Homeschool Coffee Break: Homeschool Mother's Journal

In our homeschool... It feels good to have all the grading caught up, and to have up-to-date assignment lists for everyone, now that First Semester report cards are done! I was busy working on that, and on preparation for co-op class, and with several other things going on, the kids spent most of their school days working independently. We didn't even feel like it was worth taking a snow day.

Co-op classes did start this week and went well. For my own part, I was surprised that the lesson I had planned for the class I was teaching actually took the entire class period! I really thought we'd have some time to kill at the end. In fact, I was sort of hoping we would! Hopefully we'll be better able to gauge how long lessons will take from now on. I think Landon and Kennady both enjoyed their classes. This year they each were a little unsure going in about how much they'd like it.

We only got through two lessons in History this week, but one of them was about the National Mall and the Washington Monument so it was especially interesting to us, as we live about an hour from Washington DC and the kids both have been to the Mall several times and remember it well. I think we will have to plan on another field trip there once the weather is nicer! (These pictures are from our last trip specifically to the National Mall, in May of 2010. I can't believe it's been that long!)

In other news... it seemed like a rather uneventful week, with just our usual activities. It got colder and we got a bit of snow. Apparently this storm system had been given the name Winter Storm Khan. I have to say I was disappointed. Something named for the epic Star Trek character Khan should probably be a lot scarier, and this just wasn't. At least not for us. Yesterday DH and I spent the morning out - he was donating blood at the Red Cross, and I ran errands and did some shopping.

What's working/~~not working~~ for us... Kennady has asked to do some of the reading aloud in our history study. I wasn't sure how well it would work out, but she has done a great job and she says she likes doing it. She remembers better what she's read, and I think maybe Landon pays better attention too. He's not as used to tuning her out. LOL

Thoughts/questions I have... whoa, I just realized the three books I'm reading right now are all Pride and Prejudice related. I think I'd better add something else to the mix!

One of my favorite things this week... Kennady updated me on everything that has happened in her Life of Fred book one evening at bedtime, even reading a couple of chapters to me!

A photo/video/quote or link to share... I read this article - 12 Letters That Didn't Make the Alphabet - and thought it was pretty neat, especially interesting if you're studying English history or linguistics, or even if you just like trivia.