Homeschool Mother's Journal: In Which We Have Two Weeks of Birthdays and Busy-ness

In our homeschool these two weeks... The first week of July, we didn't even pretend to have school.  It was definitely a vacation week for all.  This week, however, we had some things we worked on.  Spencer attended Drivers Ed each morning (that's a half credit course for him), Landon worked on English and Algebra, and Kennady and I started working on an Olympics unit study.  But everything was pretty low-key.  We are working on some product reviews so those subject areas got some attention as well.

I've got all our materials for the upcoming school year now, but didn't take any time to work on lesson planning.  I will probably get going on that again this weekend and try to finish it next week.

In other news... July 1st was Canada Day, which we usually acknowledge, but I didn't get much chance this year, other than to say "Happy Birthday, Canada!".  Right after church, I left with three others for the district conference for our denomination.  We had a very nice time, actually.  We chatted quite a bit as we drove, and over our meals together.  On the way there, we stopped at this seafood restaurant, which I found a little ironic as I do not like seafood and my hubby had been talking about craving scallops or shrimp just days earlier.  The place was very nice and the food very good, but there were only about three dishes on the entire menu that did not involve crab, so my choices were very limited.  LOL

 

I got home late on Monday evening, and Tuesday was Kennady's 11th birthday!  And the one day that I had to pack and prepare for our trip.  So it was busy, to say the least.  We picked up Kennady's friend and had lunch before going to see the movie "Brave" which was what Kennady really wanted to do.  I really enjoyed the movie and thought it was very good.  

Independence Day was our travel day!  We planned our drive so that we arrived in Niagara Falls, Ontario in the late afternoon, which gave us time to walk around a bit and have dinner before the fireworks to celebrate the birthday of the USA! 

  

We finally arrived at my in-laws' sometime after midnight and hit the sack.  I can't even say we were up early the next day, even though we had plans.  We slept pretty late.  Once we were up and moving, we headed right back to Niagara Falls to take advantage of the passes my SIL had given us to the waterpark in one of the hotels.  We spent the entire afternoon there and had a wonderful time.  The next couple of days were spent with family, and we headed home on Sunday (the 8th).

Monday morning was Spencer's first Drivers Ed class, so we were busy again as soon as we arrived home!  This week it's been Drivers Ed and errands, and just trying to get back into a routine.

Helpful homeschooling tips and advice... I'm out of advice right now.  If you have any for me (see the questions/thoughts I have), please feel free to share! LOL

Questions/thoughts I have...  now that I have all the curriculum in place for the new school year, I need to start thinking about scheduling.  I am not a Schedule Person at all.  I like to fly by the seat of pants, for the most part.  But let's face it, with three students and one computer, and lots of stuff going on, I'd better have some plan for who does what and when, and how many times a week.  My challenge for the next little while will be coming up with a loose schedule that we can at least start with and tweak as we go.

One of my favorite things this week... I'm going to pick two favorites since this covers two weeks. ;-)  Having movie day with Kennady and her friend was lots of fun for me.  I hope that as Kennady gets older, I can still have girls' days out with her and some of her friends.  And the other favorite thing was lunches and coffee breaks and stocking up at Tim Horton's.  (Earlier this year, I won a couple hundred dollars worth of Tim Horton's gift cards in a sweepstakes, but with none in our area, I held onto them until we were next in Canada.  And then we had coffee and donuts and lunches without worrying about the cost! I even treated myself to a couple of new travel mugs.)

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

On the bookshelf...

• Brightest Heaven of Invention by Peter J Leithart, and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
• I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This! by Bob Newhart
• The Love Child by Philippa Carr
• Messiah in the Feasts of Israel by Sam Nader

Finished: The King's Mistress by Emma Campion, Saraband for Two Sisters and Lament for a Lost Lover by Philippa Carr.

A parting shot...

Historic Emmitsburg, MD decked out for our nation's birthday.

This post is linked to iHomeschool Network - see what other homeschoolers are busy with this summer!