The Homeschool Mother's journal: February 23, 2013

 

In my life this week...The Hubby left for Germany on Monday morning.  He'll be home tomorrow evening (Saturday)!  It has been an amazingly better week than expected, but I sure am glad he'll be home soon.  Looking forward to having our family all in one place again!

In our homeschool this week...Today (Friday) we started a unit on owls to go with our five in a row of Owl Moon by Jane Yolen.  The kids did a little art lesson on how to draw owls, and that went really well!  I love how their owls turned out.  We have yet to paint/color them in, but I'm thinking I will frame them when they're done.  The boys are pretty interested in owls, so this will be a fun unit over the next week.  We also jumped back into Story of the World.  It was amazing, like we hadn't even missed a beat.  We picked up in Chapter nine where we left off.  It was so easy to just pick it up where we were.  Love the flow of that history! 

Favorite resource this week...Living Montessori Now's free Presidents' day printables, and Montessori inspired Presidents' day activities.  I am loving Montessori more and more, and loved making these exact activities for my preschooler.  He had fun doing them.  Some we didn't get to and we'll save for next year.

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share...make your homeschool come first each day, sometimes it's hard, but it's worth it.

I am inspired by...new curriculum.  Or, even sometimes old curriculum that is brought back to life!  We had some curriculum changes the past few weeks, new math books, old math books brought back out, and Story of the World started up again.  It helps get us all excited about doing school again.  Even if for only a short time :-)

Places we're going and people we're seeing...we didn't have Monday school because it was President's day, so we ended up going to the bookstore and the farm store.  My in-laws came on Wednesday and have stayed for a few days, until Saturday.  We went to Ikea on Wednesday afternoon, swimming on Thursday evening, and the library and Costco on Friday.  On Saturday we have a birthday party to go to for a homeschool friend that a certain 4 year old is looking forward to.  We also went to homeschool playgroup on Thursday afternoon and learned about making lefsa, and tasted it too!

My favorite thing this week was...it was a great week, lots of favorites to choose from.  I'm going to pick Grandma and April cleaning and re-organizing April's room.  They even rearranged all the furniture.  It needed to be done, and I'm so glad I didn't have to do it with her!  One less thing on my list to do!  I love seeing her clean room now too!

Things I'm wroking on...planning activities for our girls group at church, and a lesson I have to substitute teach on Sunday for Aarons Sunday school class.

What's working/not working for us...it's not working for us to be gone all the time!  I need to start being better again about scheduling things during our school time.


I'm reading...a Thomas Jefferson Education, and The work and the Glory.

The kids are reading...Aaron read a new Elephant and Piggie book this week, and he was faster at reading it too!  April is reading Meet Molly for her Portraits of American Girlhood history, but after this one we are going to quit.  Aric has devoured every owl book we had on hand (me reading it to him of course).  I got more at the library today, and I'm sure he'll want to read every single one soon.

I'm cooking...I rocked the kitchen this week!  It's not very many weeks I can say that.  I made some yummy baked tacos on Sunday night that even my Hubby was very impressed with.  Then, I made homemade pizza on Monday night, my best yet.  I made some chocolate chip muffins for breakfast one morning, those are always a hit.  But, what's even better is that I was able to keep up with the dishes too!  It's not very often I can say that too.

I'm grateful for...my in-laws coming here to be with us these last few days of this week.  I always worry when my Hubby has to go out of town, and week long trips are the worst.  I'm so thankful that they just offered to come here and be with us, and that their visit has been so fun.  I'm thankful for the excitement the kids have when they are here.  I'm thankful for the company.  I was thinking today about how on Monday night for some reason a huge wave of loneliness came over me.  I'm not sure where it came from, but not only was my husband gone, but I felt completely friendless.  I had no friends that knew I was alone this week, and no one that I felt I could just call up and talk to.  Their visit was a much welcome relief and comfort.

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

My boys' two favorite books right now.  Fly guy, and Elephant and Piggie books.  We pretty much get them every time we go to the library now.




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Desiree