Our homeschool notebook: My weekly Notebook: Week 1

Sunday, January 7, 2024

My weekly Notebook: Week 1 - A New Year!

Life this week...

Will this be the year that I keep up and post more on the blog? Who knows?! But, I sure wanna try. This is like a journal for me and I've been so thankful for what I have recorded so far. Sometimes I look back on posts, with no recollection of even doing the activity, so I'm glad to see it here! It always reminds me how important it is to write things down and keep memories alive. I also find reading other blogs inspiring and I hope that mine is for others as well. I've gained so many great ideas from others' blogs through the years. Some days it keeps me going.

Homeschool this week...

It was hard getting back to work after the Christmas break! We eased back in with some fun stuff including LEGO building and this math squares game that we started before the break. Sometimes I will have kiddo play this with me for at least 10 minutes (we set a timer) to get his brain going for math. These are great review. Oh and he always wins!

Mom-school this week...

I started this workbook called "Unravel Your Year". I am excited to reflect on last year and look ahead to 2024.

Helpful homeschool tips and advice to share...

Find things that YOU (the mom/teacher) enjoy and DO them! Take or make the time to do them. Even if just a little bit.

Places we're going and people we're seeing...

We finally made it to OMSI for Alex's birthday. All the kids came, it was so fun! We visited the orca exhibit and I convinced all the kids to pose in the orca tail for a photo. One of my favorites now.

Things I'm working on...

I am still working on rebuilding the Harry Potter LEGO castle. It's taking me way longer than I planned since I didn't separate the pieces into bags when I took it apart. It's still fun to build though!

Random things the kids worked on...

Alex built his Christmas gift from April, a LEGO Switch game console.

Something I accomplished...

I figured out how to make a picture of my sigfig into a sticker on my phone. It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be to get it onto a nice solid color background like this.

What we're reading...

We read this picture book about Louis Braille called Six Dots by Jen Bryant. What's cool about reading this is that we read this the day after it was "world braille day." I didn't even know! I just happened to read about braille day (after the fact) on Instagram and thought it was a great coincidence. I love to learn about fun holidays like that. Also, I think it would be fun to learn braille.

We also read Snow Horses by Patricia MacLachlan. This is a great read for new years. The illustrations are lovely, and the story is so fun for a new years night.

Outdoor time...

We officially started a new year for counting hours. My hope is that we'll beat last year and maybe get closer to 1,000, but right now we're barely getting outside everyday. I am making more of an intentional effort to get outside for at least 15 minutes each day no matter what. So hubby and I did a few days of sitting by the new little table top fire pit out front. It was a Christmas gift, and one that I was considering getting anyway. Perfect gift! I'm looking for more ways to be more intentional about getting outside.

We also went on a hike with a group of homeschool friends at Joryville Park in South Salem. We had a surprise challenge of stump hopping. It was both nerve wracking and fun. Thankfully we both made it out dry and feeling accomplished.