Homeschool Mother's Journal: In Which the Cat Came Back

In our homeschool... I was pleased with how well we stuck to our plan to get history done this week, but less pleased with the fact that we barely touched the Olympic study.  And with the games opening yesterday too!  Oh well.  Our US history lessons focused on the earliest European explorers of North America, and on the native American tribes that were already here.  One of the art projects we came across was a Comanche parfleche, which is more or less a portfolio or messenger bag.  I suggested that Kennady make herself one using posterboard, and make it large enough for keeping her artwork for this year.  She chose a selection of tribal motifs to decorate it.  It's finished now, except for lacing or taping up the sides, but here was how it looked earlier in the week.

That was timely, as she finished her very first drawing for art class this week too.  (And noting that, it reminded me that she didn't do the second one, and I thought she was going to.  Once again - Oh well.)

Spencer enjoyed a full week off school, but come Monday he will be back at it! ;-)

Our curriculum choices are made, though not set in stone (they rarely are) for the school year, and I think I have everything in the Tracker so lesson plans are ready to go.  We start up with a few more subjects on Monday and will try to get a real good start on the year during the next couple of weeks before vacation.

In other news... we had a fairly quiet week, after all the busy-ness of VBS and everything else.  I worked on our vacation plans, so we now have a place to stay while we're in PEI, and we have airshow tickets.  I still need to book a motel for at least one night in New Brunswick.  DH informs me that he has already picked out which whale-watching tour (out of the bajillion to choose from!) he wants, so we'll figure out if we need to make reservations ahead of time for that.

We branched out a little in our menu plans this week and tried something I've wanted to taste for a long time.  Chicken cooked with Mexican chocolate mole.  It was very good - much milder than I had anticipated.

And last Saturday I tried something else new and crazy - chicken-fried bacon! Not exactly heart-healthy.  But a yummy treat nonetheless!

Turns out the most exciting event of the week was that our cat slipped out of the house unnoticed on Thursday night - during the thunderstorm, no less - but thankfully showed up none the worse for wear on Friday morning.  He is an inside cat, declawed and all, so the concern when we realized he wasn't inside the house on Friday morning was that he would have been at a disadvantage in any confrontation with another animal.  And there was definitely some kind of confrontation going on between a couple of cats on our porch in the wee hours of the morning! But of course we had no way of knowing at the time that Pepper was one of them!  Anyway, he spent all day Friday sleeping off his wild night of carousing and catting around (I assume that's what he did.  What else would a cat do out on his own?) and we hope he's learned his lesson about trying to sneak out of doors!

Helpful homeschooling tips and advice... I'll give the same advice I gave last week.  LOL  Check out the Back to Homeschool Blog Hop hosted by the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog.


Questions/thoughts I have... I am still toying with our schedule and trying to figure out the best way to fit everything in and organize our days.  I guess I will have to just jump in and try it for the next couple weeks and see how it goes.

One of my favorite things this week... my DH got a nice unexpected bonus at work this week! What a blessing!!

A photo/video/quote or link to share... This week the kids combined three themed Monopoly games they have to make what they call SuperMegaMonopoly or something like that.  It's too complicated for me.  LOL  But I was so pleased that they invented their own game and that it kept them entertained and getting along for so long!

On the bookshelf...

• The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran
• The Forever Queen by Helen Hollick
• Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
• Demolishing Supposed Bible Contradictions - Ken Ham, Editor

A parting shot...

wonder who is going to let the cat out of the bag?

This post is linked to iHomeschool Network - see what other homeschoolers have been doing this week!