Sep

1

Week 3: A New Normal At Last

September 1, 2010 | Homeschool, Journal 2010  |  9 Comments

(I know this Wrap Up is early, but for us it’s almost the end of week 3 as we are taking a holiday this Friday through next Monday. )

August in Pictures

I truly think we’ve found our new normal. Shouts of hooray fill my soul! We actually did chores this week. Now, I am not saying the house was tidy and clean all at once. No, that only happens when visitors come.   But each day we’ve been able to tackle some chore that is good for the bottom line.

Take for instance the kitchen floor.  I have a perfectly good mop.  Let me show you.

But did it get used the last two weeks?  No sir.  Shame fills my heart to admit this!  But this week, we mopped the floor!  Actually, my 8 year old mopped the floor.  I swept and made sure it was free of debris.  Then I gave him the damp mop and a spray bottle of a natural cleaner and told him to go for it.  (Insert smiley face here.)  And he enjoyed it.  What boy would not like to use a spray bottle?

Each day gets a little better.  I’d go as far as to say we are more than surviving.  So, what is a typical day like here, you might be wondering?  Since I like to read others’ routines, I’ll give you a peek at ours.

6:00 AM  Hubby’s alarm goes off.  Time for our morning quiet time with coffee and breakfast after quiet time!

7:30AM  Hubby leaves for work.  I wake up the kids and clean myself up for the day.  They are supposed to be getting breakfast, getting dressed and take a quick turn about the yard for a breath of fresh air.  I try to have dishes done, laundry started and a quick computer fix before we begin our lessons.  I also make sure dinner plans are firm in my mind.

8:30AM  We pray, sing hymns, and read the Bible.  We also read from Our 24 Family Ways and pray through the day’s city from The Gateway Cities book, a book dedicated to praying for the people in the 10/40 window area.

There is no set time schedule from here on out.  But we usually do the same things in this order…

I read out loud from the following books:  Torches of Joy, Island of the Blue  Dolphins, Call it Courage, and Small Poems.  Usually it is one or two chapters from each book.  This week, my oldest could not stand it any longer and took Island of the Blue Dolphins to his room after school to finish it.  I love it when that happens.  So far, the kids are really interested in all the books we’ve read or are reading.  While I read,  the kids are quietly playing with Legos or drawing.  Today, Grace and Trevor drew about what I was reading.

After reading, they take a recess outside since the weather is better in the mornings lately.

After recess, Ryan goes to his room to work on his independent subjects:   language arts, AWANA, and math.  He is also reading through a book on rocks and minerals until his Apologia gets here.

I start Spelling Power with my youngest.  Grace is usually doing her independent work at this time.  As I work through all 3 kids, I check in with their progress and give them their spelling tests.  I also keep the laundry moving along and check in with my Twitter friends.

The Younger Two love working together.

After spelling, I do math with the younger two.  Grace is doing Math U See Delta.  Trevor is not actually doing it, but he is watching.  He is really doing Abeka 3.  I like for him to watch the DVD with Grace though.  It is good for him to be exposed to what is coming up.

After math, I do science with the younger two.  Trevor is doing Abeka 3.  Grace is doing Sonlight 5.  Again, Trevor listens in.  I tried the first week to include him, but he could not do the worksheets.  We had the Abeka 3 already and he enjoyed that format last year, so I decided to let him do what is best for his learning style.

After science, Grace and I work on Grammar Ace and Sonlight 5 Language Arts.  Trevor is usually ready for me to look at his work and discuss.  Ryan, by this time is done as well.  I check his work.

Now it is lunch time.  Whew!  After lunch it is time to finish up our lessons, free time and time for more chores.  This is when we do our errands too, if  any.  And laundry, dishes and more laundry, always!  At least I have three well trained helpers to get most of the chores done quickly.

So, there you have it, our well-oiled machine at week 3.  We are not perfect.  We are making progress.  I would love to say that we did not spend too much time wasted on the computer or watching Little House DVDs in the afternoon.  We have had to make some adjustments for the weather we’ve been having.  It is just too hot to play outside in the afternoon.  I would do our lessons then, but I know us too well.  We’d get distracted and never finish. Besides the weather, another issue we’ve had to work through is a cold that my daughter has had this week.  It could be allergies.  I am not sure, but it is making her irritable and that wears me out, too!

I hope you have had a great week!

~Jenn

To see more Weekly Wrap Up posts, visit Mary at Raising 4 Godly Men.

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Aug

27

Week Two is in the Books

August 27, 2010 | Homeschool, Journal 2010  |  11 Comments

Allow me to introduce you to the Star of the Week….

Hee, hee, hee.  That is a little joke.  Yes, he is the star of the week, but he is every week, my sweet easy-going baby!  I had to post these pictures for a couple reasons.  One, the grandparents need to see our little ham and two, they are the only pictures I took this week!  I apologize for that.   I am finding that I just don’t enjoy taking pictures without a “real” camera.  The one I have to use is my oldest’s and it is for taking video.  But, it is a camera and so I am thankful.  Now, back to our week…

What a week! (Sorry for all the exclamation marks.  I recently read in a grammar book that they should be used sparingly.)  Monday, we had two students fighting allergies pretty hard.  I was wondering how that would affect our week.  Thankfully, we pushed through and got past them with the help of some good allergy medicine.

