Homeschool Mother's Journal: Up Close Edition

In our homeschool... in a delightfully ironic twist, right after I posted here about how much I love teaching History and that it's my favorite subject, we had a week where at least three of the five history lessons were monumentally boring.  Even to me.  *sigh* On the plus side, we did push through and I think we're a lesson ahead of schedule so that's good.  And the not-so-boring lessons provided us with some ideas for extras.  One lesson was about immigration to the USA in the early part of the 1900s, and that a large number of the immigrants during that time period were Polish, Italian, or Jews from Eastern Europe.  Our textbook offered a recipe to make Hamentaschen (sweets enjoyed by European Jews during Purim) and the kids were interested in trying that.  We may make them this weekend, but I was inclined to wait until February 23rd, which is when Purim begins.  We'll see what happens.  I invited the kids to also choose some ethnic dishes to represent the Italian and Polish immigrant communities.  They haven't settled on our Little Italy meal yet, but we eat pasta dishes pretty regularly so I am encouraging them to pick out something that's a little different from our usual.  And I convinced them to have a taste of kutya, which is a Polish holiday dish I found in our Holidays of the World Cookbook for Students.

We neglected astronomy this week, and the truth is that I'm getting annoyed with the boys for being so hit-and-miss (mostly miss!) in recording their observations of the moon and stars.

Kennady got to work on the new ARTistic Pursuits book she is helping me review.

   

Landon is being given a reprieve from his usual Language Arts in order to help me review Excellence In Writing.

This was Week Three of co-op, and I remembered to take a picture of our class.

In other news... The week was off to a fun start on Sunday.  It was "Fan Sunday" at church, with all of us encouraged to wear something that illustrated what we are enthusiastic about.  Naturally, living in Maryland, there was a lot of Ravens purple on display!  But other football teams were represented as well, and we wore our favorite hockey team jerseys.  I even made sure I had a Tim Hortons t-shirt to wear!  DH and Kennady and I had tickets to the Hershey Bears game in the afternoon, courtesy of DH's friend who is an AHL linesman.  Great seats, right on the glass and beside the Bears bench!

I did not use the zoom at all for this shot.  We really were sitting that close.

There were six people between me and the bench. 

The game went to overtime (and to our disappointment, the Bears didn't come away with the win), which made our time pretty tight to get back home, pick up the boys, and head over to our friends' place to watch the Big Game.  (Don't want to take any chance on having to pay royalties or anything! LOL) I am not a football fan, or at least not of the NFL, so my hope going into this year's championship game was the same as every other year - a close game where either team could win.  Of course, our viewing party was hosted by enthusiastic Ravens fans, so I suppose if I was to choose, I would have said I was rooting for the Ravens as well.  We had a good time, and our friends were greatly relieved and delighted with the Ravens win.

Helpful homeschooling tips/advice to share... sometimes it's boring.  That happened to me this week.  I think the best thing to do is just say, "Kids, I'm bored too.  Let's get through this quickly and hope tomorrow's lesson is better."  Own it and move on.  Because in the real world, sometimes we have to do stuff that's just plain boring and we're gonna have to find a way to deal.

What's working/not working for us... I am getting more annoyed all the time about our days and weeks being broken up by having to run errands or go places during the day.  I wish I could get all of it done on ONE day and be done with it.  I do my best to limit the running around, but it doesn't always work out like I'd prefer.  We don't do gym class (Tuesday) in spring semester so that we can do co-op (Thursday), but every other week Kennady still has a Bible study on Tuesday afternoons.  Thankfully it's not every week, or I would have been over that already.  This week we had a doctor appointment that took up another day.  Next week we'll have physical therapy.  Grrr.  It just started to get to me this week, I guess.

Thoughts/questions I have... I wonder how long my desk chair is going to last.  It feels like it's going to self-destruct soon, and it is pretty much an antique.  And not even a real desk chair - it started its service in our home as a kitchen chair. I think about it every time I'm at the computer and wonder if today is the day that it crashes when I move.  I hope it meets its end when someone else in the family is sitting on it, and that I'm around to see it.  Cuz that would be hilarious!

One of my favorite things this week... fun with friends watching the Super Bowl.

A photo/video/quote or link to share... If you don't already, now is the time to start following the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog.  The first product for this review year is Apologia Elementary Science, and Crew reviews are posting now.  Many more exciting products are in store for the year, and the Crew blog also hosts Blog Cruises and Blog Hops that are fun and educational.

On the bookshelf...

• The Wolf of Tebron by C.S. Lakin
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Love's Reckoning by Laura Franz
• The Light Keeper's Legacy by Kathleen Ernst

Finished Pemberley Ranch by Jack Caldwell, and Lady Catherine's Necklace by Joan Aiken. Really enjoyed the first, and was really disappointed in the second.

A parting shot...

Mmmm.... chocolate...

This post is linked up at iHomeschoolNetwork - see what other homeschoolers got a closer look at this week.