Homeschool Mother's Journal: In Which Things Are Going Remarkably Well

In our homeschool this week... We had a busy and productive week, I think.  Spencer stayed on task in all his subjects, and went to his first chemistry class of the year on Tuesday.  It's my impression that he is enjoying the Art course he's doing.



Landon and Kennady worked on ancient Greece in History.  We read about their history, daily life, clothing, trade and agriculture, entertainment and arts, and warfare.  We  read several short story versions of Greek myths, and commented on how strange and weird many of them seemed to us.  We modeled and sketched Greek-style columns, and I was hoping we would be able to paint some pottery in Greek style, but we didn't get to that.  I may not bother with it at all - we'll see.  We've been working our way through a retelling of Homer's Odyssey as a read-aloud.



We are already finished the first unit in our Science book! We learned about the oxygen and water cycles, and did a simple experiment to observe the water cycle.





At the end of the week, we started on the next unit, with a lesson that explained biomes and how they are related to rainfall and average temperatures.

Our music study this week was on Renaissance music, and we listened to music composed by Palestrina and an old English partsong.

On Thursday afternoon, I went to our first planning meeting for our spring co-op, and I am considering the possibility of teaching a science class for the oldest group (Landon's class, which is a group of all boys, ages 12 and 13).  In some ways I am looking forward to the challenge and I think the class will be fun.  The hard part is that I have only two weeks to decide whether I can actually pull together enough projects that we'd be able to complete during the class time, and that wouldn't put us all in mortal danger!  The boys want to "blow things up" - I think some of the moms actually wrote that as a tentative course title, "Blow Things Up Science".  Hmmmm...

In other news... This week started with the somber remembrance of the tragic events of 9/11 ten years ago. I was at home with the kids - Kennady was only two months old, we had barely moved into our house and everything was in chaos.  I was about to start a schoolday with the boys, when an online friend told us what she had just seen on the news - that a plane had hit the WTC.  I turned on the TV, watched the rest, and realized the world would never be the same.

We paid tribute to the heroes of 9/11 and took time to remember during our church service. However, after our morning church service, we also had a more celebratory observance in which Spencer, Landon, and Kennady all confessed their faith and were baptized.



Tuesday evening, just before I left for my first choir practice of the season, Kennady had a mishap.  She and Landon were "skating" in the kitchen, and she slipped (more than she wanted to) and hit her eye on the corner of the fridge.  Ouch!!! Thankfully, all she suffered was a swollen black eye.



My favorite thing this week was... the baptism service.

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. ~3 John 1:4

What's working/not working for us... the alarm clocks seemed to function more reliably this week, so that is good news!  And I think we are settling into our schedule fairly well.  Of course, all that is about to change, as my family is arriving Tuesday for a visit, and I fully intend that schoolwork will take a bit of a backseat during their time with us.  (so will blogging, so I probably won't be on much in the next couple weeks)

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have... How will I come up with enough activities for that co-op class, while keeping a reasonable balance between explosions and destruction on one hand, and safety and educational value on the other?  I've got a few books and resources to get started with.  I just hope I'm not in over my head!

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

World Climates (Blue Planet Biomes) I was so glad to find this website again.  I remember using it a few years ago when teaching a co-op class on biomes, and since we are just starting our unit on biomes in our Ecology study, I wondered whether it was still available.  And happily for me, it is.  I'm not sure, but I think it is a class project from a school.  Some of it seems to be written by students.  I like it because it has all the biome information on one website, with maps and links, and it is written on a good level for late elementary kids.

On the Bookshelf...

• Read for the Heart by Sarah Clarkson


• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte


• Pompeii: City of Fire by TL Higley


• The Seven Wonders of the World by Ron Tagliapietra (we are reading portions of this for school, but I decided to read the whole thing because it is pretty neat stuff!)

Finished Already Gone by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer

A Parting Shot...

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="319" caption="DH rescued a Cooper's Hawk at work this week"][/caption]

This post is linked to The Homeschool Chick - I hope things are going remarkably well for others too!