The Homeschool Mother's Journal: Lighthouses wrap-up

 

In my life this week...I've gotten the organization bug again.  I've started a list of major areas in our home and life that need to be organized.  I didn't get on top of that too much yet, but I am starting to think about where things will be organized and places I need to clear out that are bugging me.  I think I know how I will be spending most of my Thanksgiving vacation!

In our homeschool this week...We finished up lighthouses for now.  We didn't cover nearly as much as I hoped, but I think the children are ready to move on.  I loved looking at lighthouses and learning about them over the last few weeks.  Here is a wrap-up of what we did...

We made a "table cloth" (Amanda Bennett lighthouses unit study idea) out of a cheap sheet to draw all about lighthouses, write facts, and just have fun on.  We ate on this table cloth at our lighthouse themed family fun night.

The kids always love an excuse to draw on a sheet with sharpies

I wrote lighthouses in the middle for them to color

A lot of great lighthouses were drawn

Aaron and Aric's lighthouse

Lighthouses for kids, this had to be one of my favorite resources for our lighthouse study.  It has some great stories about children who grew up in lighthouses, and their family life.  Great projects too.

This is one of the little side stories in the book.  It's about how some think there may be ghosts that haunt some lighthouses.  I read it to the kids for fun, and we all found it interesting that one of the lighthouses mentioned as a possibly haunted lighthouse was the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse...we visited that one.  Oooohhh.  April said she wished she would have known she might have looked more around for some stories while we were there.  I hope I didn't scare my boys too much, actually I know I didn't.  We had a good discussion about ghosts and what those kinds of sightings really might be.  We really don't believe in Ghosts, but for some reason they love this kind of stuff :-)

We also looked at a lighthouse in Burnham England, and learned about the different parts of a lighthouse.

Helpful Homeschooling tips or advice to share...Do what you know works best for your family's homeschool.  Sometimes I get caught up in what others are doing and I start to worry which leads to me trying to do things a different way which leads to frustration for all.  Why can't I remember this?

Places we're going and people we're seeing...We had homeschool co-op today at the library.  It was book club and we discussed Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.  We also went to the library on Tuesday to get some books, but it was also storytime and my little ones wanted to join that so they did.  The older 2 just looked around while we were at storytime.

My favorite thing this week was...Knitting with knitting Nancy's with 8-11 year old girls for an activity.  It was a great project for them that I think they all really enjoyed.

What's working/not working for us...Story of the world is not working for us.  I love Story of the World, but I can't seem to get into it with my kids.  Even April.  She'll do it, but I can see that she's not getting a lot of it.  I decided that she needs something closer to home for her history right now.  Something that she's really interested in.  I was so glad when I stumbled across this American Girl curriculum.  I don't know why I didn't think of using the American Girls for her history lessons sooner since she loves them so much.  This will be good to do this year before she grows out of American girls too much.  We started this week, and I think it's a much better match for her for now.  We'll come back to ancient history later.  It also feels so right for us to jump to American history right now anyway, so it's a win for us.  I do look forward to using Story of the World again later though.

Questions/thoughts I have...Are we doing okay?  I mean really, are we where we need to be?  Am I teaching them all that they need to know?  Are we thriving?  Sometimes I feel like we aren't.  This thought has been haunting me a lot over the past month or so.  I have been up and down about it.  I know we are, but sometimes I can't see it.  Or, I can't hear God telling me that we are doing just fine because all I can see is the bickering and quarreling, or the 2 year old interruptions to see that we are really doing okay.  I have already started to feel at peace with this.  I need to stop letting this take me back, but it's hard not to when those questions start running through your mind.  This reminds me of the homeschool fear and doubt post I read from my good friend Becca a while back.  It's kind of where I'm at.  I know it will pass.  I know everything will work out.

Things I'm working on...A better schedule for our day.  Trying to figure out how we can get more done.

I'm cooking...I made homemade pancakes twice this week, and the kids loved them.  We now have 15 lbs of bacon, so we had bacon and hashbrowns with the pancakes one time.  Mmmm...breakfast, my favorite!

I'm grateful for...knowing that this homeschool path is the right one for my kids.  It keeps me going in times of uncertainty.

I'm praying for...A happy week for my family this coming week for Thanksgiving.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share...

April made the chocolate frog box from Harry Potter, and I made her some chocolate frogs to go in it!  I think it was something she found on pinterest (the chocolate frog paper craft box).

 To see other homeschool journal posts visit iHomeschool

Desiree