September 5, 2007

• ~Let the Homeschooling begin!~

  We have our little homeschooling area set up here at the apartment and we had a good first day today. I had two very eager students; they wanted to start at 7:30 am!  By 9:30am we had done morning prayers, math lessons (Saxon), writing (letters and journals) and reading (they each have book lists) .   I don’t have all my curriculum yet but we will be expanding our day to include  Modern Greek (Rosetta Stone), in addition to Saturday Greek school at Church, and of course the work that the boys have to do to prepare for Rivendell in addition to spelling. I haven’t purchased a spelling curriculum yet. Any suggestions for the classically educated child? I also need a handwriting curriculum. The boys are both familiar with the Riggs Institute Writing & Spelling Road to Reading and Thinking and I have most of the materials so I may continue with this. Is Basil beyond this though? He is going to be 10 and writes in cursive.

  Basil and  Nicholas begin their first day of classes tomorrow at Rivendell. Classes will meet twice a week. For history they will be using The Story of the World  and will begin with the Byzantine Empire. Fr. will be speaking to the children about Byzantine art and icons in a few weeks when the children work on mosaics. Basil will also begin Latin this year using Latin Primer A for Children  and for grammar they will use Shurley English.  Basil is also going to be studying zoology and art.  Yesterday, the 40+ students from 1st grade to 12th met at the Church to design their “house” crest and come up with a Latin Motto. Basil and Nicholas are both in the same house- “The House of Ocelot” and their Latin Motto is – Audio, Video, Disco!  All the children did such a great job and I love the idea of the House system. Rivendell has four houses and the minds behind this idea sound like they have a lot of fun and creative things planned for the year. Really I couldn’t have imagined, a year ago, where we are now and all these turn of events. It was such a thrill to see all the children gathered for the first year of Rivendell. Truly it is no coincidence that we would come to this area- an area without a Christian and Classical school, and the wonderful people that are behind Rivendell would soon become a part of our lives!

  Jonah had a grand time today too! He was very pleased to get on and off the bus and  he also enjoyed buying lunch.  Jonah is going to full day kindergarten at the school just down the road from the parish house. We are very blessed that the parish house is in this district. The school is the number one elementary school in this part of New York out of 200+ schools and I feel very at ease sending Jonah there; he really seems to be in his element too.  Until we are moved in we will be driving him back and forth to meet the bus. He enjoys riding the bus with the other neighborhood children. The school is in walking distance from the house. Which will make for a nice walk with Maria~Angelica in the afternoons to go pick Jonah up. He may just want to take the bus for the three minutes that he gets to ride it!

  Maria~Angelica had a pretty great day as well. She is growing up; today she moved up from a baby toothbrush to a “Dora” battery operated one. She was pretty pleased and we all enjoy hearing her say Dora and point to every Dora she spots when we are out and about. She also got toothpaste with an elephant on it. So we hear a lot about Dora and elephants nowadays.

  The parish house is coming along. The light fixtures were all hung today and I love them! All the hardwood floors came up very well and the kitchen, laundry room and foyer floor should be laid this week. We are waiting on the appliances for the kitchen. The kitchen cabinets and bathrooms look great. After everything is in place, the house needs a good cleaning and painting in addition to yard work. It is a nice feeling to see the house being brought up to date and the parish property improved.

  We have to get our stuff up here and start moving in; our house is still on the market and we will have to go back and pack up the things we left to stage the  house.  We are getting excited to set up our homeschooling room in the study of our new home. We did make a nice little homeschooling niche here at the apartment but it is only a foretaste of the real deal that we will have once we get our home up and running. The neighbors are all very nice and are waiting for us to move in; the boys enjoy playing with all the children when we are at the house.  The last week Basil, Nicholas and Jonah have passed the time at the apartment by collecting several hundred  practice golf balls that have come over the net from the driving range next door. They cleaned them and packaged them up with big thoughts of selling them to make money to buy a Wii.  I don’t know what the going market rate is for used practiced golf balls, I imagine not much. The golf balls have been thoroughly cleaned and scrubbed in our bathtub though!

  It is amazing the things the children have found to amuse themselves with over the last three months living in 1000 square feet; they have been pretty resourceful. One day they took styrofoam cups and built huge pyramids; another day they took  cardboard boxes and made homes for all their webkinz. They all  had a great time at church camp up in the mountains and have been keeping nature journals in addition to daily diaries complete with drawings. This move came out of nowhere but it  has really taken us all out of our comfort zone and given us another opportunity meet lots of wonderful new people and to bloom where we have been planted, Glory be to God!

  • 10:47 pm
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