure!

The rite-of-passage-vinegar-and-baking-soda-volcano-project.

Coffee Shops

We plan to head to a coffee shop some weeks just to keep life exciting. I have done my research and found some gems we are excited about working in. We got as a family and Brad works over at his own space while the kids and I work on school.

Handwriting - This is one of several extra subjects Lorelei choose to spend time on this year. I am loving that she can make gorgeous words already after only a short time working on it with this book!

Math - The subject that has me shaking in my boots! This year has actually been one of the calmest yet...because Lorelei is working with Mrs. Buman (she had her in 3rd/4th/5th math and she has tutored her years as well) online. They work together two days a week and then Lorelei does her assignments the other two days. I'm SO incredibly thankful we had this option or this would be an entirely different school year.

We took a couple of days to complete a history project. I let each child choose from the first seven weeks of history lessons and do whatever project they wanted. Lorelei chose to do a cereal box biography about Pocahontas. Makin chose to do a sandwich report about Thanksgiving traditions old/vintage/current.

"Next time I'm going to plan out better how long the project will take me!"

Lorelei asked to do a project for science when she was interested in learning more about volcanos. She read up on a volcano, Kilauea, in Hawaii and put together a presentation using Google slides for us to listen to.

Lorelei has loved reading this year and the first book on their list has already been a great hit. She even discovered an actual book crossing and is now leaving some books for other children to find and register. You can follow your book online and see where it ends up and children pass it along to others. She can't wait to see where her books end up!