We're about 7 weeks into another school year, including a fall break (our trip to Walt Disney World!) and sick kiddos (viral infections and the stomach flu -- not so great).

Our new school schedule of 4-5 weeks of work, followed by 1 week off, seems to be going well so far.  It's nice to know that we're never far from some time to relax (and time to get the household chores under control too).

Here's where we are so far:

In history, we're studying the causes and initial battles of the Civil War.  We've been reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln, and both boys are reading books on the subject -- Hobbes on life during the Civil War, and Calvin on the Monitor and the Merrimac.  It's a difficult subject for a teacher (me!) to explain in simple terms, especially for a 2nd grader who wants to separate everything into Good Guys and Bad Guys.

For science, we finished reading an introduction to chemistry, including the parts of an atom, which Calvin now likes to draw just for fun.  We're now reading a book explaining the scientific method.  And now we need to come up with our own experiment that uses the scientific method.  I would not agree to the boys' initial idea -- see how long it takes milk to spoil when it's sitting on a kitchen counter.  I think we're going to try it with bread instead -- less of a weird smell issue.

For Calvin:
In Language arts, he's learning about nouns and simple capitalization rules.

Math: working on memorizing the addition and subtraction tables, and learning about adding 2-digit numbers.  He's very irritated that he has to start with the ones column to add.

He has also has a number of occupational therapy exercises for his motor skills that we've been working on.  And he's enjoying his yoga class, which just started again for the fall.

For Hobbes:

Language arts: reviewing verbs and learning about direct objects and predicate adjectives.  His IEW writing class began this week; his first assignment is a 1-paragraph essay on a topic we're studying in science.

Math: reviewing long division.  Using Teaching Textbooks has been great so far -- Hobbes likes being able to complete his math assignments completely on his own, and the lessons are a great combination of new subjects and review.

His art class also started this week -- he's going to be doing projects at a local pottery studio -- this week, his class sculpted pumpkins out of clay.

And I have another 2 weeks before our next scheduled break.  Hurray for the teacher!