Homeschool Mother's Journal: In Which We Get Our Computer Back

Well, so much for my goal of getting my weekly summary done on Fridays...


In our homeschool this week...  what a relief to finally have our computer back, and working again! I got it back on Tuesday afternoon, so from Wednesday on we have been working hard! I was finally able to print math pages for Kennady, and music and science worksheets for Landon and Kennady.  And finally able to access the current Homeschool Tracker so I could make new assignment lists - after getting the backlog of grading out of the way! 

So everybody has been hard at work, and to the best of my knowledge, we are all caught up to where we need to be in every subject! Which begs the question of how long that state of affairs will last, but my hope is that we won't find ourselves getting behind again for quite a long time. 

I adjusted our schedule in Science a bit, because I want to be completely finished Properties of Ecosystems before our co-op classes start.  We finished a unit this week, learning about seasonal animal behaviors, animal defenses, adaptations, and the balance of nature.  I think we can finish the last unit next week and that's what we'll be shooting for. 

Our music study this week was Felix Mendelssohn, and although our time spent on it was short, we did enjoy his music.  We learned a little about Ireland, Wales, and Scotland in Social Studies, and are enjoying some shortbread and other homemade Scottish treats this evening.  Next week I think we will be ready to head back to mainland Europe and learn about Germany and some of its neighbors. 

In other news... I know I did a lot of running here and there at the beginning of the week, but other than picking up the computer on Tuesday afternoon, I'm not sure what I did or where I went.  LOL  Senior moment!  I did go to the first choir practice of the new season on Tuesday evening, I remember that.  Wednesday evening was the last night for our church's youth pastor so we had a farewell party for him and I guess things will be changing with the youth program for the remainder of the school year.

My favorite thing this week was... besides getting my computer back, the best thing was being able to offer my first blog giveaway.  I have a ticket to an Apologia Live conference up for grabs - you can enter here!

What's working/not working for us... The computer is working! And that also meant that we could watch DVDs on it, which we did.  I've found that The History Channel and other educational networks often have great shows that we can use for history or science, and often the DVD series are available through the library.  And since my kids never object to watching things like "Cities of the Underworld" or "Dirty Jobs" so I love to use these whenever they complement our schoolwork.  This week we watched two Cities of the Underworld episodes in which the show visited Edinburgh, Scotland and London, England.

Questions/thoughts I have...  My hubby asked this question and I am supposed to remember to research the answer - why was ivory used on piano keys in the first place? 

A photo, video, link, or quote to share...
These goodies arrived last week, and we are anxious to get started on testing things for co-op!

On the bookshelf...

• Tchaikovsky by Roland John Wiley
• Educating the Whole Hearted Child by Clay Clarkson with Sally Clarkson
• The Begotten by Lisa T. Bergren
• Arthur by Stephen R. Lawhead

I finally finished Already Compromised, and also finished Merlin by Lawhead, and read A Darcy Christmas.  I also added a couple of reviews to my book blog (which I plan eventually to move to Blogger as well) - Beethoven: His Life & Music, and Merlin.  I'm working on my quick review of A Darcy Christmas as well, since I don't want to wait until Easter to get to my Christmas book reviews!

A Parting Shot...

This post is linked to The Homeschool Chick - see what other homeschoolers were doing this week!