Journey to Excellence

At our Co-op playgroup today, the little girlies just played and played. They had out kitchen stuff and dress-up outfits and babies and the moms (the real moms, that is) had lots of time to chat. When we did get them corralled, we made ribbon braided barrettes. We had the girls do their best to practice braiding, and then the moms wielded the hot glue gun to roll up the braids and attach them to alligator clips. They turned out sooooo cute!!!

This week we adjusted our schedule to give this mom teacher some down time. I found that with adding a new part-time professional life of my own to my already busy schedule of teaching at home, following up with two public school children, caring for dogs, a home and, too infrequently, my husband, that I was just overdoing it. Our schedule adjustment was slight but necessary. We arranged for all of Dawson and Brynne's work on Thursday to be independent work so that I could sit in my chair and chill. I am available, just not up running here and there. That means we have to hit it extra hard on Wednesday, but it's totally worth it come Thursday. Brynne ~ 1st Grade We are continuing our 3 R's by reading three or four letter-of-the-week books each week, this week being "P". Brynne does letter-of-the-week activities (tracer, mini-book, word search). She does two phonic pages from a workbook we have, and is currently being introduced to verbs (nothing too heavy)...

A lot of people post about the February homeschooling blahs, but I really don't feel as though I have had them. I have a great deal of excitement about what we are learning. And the kids seems to, as well. But then mid-week this week I hit a brick wall of exhaustion. And on Thursday I called school OFF on account of rain (and when I say school, I mean our homeschool and I kept my two public school kids home ... and it really was raining.) We took a pj day. I sat in my favorite chair and got caught up on some DVR'd shows and some computer work. I felt much better and was ready to go again on Friday. Here's what we did on the other four days ... Dawson ~ 8th Grade We are moving strong through The Middle Ages . It's pretty interesting! This week we learned about the fall of the Roman Empire, the attacks of the barbarians, the reign of Charlemagne, and the rise of the feudalistic society. Yesterday we wrapped up our week by watching a video from The History Channel In...

We took off 9 days because of the biggest snowfall in Oklahoma history (35" outside our doors). So this week, we were back at it in a major way! We also had two field trips, so to say this week was a calm one would be a total lie! In fact, it was exhausting! But, we got tons done and learned a lot! So, we're all happy (although I had to go to bed at 8:00 last night because I was wiped out!) Here's what all we accomplished .... Dawson ~ 8th Grade We are getting right into The Middle Ages in our A World of Adventure curriculum. We are really concentrating on note taking . Up to this point I would read Dawson the information and then he would take notes. Then I would attempt to prepare a study guide from his notes so that he could take quizzes. It became increasingly difficult for me to read his notes. And he told me that he couldn't make sense of them when he went back to review them. Now I am reading him the information and writing the notes on the white board ...

School got "interrupted" this week. We were off Monday for Martin Luther King, Jr., day. Then we were off again yesterday and today because of the snow. When our public school is out, so are we here at home. Two of my kids go to public school, so we stick with their schedule. Although we didn't have school yesterday, the kids had a blast playing in the snow! It was a perfect day! We had 2-3" of powdery white stuff, the temperature hovered right at the freezing mark with a slight wind, but the sun was out making it almost hot when playing. We have the best sledding hills in the neighborhood, so many neighborhood kids took some time sledding in our yard. My kids played outside for hours without stopping. It's pretty overcast and cold today, so I don't know how much snow time there will be. It might be a day of board games instead.  So, what did we do when we were doing school? Brynne ~ 1st Grade Brynne is still moving right along with her 3 R's ...