Our First Week of Lessons (2022-2023)

We started back to lessons on Labor Day! This is our second year of formal lessons with my eldest child, but we’ve been a homeschool family for five years now! We did preschool and Kindergarten at home with her. This year she is in Form 1A Lower (in Charlotte Mason speak) which is second grade! My other little one is four, so she is in her first year of Kinderleben (technically Pre-Kindergarten). Last year flew by, and now that we are entering week three of this year, I realized I haven’t yet shared some snaps from our first week.

We always take a first day of school photo. I have them hold up both a sign with their grade and a book they’re excited about reading. My eldest chose the book Betsy-Tacy and my Kinderleben student held up Ox Cart Man.

Some Snaps From Our First Week of Lessons

I put together my timetable, which you can view here, this past summer. Each week I prepare for lessons based on the timetable and the books we are reading. Here is a peek at our first week of lessons:

Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic

Above I have my youngest daughter doing an independent ABC matching activity with wooden letters while my Form 1 does her copywork. I don’t have to juggle multiple students yet, but someday I will, so I’m trying to build up that muscle now!

In the photos below I’m doing an arithmetic lesson with both of my students at two different times. I have a review of my favorite Charlotte Mason math curriculum here.

Handicrafts, Claywork, & Composer Study

Handicrafts time was a huge hit this week. We are learning how to knit with a knitting fork. You can’t see it, but my daughter is smiling from ear to ear in the photo below after knitting that long cord. Next week we’ll move onto the knitting tower.

My daughter working on claywork. She chose to create a squash from model. The other photo is our weekly paintings. Each week I have my daughters choose one of their readings to paint on a little postcard size watercolor paper. We hang them up all throughout the term to admire. This week my Form 1 student chose to draw about our Bible chapter from the New Testament (bottom painting), and my Kinderleben student drew the water hen we read about in Natural History (top painting).

Below you can also see an entry in my Form 1’s TBG (Truth Beauty Goodness) notebook. This was after our Composer Study time. We are studying Brahms this year, and she was inspired to draw a portrait of him after reading his biography and listening to “Hungarian Dances”. My Kinderleben student completely voluntarily decided to draw Brahms too. 😉

World Geography, Mapwork, & Outdoor Geography

We are very geography heavy this year! I can’t say I mind, however, as I didn’t learn very much geography in public school, so I am glad to be learning it all alongside my daughter. We have a geography reader, an elementary geography lesson book, and we are reading Paddle to the Sea. We also do outdoor geography and mapwork.

Natural History + Notebooking

We have two natural history lessons per week. This was my Form 1 student’s oral and drawn narration after reading about the water hen in Buckley’s Eyes and No Eyes series. The natural history lessons are some of our favorites, so I have one on a Monday morning and the other on a Friday morning this year!

Nature Study Club

While we spend time out-of-doors every day, it was important to me to have a dedicated nature study time this year. I decided to start a local nature study club where we all meet once a week to take a walk and discover what’s around us. We end our time by recording our findings in our nature journal.

Modern Language Lesson (French)

This is our second year studying French. I’m trying something new this year where I only speak in French during our 10 minute lessons. It’s WAY more challenging than I expected, but it’s something I’m dedicated to. I have a whole blog post coming out soon about my approach to modern language this year, based on Charlotte Mason’s recommendation in Home Education, so stay tuned!

Other Books and Things

Every Sunday, I read the girls these two books. They’re referred to as our “Sunday Reading” and we don’t read them any other day of the week. It makes Sundays special and gives us something else, other than our church service in the morning, to look forward to. I love that it unifies us as a family.

Closing Thoughts

Well, my friends, that’s about it! Week One is in the books, and as I type this we are currently going into week three. Fortunately I haven’t needed to make many adjustments to my timetable, so I’m trying to stick it out and make sure it will work well for the rest of the term. I’ll be back later in the term to share some updates our school year. Until then, I hope you’re having a lovely start to the school year so far!

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“The parent who sees his way…to educate his child, will make use of every circumstance of the child’s life almost without intention on his own part, so easy and spontaneous is a method of education based upon Natural Law. does the child eat or drink, does he come, or go, or play — all the time he is being educated, though he is as little aware of it as he is of the act of breathing.”

-Charlotte Mason, Home Education