We started our “new year” of school on Tuesday, August 20th.

Because we were in Madison and at therapy the whole day on the 19th, some of our first day of school traditions did not happen this year!

I still remembered to take our first day photos though!

Just look at these awesome students I have!

Chad Ryan, 15 years old, in the 10th grade.

Lane Stevan, 11 years old, in the 6th grade.

Tate Owen, 8 years old, in the 2nd grade.

Eliza Claire, 7 years old, in the 2nd grade.

Cute, aren’t they?!

And getting SO BIG!

These kiddos THRIVE with structured days – so we are enjoying our school days very much already!

We start our day with our group Bible time – singing, studying God’s Word, practicing our memory verses and catechism questions and answers, and prayer.

This was this past week’s worship song!

A new favorite from church!

Tate and Eliza are singing in this photo!

Next up is Math – ABeka for Tate and ELiza, and Teaching Textbooks on-line for Lane.

On-line math for Lane has been a game changer – a literal answer to prayer!

Chad is also trying out Teaching Textbooks for Algebra I.

Lane, Tate and Eliza (and I!) are using the Bible as our “textbook” for this year.

BRILLIANT.

Not my idea – so I can say brilliant!

We are walking through the Old Testament stories, memorizing the books of the Bible, memorizing verses, and running with whatever we feel led to run with to learn more about!

The first week was all about Creation, so we studied the solar system, planets, stars and the sun!

I always try to give them an opportunity to paint, draw, or do a craft too.

Our second week was all about Noah.

We studied floods, tsumanis, different animals, and painted some rainbows.

Chad is on his own again this year, studying the New Testament with the curriculum My Father’s World.

We all gather back together late in the morning and are all studying this book about Nutrition for our Science this year.

THIS BOOK IS GOLD!

And it ought to be considering how much it cost – ha, ha!

We are learning SO much about foods, toxins, health, our bodies and how they work.

Of course daily chores are part of our routine.

I could never keep up with this nest we call Twin Oaks without the help of the kiddos!

Even as small as it is!

We started our new chore routine a while back so that I could teach the new chores and inspect them often.

This way when we started school chores were going smoothly!

Eliza offered to keep track of the Keurig – keeping it full of water, and keeping the glass jar with the K-cups in it full.

Why, yes, thank you sweetheart!

I added a coffee helper disc to her daily chore list!

Lane has the chore of mowing this year!

His first year to be our main mowing guy!

He still gets help if there is a problem.

We have many other routines that fill our days that are continuing on this year.

Library day is a favorite for us all!

We also go to Briar’s place on Thursday afternoons and evenings – there will be a post about that soon!

Right now school is happening only in the mornings because therapy and doctor’s appointments fill our afternoons.

We are still very grateful for a GREAT start to this “new” school year!

These kiddos make my job super easy and fun!

2019-2020 school year here we come!!