Homeschool Mother's Journal: In Which We Stick With the Program

In our homeschool...  we've been working hard to get and stay on schedule, and it seems that we're doing okay.  We had something going on, or somebody not feeling completely well, or something pretty much every day, which presented some challenges.  But - everyone did math every day this week, and I count that a victory.   Spencer is using mostly the ALEKS program for math at this point, and that is working out well for us right now.  I've been meaner to Kennady - making sure she completes an entire math lesson every day.  She and Landon are both a bit ahead in Language Arts, so I didn't push that this week.

We've been working a little on Science, with the book Exploring the World Around You. 

At the beginning of the week, Landon and Kennady completed a couple of mini-reports to wrap up our study of France.  Then we shifted our focus to Spain and Portugal.  We ended that by baking a Portuguese sweet bread this evening.

This week we learned about the American composer Stephen Foster.  That was lots of fun because the tunes we listened to were almost all familiar, and we enjoyed his humour.

In co-op this week, my class built their catapults.  I was kept busy checking (and fixing!) everyone's work and didn't take any pictures in class, but this is how our test catapult at home turned out.

Oh, and I did get that suspension bridge we brought home last week put back together again.  (by myself.  Possibly a sign that I am taking this homeschool mom thing WAY too seriously...)

In other news... there really wasn't much other news this week! Just the usual stuff. 

My favorite thing this week... Kennady likes to draw a huge happy face of some kind at the end of each of her Language Arts workbooks as she finishes.  This is the one she drew this week.  I thought it was really cute! 

What's working/not working for us... I have to say that ALEKS is working well for us. (I reviewed ALEKS for TOS earlier this week.) Spencer is making good progress with it, and seems to like using it.  And Landon was rather put out with me today because I was "letting" Spencer do math on the computer, and he wanted to do ALEKS math too.  LOL

Questions/thoughts I have... where does the time go?  Kids grow up too fast, and the days go by faster than I think they should.  I can't seem to get even half the stuff done that I want to.  I am not a very good time manager.

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

Artwork from Kennady -

and from Spencer -

On the bookshelf...

• A House For My Name by Peter J. Leithart
• The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling Teens by Debra Bell
• The Betrayed by Lisa T. Bergren

Finished and wrote about A Poisoned Season by Tasha Alexander.  Finished, but still need to write about, The Skin Map by Stephen R. Lawhead.

A Parting shot...

This post is linked to The Homeschool Chick - see what programs other homeschoolers are sticking with this week!