Homeschool Mother's Journal: In Which We Really Get Going

In our homeschool this week... Tuesday was supposed to our first "full" day of school. But since gym class has been moved to Tuesdays this year, the definition of "full" was loosely applied. We started the morning with science, discussing food chains and food webs, before spending some time in Math and Language Arts. Spencer and I picked the novels he will read this year from the reading list, and he got started on Notgrass Exploring America. Then in the afternoon, it was off through the rain to gym class.

Wednesday we got started with Geography, looking at the continent of Europe.

On Thursday, we finally got to Music, and we learned a little about Gregorian chant.

Unfortunately, Friday started late - as did most days this week, much to my dismay - but once Landon and Kennady were up, we started the day by sketching Big Ben and then started working on a timeline of European history. We're using a website called Dipity for this - it was suggested on a message board and I'm glad I thought of trying it for this project, which would have been unwieldy otherwise. We used to do timelines on butcher paper which we put in the stairwell and added to as we went through the school year, but we are aiming to paint that stairwell soon (have been meaning to do it for a couple of months now, and still haven't done it!) so I didn't want to clutter it up yet. In the afternoon, we had a music lesson, put together paper models of Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower, and I insisted on some Math and Language Arts being completed before we called it quits for the day.

Kennady's Big Ben

Landon's Big Ben

In other news... Wednesday morning, Harrison and I had free breakfast at Chick-fil-A, and then he shopped for some work shirts.  Wednesday evening was the kickoff for the youth and childrens programs at church.  Harrison is now helping with games and sports in the childrens program, and Landon has moved up to the youth program.



That is Landon on the right - dressed up in newspaper and duct tape as a hillbilly.  We kicked off youth with the Redneck Games, and Landon was right in the thick of things!

We had lots of rain this week, and many of the roads are (or were, on Thursday anyway) closed because of flooding.  More road closures than I have seen for a long time, and yet the flooding here isn't nearly as serious as what has been happening further north.  Thankfully, by Friday afternoon, it seemed that most of the roads were open again.

My favorite thing this week was... the feeling - however fleeting - that we will stick to our schedules this year and finish all our schoolwork on time.  Maybe even early!  And more importantly, I absolutely LOVE hearing Kennady sing along to David Crowder's "How He Loves".  Oh - one more thing for the favorites list - I started the week by receiving a Back-to-School gift basket from my Secret Sister at church!

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have... I need some kind of system to get things graded daily.  Somehow I haven't got this detail down yet.

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

• Paper Toys.com free print, cut, fold, and glue models - includes famous buildings, cars, dinosaurs, toys, all kinds of things!  Shout-out to Practical Pages blog for sharing it! She has some great ideas for art projects!

Eiffel Tower

Big Ben

On the Bookshelf...

• Already Gone by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer


• Read for the Heart by Sarah Clarkson


• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Finished Cleopatra's Daughter by Michelle Moran and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

A Parting Shot...

This post is linked to The Homeschool Chick - see what others got going on this week!