Not only did we manage to get up in time for school this morning, the girls and I went for a run before we began. Running is very much in the trial stage, today was the second day. We are only running about 2km, which took us 15 minutes this morning. I spent the last 5 minutes telling myself I must not give up even though everything hurt!

We began with a short prayer and bible memory time using the fruit bowl to help learn the Fruit of the Spirit verses. Then it was into Maths, the girls just opened up the beloved Saxon tests and got to work. B7 and I did not get out the text straight away; I have designed things a little differently for him, devoting more time to games, drill and activity sheets which will hopefully help him to memorise his number facts and tables. As the maths got harder last year he could understand the concepts but was slowed down by the calculations. We did much of today’s lesson orally, covering the first lesson in the text but without the laborious copying of questions into a workbook. I spent quite a bit of time searching through recommended online Math Games during the summer so I could supplement the drill with some shooting of asteroids and the like. It will take me more time to prepare this type of lesson, but I was very happy with today’s results and so was B7.

L14 has designed her own schedule this year, which we will tweak as the days progress. I think a couple of subjects may need more time allotted to them but time will tell. For the first time (other than violin) she is taking a class with a different teacher. We have heard excellent reports of a writing teacher here in Ottawa who runs a thirty week program, teaching a range of writing styles and techniques. She sends lessons, assignments and feedback to her students by email and runs an optional 1 hour class each week.

The rest of the day ran smoothly with Language not being too painful for B7, I read him a story that I found very strange, but which he loved. Although he complained about spelling and writing I was thrilled to see how much he had retained over the long summer break. This year he will join A12 in using Excellence in Writing, the program I have utilised to teach the girls factual writing over the last few years.  Reading other people’s ideas over the summer I became convinced that B7 should have his schedule by his desk so he can see how his time is divided up.  He referred to it often today and could see that the lesson times were not too long and there were BLANK spaces during which he could take a break.

A12 managed to get all her work done in plenty of time, so she accompanied me to the library to borrow a secret codes book.  Tonight she created a very authentic looking Secret Agent membership document on the computer. (Not that I have actually seen any secret agent membership documents!)

So there you have a few glimpses into our first day back at school.  As I suspected, now we are back at the books the real summer weather has arrived, 30° today and tomorrow!