Homeschool Weekly - First Week of School Edition

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Homeschool news  . . . our first week back to school went fairly well, with only minor snags. The snags mostly coming from me having to run errands or be otherwise occupied so that I couldn't be available for Kennady exactly as planned. By the end of the school day yesterday, we had pretty much covered everything we had intended to do, so all's well that ends well, I guess!

getting the giggles while taking a First Day picture

That's a keeper!

We started all subjects except the Notgrass World History this week. Gym class and chorus have started, but guitar lessons don't start until next week. I suppose it will take a little while for us to find what works best in our schedule, since guitar will be on a different day, and there are some subjects that we'll be working on together.

Other news . . . we had plenty of free time last weekend, and the hubster and I took advantage of that to go on a date. Like just the two of us! We finally did a little exploring along the canal walk in downtown Frederick, which we've been meaning to do for simply ages.

 Then on Monday, since we all had the day off, we smoked pork tenderloins and had friends over to eat dinner with us.



Tuesday was the first of school here, and also the first day of gym class and Kennady's chorus season. We celebrated First Day by going out to Chick-Fil-A for lunch. Landon didn't work that day so he came along as well. He did work a couple of other days this week though.

Thursday was a traumatic day for me (haha) because the internet didn't work right for a large part of the school day, and as if that wasn't bad enough, my Kindle Fire developed a problem with the touchscreen that couldn't be resolved. So I had to thank it for its years of service and then decide which Kindle to replace it with. I wound up pre-ordering the new Fire HD 8 from Amazon.com but will have to manage without for awhile since it will be almost two weeks until it's released.



What's working . . . hmm . . . I can think of a couple of things that are NOT working - my old Kindle, and the DVD drive on the computer. Unfortunately we didn't get the memo that upgrading to Windows 10 would render our previous DVD drivers useless. So I'm having to buy the new driver. Other than that, we really don't have any issues with Windows 10, although we're still not fans of the Outlook e-mail.

I recommend . . . subscribing to SchoolhouseTeachers.com during their buy one-get one promotion until the end of the month. They offer 250+ homeschool courses for students in all grade levels, and some great planning tools and resources for parents as well. This year we are making use of course materials in high school Science already, and I have found plenty of other gems among the available courses that I'll be checking into further as the year goes along.

On my blogs last week . . .

Here on Homeschool Coffee Break:

52 Lists #36 - Autumn Bucket List
Virtual Refrigerator - First Day Art
The Summer of Landon PhotoJournal
A Homeschool Coffee Break Back To School Preview
From the High School Lesson Book - Establishing the Routine


And on my book blog, Just A Second:

Recent Reads - The Winter Crown
Wordless Wednesday - The Summer of Landon PhotoJournal
Teaser Tuesday/First Chapter First Paragraph - She Walks in Power
What I'm Reading - September 5, 2016
Scripture and a Snapshot - God So Loved

Just A Second is where I share book reviews and other book-related things, and update on what's on my bookshelf. This week I finished and reviewed The Winter Crown: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Elizabeth Chadwick; and I've been reading:

A Tapestry of Secrets by Sarah Loudin Thomas
The Pray-ers, Book One: Troubles by Mark S. Mirza
Charity's Cross (Charles Towne Belles) (Volume 4) by MaryLu Tyndall

A parting shot . . . the couple that joined us for dinner on Monday - she is a teacher, and asked my boys if they would mind burning some school papers for her. Being pyromaniacs, of course they agreed to help. The papers were from her class, on which the students had written down the things they considered failures from the past year or things that they thought they couldn't do. She took pictures of those papers burning to remind her students that the past is gone, and past failures are not an excuse to not try now. A good lesson for us all.

And then, we took a look at the aftermath from the previous week's "Master Exploders" bonfire that the guys had just cleaned out of the fire pit. Oh my word.



They had more stuff to burn too. But the hubster and I did the curmudgeonly thing and informed them that they would not be allowed to experiment with anything else potentially explosive until they'd built a MythBusters-worthy blast shield. Which seems like an awesome weekend project to me. Not sure when they will be getting started on that, but I'll be sure to get a few pictures!

    

  

I will be linking up at the Weekly Wrap-Up hosted by Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers, at Christian Fellowship Weekend hosted by Biblical Womanhood, and at The Homeschool Mother's Journal hosted by NextGenHomeschool.

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