Back to School

We are officially back to school here at the Mandel house.  Noah and the girls started back to school on August 25th.  It was actually supposed to be on August 24th, but the 5.9 earthquake delayed the opening of school by one day!  I don't have any photos of Noah going back to school, he didn't want to be embarrassed by his mother at the bus stop.  He is doing great, and loves his new school.  He enjoys his band class.  He's learning to play the clarinet!  He enjoys P.E. and especially likes the food court at his school.  Here you can see Maddie working on her Math, while Nathan plays nearby.

As for homeschooling, it's going really well.  I'd say that after years of doing it, I finally feel like I've got it down.  I have a good curriculum that I pieced together myself.  I have a schedule for the whole year written out, which I also put together.  I'm kind of proud of myself.   It took about 3 days to get the whole year scheduled.  You can see Grace is working on the computer for math. We are using Tecahing Textbooks, this year. It's a great computer based math program.  It keeps her engaged and she is doing well with it! 

We are using a new (to us) science program this year, called Apologia Science.  We are studying anatomy and physiology.  Our first unit was about cells and a little history of science.  We really enjoy this science.  We have a big experiment kit, and have done some fun stuff already.  The girls used jello and candy to make a model of a cell.

This is our diagram of a cell's parts.  Grace took her test yesterday and new all the parts of the cell!  She's doing really well in school.

We are saying Madison is in Kindergarten, but I am using first grade material to teach her.  She is at a first grade reading level and math level.  She shares science and history with Grace, and is working on her penmanship.  She is doing really well too!