Strewsday Tuesday - Valentine's Day Edition!

I thought I'd focus on the formal schooling we do and how that strews too!

Becky is working her way through The Life of Fred series. She's in the middle of Edgewood where she's encountering geometry. She comes and tells me on her own what it is she's reading about. She's fascinated by learning about trapezoids and rombuses (Rombi???).

We continue to work through the weekly visual aids and the worksheets for Aquinas Learning. This week, Week 17 of Cycle C, we are learning in each of the 8 categories: Virtue - compassion; Catechism - 5 types of prayer, History- Slavery Divides the Nation (Dred Scott decision, abolition, Underground Railroad); Civics - 3 qualifications for President; Latin/Greek - 5 Greek words; Grammar - what is a rhetorical question?; Science - what is a chemical element?; Geography - Florida and Texas (we are working our way through all 50 states).

I focus on Geography, Latin/Greek and Catechism. The other things are fun possibilities for rabbit trails. Geography because Becky really enjoys it, Latin/Greek because I'm geeky that way! And Catechism - well, because it's the Catechism!

We've been much more formal with Sean as the year goes by because of the whole Trinity school thing next year. Right now we are in the painful process of filling out the Candidate Questionaire. I think this will be the hardest aspect of applying and the one Sean hates the most! I plan to use it as copy work for the next three weeks. We are working on the answers together. He pretty much dictates to me and then I write it down. He's going to copy it over for handwriting practice. It's painful!

Sean enjoys the writing program we are using, as I've mentioned a couple of times already, I'm sure. He had to read excerpts from a biography of George Washington Carver and then another one about Jenner, the guy who discovered the Smallpox vaccine. He finds all this very interesting. Also, he's enjoying studying Latin too. He seems to like the vocabulary games at Headventure Land. He also seems to be enjoying the Ecce Romani book. And I can see how all this studying is suddenly consolidating as we work through the National Latin Exam practice tests. He's getting much faster at it.

So this isn't the unschooling part of our day but it leads to lots of learning anyway, LOL! My kids thrive best when there is a mix of formal and informal learning going on each day.

So has your family embarked on some structured learning recently? Or what are you consciously or unconsciously strewing?