Homeschool Mother's journal: Valentine's week

In my life this week…It seems like this has been the week of catching up, and feeling like I'm running too much.  I know whenever I feel that way it's time to start cutting back again.  Otherwise it was a good week.

In our homeschool this week…
Monday:  We had Monday school, so that's kind of all we usually do on that day.  It takes up half of the day.  I'll be glad when Monday school is over.  This was kind of our "testing the waters" of a co-op.  It has been fun, but not sure my boys are really liking it a whole lot.  Since they are so young they don't get to do the cool classes (they are in the preschool and Kindergarden class), but April loves it.  She is taking the "de-construction class, art, and physical activity time. 

Tuesday:  It was Valentine's day.  I started with heart shaped pink pancakes, but my kids didn't eat them.  I have kids who don't like pancakes.  Weird, I know.  For school I had some Valentine's printables, we sorted sweethearts, I put some surprise goodies in the workboxes, and we read a Winnie the Pooh Valentine's story.

Wednesday:  We walked to the library today.  It was so beautiful.  The whole trip must have been for the walk because the kids didn't really get any books.  They each got 1 book, and 2 were books we already have (I couldn't convince them that they wanted something else).  Silly kids.

Thursday:  Oh, Thursday...this was the day of no motivation (from me).  I had boxes full, but we didn't really get to any of them.  It became a lego building, a little grocery shopping, get other things done(besides school work) sort of day.  Most of us are feeling a little under the weather too

 Friday:  This day has yet to happen as I write this, but I have a blood draw in the morning, and then the rest of the day we'll probably get some school work done and April has a friend coming over.  I love Fridays. 

My favorite thing this week was…making homemade Valentine's with my kids.  We had the opportunity to pass out Valentine's to the kids at co-op, so it was fun to have a reason to make some.  I sat down with each one and worked with them in some way.  I was amazed that Aaron chose to fold 20 origami pockets for his, all his idea, he loves origami.

What’s working/not working for us…I feel like we are just skimming the surface of everything that the kids do each day.  I want them to dig a little deeper, spend a little more time on the things that interest them, and be interested in learning by reading more.  Especially the littler boys.  I have been reading "The Well Trained mind" and have learned that what we are currently doing is not getting my kids brains really working.  I've decided that we need a more literature rich/classical approach and as I read through the book I'm sure it will become more apparent what I need to do to accomplish that.  But, for now I am adjusting a lot of what the boys are doing.  I'm cutting the printables way back, and trying to focus more on projects and things that tie into literature, abc's, and lots more hands-on activities.  

Things I’m working on…Keeping the TV off as much as possible, especially during the day.  We did good many days this week having the TV off almost all day except for one short show in the evening.  I know because today the kids kept turning the tv off after each show I let them watch (I slipped a little today in my unmotivation).  Really we don't watch a lot of TV as it is, and we don't have cable.  We do have Netflix however, and that means we can easily access a lot of things we like to watch.

I’m reading…Still reading The Duggars.  I've also started reading The well trained mind.  

I’m cooking…A lot of new things from Pinterest.  I have been trying to cook more, and pinterest has opened up new doors for me.  It has been fun trying out some new things because we sure were getting in a rut.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…
We were at Target today and noticed birds all around the cart area that was right next to our van.  At first I wasn't sure why, then we realized that there was a bag of popcorn sitting in that cart.  They were all over and kept coming.  We tried to catch a good picture.  April called them the parking lot perchers.  They were fun to watch.

I am linking this up to Homeschool Chick's homeschool mother's journal.

Desiree