Homeschool Coffee Break: Homeschool Mother's Journal: Virtual Travel Edition

In our homeschool... with report cards and snow days and all of that behind us, we tried to get back to a tighter schedule this week. Getting started on time in the morning and avoiding distractions are our two big challenges. We didn't do much with Social Studies - I had a tourism type DVD about Curacao that we watched. I suspected it would be a little young for my kids, and I was right, but it did have some pretty neat stuff. I don't expect that we'll be able to travel to Curacao any time soon, but watching the DVD sure made us wish we could! And we got started planning some recipes from countries in Central America that we might want to try, plus we reviewed the other recipes we'd noted that we haven't tried yet and narrowed the list a bit.

English and Math are going along quite well, and Kennady got back to work on her Science this week. Landon and I looked through his Biology work to figure out what he needed to do to finish this unit. Then I decided to have his science text (which consists of downloaded files) printed at Office Depot rather than messing with printing them ourselves a bit at a time. Just handier to have the whole text at once. So I arranged for that and will pick up the copies on Monday or Tuesday.

Music/Art - Kennady's art lessons are still focusing on using art markers. She had fun with this assignment, although she wasn't sure it had turned out well. Can you tell what scene she is showing in this? (There's a hint in my favorite things.)

We are adding a half credit course to Landon's schedule for this semester - Introduction to Economics. We are using Simply Put - A Study in Economics. Landon got started on it this week, but I am having that printed as well so he will have it in a complete book.

In other news... We did get more snow this week, but thankfully it was powdery and came in a relatively smaller amount so it didn't interrupt our activities. We were still able to get to choir practices, Civil Air Patrol, music lessons, and church activities.

Kennady loves images of the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, castles, and city skylines. She has been trying to figure out how to redecorate her room, and one possible idea that keeps coming up is an Eiffel Tower theme. She found a Puzz-3D puzzle in our storage room that we'd forgotten about - an Eiffel Tower that stands about three feet high or so. She brought it up last week and she and Dad started working on it. It was harder for her than she'd anticipated, but it caught the interest of big brother Spencer who volunteered his time to help work on it. He spent part of his days off work putting the puzzle together and finished it earlier this week. Now I don't know where she's going to put it in her room - right now it's in the dormer - but she loves it so I'm sure she'll find a place. I'm hoping it inspires her to clean her room up and make room to display it! She's planning to be a world traveler someday, although I don't know how she'll get paid for it. Maybe she will be a travel agent or tour guide.

One of my favorite things this week... watching movies and talking books with Kennady. We watched Mary Poppins together, singing along to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and Step In Time at the top of our lungs. (That's the hint!) And we got talking about our shared book nerd problems one evening, which was a lot of fun. We are both book-sniffers. Fellow book-lovers will probably know what I mean by that! ;-)

I recommend... this guest post by Sharon Watson on the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog: You Are the Expert.

On my blog this week...

On the bookshelf...

Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon
Her Royal Spyness - Rhys Bowen
Gods and Kings - Lynn Austin
The Heiress of Winterwood - Sarah Ladd

I read Open Ice by Jack Falla for the 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge. See my post about it at Just A Second. It made me wish we could have visited at least one of the Original Six hockey arenas before they all disappeared. And reminded me that a visit to Montreal and to Ottawa is still on our bucket list.

I am also re-reading Sticky Faith as I am facilitating a study group on the book on Sunday mornings at church.

A parting shot... Our little photobombing friend was back, hiding in the Eiffel Tower!

This post is linked at SoYouCallYourselfaHomeschooler.com, at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers, and at For the Display of His Splendor - see where other homeschoolers have traveled this week.

Don't miss a coffee break! Subscribe to Homeschool Coffee Break by Email!

©2006-2014 Homeschool Coffee Break. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://kympossibleblog.blogspot.com/