The Lesgaux School

We’re still not up to a full schedule due to illnesses. T feels much better today. However, we did Ambleside Online readings today. We skipped tablework (math, spelling, copywork and Greek) for the last few days. I plan on introducing a new topic in math, so want to make sure he’s rested and up for it.

Not sure what tomorrow holds. We have to get D’s glasses fixed first thing. Then he also has a dental visit around lunch time. On the other hand, the forcast is for rain; we might end up with extra time on our hands if we can’t get outside.

We’ll just see how much we get done. I’d rather do AO and skip tablework while coughs and sniffles still reign.

Nature Notes:

I’d like to try to document our gardening efforts. We have a small raised bed. So far, the count is 4 bean plants, 6 or 7 sunflower plants, 1 tomato plant and one marigold, plus some unidentified tiny plants. We have some critters munching our sunflowers and beans, so we need to mix up some pepper spray. The weather man says gardening this year will be a challenge due to our forcasted and ongoing drought conditions.

It’s been a crazy few days. The boys have had what I thought to be allergies, but seems now to be a virus. We’ve had no school since about last Thursday. Today, we did most of our read alouds, but no tablework and no narrations, as talking makes him cough. T seems to be getting worse, so we’ll just keep doing that. More in a few days…

Let me begin by saying Happy Birthday to D. You’re now 5 and I’m so proud of you! We had a low key day today; we’re saving the big birthday bash for next Saturday, when some friends will come over for chili & cake.

And now, I just wanted to add our reading list for this week. We’re currently on Week 6 of our condensed Year 1 schedule. On our plates:

• An Island Story – Chapter 6, The Last of the Romans (English History)
• Fifty Famous Stories Retold – The Story of William Tell, and Arnold Winkelried (World History)
• Various library books on Benjamin Franklin (American History) Note, T read the D’Aulaires book on Franklin in one evening when he couldn’t sleep; so we’re skipping that and supplementing with the library.
• Aesop’s Fables – The Frogs Who Wished For a King, The Oak and the Reeds, The Boys and the Frogs, and The Crow and the Pitcher (Literature)
• Just So Stories – How the Leopard Got His Spots (Literature)
• The Blue Fairy Book – Prince Darling (Literature)
• Peter Pan – 1 chapter/day or more if the mood strikes us (Additional Reading)
• The Bible - 1 chapter a day, various books (History & Literature)
• Child’s Garden of Verses – 2 poems a day (Poetry)

I’ve decided to give us a little slack for those days when nothing goes as planned. If we read nothing else, history will take precedence, followed by literature, geography, then natural history if all goes well. T really enjoys the James Herriot and read ahead, thus, no selections from that until week 9 of our schedule. That is one book I’d really love to own.

I just realized that we’re doing an out dated version of Year 1. No worries. We’ll pick up the current schedule of Year 2 in the fall. This version is still working for us.

Last night I couldn’t sleep, so I stayed up way too late making curriculum charts for the fall. I completed three charts, one for each term for Year 2. I included all the readings from the AO Year 2 schedules as well as our daily tablework (math, spelling, copywork, Greek), memory work, etc. I even made up preliminary weekly checklists for T for Term 1, as I plan to assign more independent reading for him in the fall. Whew!

Now I can relax and finish Year 1 over the summer. I still have to collect books. I love that.