School

School began today at Pine Ridge School. With only one full-time student, my workload should be reduced this year. But beginnings are always awkward.

We should have, and planned to have, started yesterday. But there were Interruptions, not the least of which was having to go to Kinko's to do the errand that got sidelined by a bashed vehicle on Tuesday. So today we started with Morning Prayer, then Geography, History and Math. Tomorrow we'll add Science, as Mary will be heading to the vet clinic to job shadow. Those vet clinic visits will be her Friday Science, but she'll still be doing bookwork at home.

History looks good. We're using The History of the Ancient World, by Susan Wise Bauer. We'll read this to each other, alternating chapters. (She was ever so happy to learn she'd be reading this to me. Ever so.) I'd like to get through it by Christmas, so we can move on to it's sequel, The History of the Medieval World. We are planning a trip to Europe next May, and I'd like her to have a handle on the history of the places we'll be seeing. But I'm not going to rush it. If we make it through, yay. If not, well, we didn't.

The Seanster also joined us for half of our morning. I'll be teaching history to him, using the junior version of Mary's book. I have been using these for eight years now, and they're great. Even if you just have one around to hand to a bored child for reading, it's worth the money. The writing is clear and engaging, and reads like a really, really good story. It is not boring history, like you might remember from grade school. This one puts you in the action and makes you think. He was very interested in the story, not so much in the writing I had him do afterward, but left with homework that he got started on right away. One of the problems with living in this Eden is having a less than complete library. Our seems more geared to books as entertainment and pop culture than as learning instruments. Of the four well-known childrens' books I suggested to him to read about archaeology, our library had exactly...zero. Sad. But at least he went looking.

So much for the first day. They say it's not really momentum until you've been moving ahead for three weeks. Only 20 days to go...