Homeschool Mother's Journal: In Which We Take it Easy

In our homeschool... we're still working on finishing up a few things, most important is Spencer finishing his Geometry.  Hopefully he will be done in the next week or so.  I have to check it and see how close we are so I can decide whether we need to resubscribe for one more month or not.

Landon worked pretty hard at his new Algebra course at the beginning of the week, until I posted my review of the program (Pearson Homeschool's MyMathLab Algebra 1).  Now I am letting him relax and he doesn't need to do it every day, but he is going to continue with it, so I do want him to work on it a little bit each week until we start a new school year.  Then he will be back on an every day math routine.

Kennady has been working on a literature curriculum that we are reviewing, along with finishing up her math.  She is enjoying the literature! It's Hewitt Homeschool's Lightning Lit, and you can expect my review in about a month.  The advance is that we really like it, and that's all I will say for now! ;-)  She finished reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland all on her own and it is a real delight for me to see her enjoy reading so much.  I'm very glad she still enjoys the kinds of things that young girls like to read, rather than wanting some of the twaddle aimed at teen girls.  Yikes!  She started the Summer Reading program at the library last week, and I had some mixed feeling about it because she's in the teen program now, but thankfully likes little girl books! I shared more thoughts about the summer reading program a few days ago for the Blog Cruise - you can read it here:  "Reading and Growing Up"

Since we're 'officially' finished school for the 2011-2012 year, I will probably get started on lesson planning for the 2012-2013 year pretty soon, but I don't know exactly when.

In other news... we had an exciting start to the weekend (and this is two weeks ago, although I didn't post about it), although not one I'd recommend.  Our deep freeze died.  It was very old and served us (and a previous owner) for many, many years so it wasn't unexpected.  But not a happy time.  I salvaged everything I could and took it to a temporary home (freezer at our church's youth center) and trashed a bunch of stuff that was iffy.  Then while Landon was at a Civil Air Patrol event on a Saturday morning, I went freezer shopping.  I share all that NOW, because TODAY my freezer was finally delivered.  Yeah, two weeks for a freezer.  I'm stunned that no one has any in stock.  At any rate, I'm happy that I finally have one and that we had the help of the whole family in doing a pretty good clean session of the basement last night so that it could be brought it easily.

I finished all my homeschool evaluations so that's one less thing on the calendar!

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share... I'm realizing more and more that multi-tasking isn't as effective as we'd like to think it is.  I remember reading reports of studies that have proven this to some degree, but just based on my own experience, homeschooling isn't the place for multi-tasking.  If it's important to me to home educate, then when I'm teaching or grading I need to give that task my full attention.  I need to minimize interruptions and distractions as much as is practical. I need to set that example for my kids, because I've noticed that they sometimes think they can have other windows open on the internet while they are doing schoolwork! No, you can't do that! And since I don't want you to have a FB chat window open with your buddy while you're supposed to be doing math in another window, I should probably set that example by not trying to supervise English studies while surfing the 'net or talking on the phone.  Ouch.  Seriously, this is our 'job' - homeschool mom or student - and I know we do it better and establish better work habits when we treat it like a job. No personal calls at work!

Questions/thoughts I have... after cleaning out the basement yesterday, I am horrified by how much homeschool 'stuff' I kept that I don't really need! Yikes!! I threw out a bunch, and set aside some things that I could give away, and I still have LOTS to sort through.  I guess my questions are - how much should I keep? what's the best way to give away or sell what I don't need to keep any more?

One of my favorite things this week... putting together a couple of fun blog posts - one celebrating patriotism, and another highlighting some of the silly games my kids play.

A photo/video/quote or link to share... We quickly put together a couple of raised garden beds this week, made from scrap wood.  I'm not a gardener at all, but maybe starting small and contained like this will work out for me.

On the bookshelf...

• Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxenreider
• Have a New Teenager by Friday by Dr Kevin Leman
• Brightest Heaven of Invention by Peter J Leithart (finished Shakespeare's Henry V and the chapter discussing it)
• Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast
• The King's Mistress by Emma Campion
• The Witch from the Sea by Philippa Carr

Finished The Lion Triumphant by Philippa Carr.  I got started on her Daughters of England series again (this one is book two) and I can't stop! LOL

A parting shot...

reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

This post is linked to iHomeschool Network - see how other homeschoolers are taking it easy this week!