Our readings this week were very rich indeed and thankfully, my voice held on.  We are enjoying some thought provoking books.  Our read alouds include… Island of the Blue Dolphins, Torches of Joy, Henry Reed, Inc.,  100 Gateway Cities, All the Small Poems, and Our 24 Family Ways.  We finished Henry Reed, Inc. , which was a very fun book to read.  I would say that if you have a boy or girl around the ages 8-12 (which I do), they would love this simple tale of a boy’s summer exploits.

Spelling Power continues to be a blessing to us.  For a program to be enjoyable to three such different students, amazes me.  No complaints from them either is a real mom pleaser.

The oldest two wrote definition essays with the topic being courage.  I was pleased with their efforts.  I enjoy learning more about them through their writings.

I think we were able to work out our 7th grade math woes.  The Principal re-installed the Teaching Textbook CD-ROMs.  We will know more next week.  The problem with the disk happened during lesson three.  I am praying it is not going to happen again.  I decided to use Math U See Delta for my 5th grader since I have the program to use and she finished Gamma last year, although I really wanted to get Teaching Textbooks for both my 5th and 3rd graders. I know that MUS Delta is going to get too hard for my student before the end of the school year.  But I have a plan for that too.   (I am always full of plans.)

“The Star of the Week” enjoyed his workbooks as well as listening to all the good books.  What a year he is going to have.  If only everyone was so easy to please.  ( I resisted adding an exclamation mark here as well as several other times up to this point.  Please be proud of me.)

Field Trips!  Oh boy!  (Could not restrain myself.)  We took a trip to an apple farm not too far away.  We picked juicy, sweet Gala apples and green beans while enjoying the beautifully  cool day.  Our grandma (my mother-in-law) accompanied us.  She’d never picked apples before.  Wow.

Today, we took a trip to a local park’s nature center.  The kids did two scavenger hunts, made a craft, saw a Cooper’s Hawk up close, and talked at length with the head naturalist.  I don’t think they wanted to leave, but we also had plans to visit with some dear friends in the area.

We plan to order Apologia’s Exploring Creation with General Science on CD-ROM this weekend.  Yippee!  If the math keeps working, we are good to go for the year.  I am so thankful that the Lord is providing us a way to get the science program we need.  He is faithful.

Computer time seems to be limited more and more.  I would love to come read about your week as soon as time allows.

I hope you have a fantastic weekend.

~Jenn

If you’d like to see more Weekly Wrap Up posts, visit Mary’s blog.

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Aug

21

Our First Week

August 21, 2010 | Homeschooling, Journal 2010  |  18 Comments

Oh, how good it feels to be on this end of our first week back to formal lessons! I have to admit I was a little anxious how it would all go. I knew we were pretty much out of a routine and really no one was interested, including me, to change that fact. It was a little like trying to change the flow of a stream. But, with a lot of prayer and some determination, we did it.

The week went very well. I learned some things myself. I learned that my youngest son likes workbooks. Was I planning on using workbooks for him? No. Fortunately, I had some. I guess his learning style is workbooks. Figures, because he likes to check things off and basically know what is coming next, at all times.

Second thing I learned is that my oldest needs a lot more “meat” for Science than the program we borrowed has. So I am looking into Apologia. I want something he can do on his own. I will have to teach to the younger two, their two different programs, so I want him to do something independent. Thankfully the borrowed program will still work for Grace. And Trevor has a workbook all ready to go that I bought a year ago.

Thrid thing I learned is that we love Spelling Power. We have tried other products and never found one that would work for all three or make as much sense. The kids really enjoy the hands on part. We used shaving cream to write our misspelled words. I think we are going to really improve our spelling this year.

Fourth thing I learned is that starting a new school year is HARD on mama! The first day, I was totally mentally fried. My throat ached. My head ached. The house fell apart. And yet I had figure out how to do dishes, laundry, clear the table to eat, make sure a path was clear from the door to the table so my husband could enter the house and eat. (hee,hee) That first day was brutal. But each day I was able to do a little more. By Thursday, I had showered, did morning chores and had the house tidy before lessons. Next year, I need to remember to be kind to myself and make some freezer dinners ahead for that first week.

Fifth and final thing I learned was that after our 4 days of lessons, it was good to rest and regroup on the fifth day. We took yesterday off. I made sure all our record keeping was done, too. You don’t want to fall behind on that job. The boys went to a swimming birthday party and I took Grace and a friend swimming. It was a lovely reward for our hard work. I totally think there needs to be this balance between work and play.

Here is a collage of our week. I am still not enjoying how Word Press does pictures, so these collages have to work when I have more than one picture to post. Oh how I wish WP was easier to use, sometimes! As I write this, the page jumps around on me. Ugh.

To see more Weekly Wrap Up posts, visit Mary.

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Aug

16

First Day of School

August 16, 2010 | Homeschool, Journal 2010  |  12 Comments

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Aug

13

T Minus 3 Days!

August 13, 2010 | Homeschooling  |  8 Comments

School for us, starts in 3 days (including today.) We seem to be ready to go. I have all our books, thanks to a generous friend loaning them out. I bought over 100 pencils. :-)

Ido have to let go of some of my perfectionistic ideas, but other than those, I am feeling prepared. We will jump in and the first day jitters will be behind us in no time.

I will not allow myself to dwell on the 180 days ahead of us, which seem to drag half way through. I will think about how I feel blessed to be home with my children and to have this opportunity to teach them.

I’d really like to do a weekly summary this year on this blog. I want a visual record of our days this year. I think it would be wonderful to see our progress. Perhaps, it can get done, this year.

So here we go, off into another year of home education, wiht a little fear and trembling along the way!

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