Journey to Excellence

Over at my main blog, Taulman Times , I do a weekly Simple Woman's Daybook post. I think that's why I haven't ever done The Homeschool Mother's Journal , for fear of repetitiveness. But since I won't have a lot to post about this summer here, because we are on summer "break" (or maybe I will, who knows), I thought I would join in on the journal. And here is my first entry: In my life this week ... We are enjoying our first week of summer break. I have gotten back into my routine of getting up and running, doing my garden watering and maintenance, getting my work done in the morning and then enjoying the rest of my day. Plus, So You Think You Can Dance has started and it's my favorite guilty pleasure! In our homeschool this week… We don't school year round, but we are doing some reading reinforcement and interest-based unit studies throughout the summer. Eli and Brynne have been doing their daily reading assignments. We'll start our first...

Of course it's been great this week to be out of school! We've relaxed quite a bit, in bed time and morning schedules. We are putting everybody down by about 9:30 p.m. and allowing them to play in bed and watch movies and talk and aren't being too strict about quieting them down to go to sleep by a certain time. The little guys are only 7 and 5 1/2, so they naturally go to sleep when they are tired. They've been waking up in the morning anywhere between 8:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. I've been letting them wake up slow and do some playing before we get started doing anything. We've been shooting for 10:00 a.m. to do our daily stuff. We started our week by visiting our library to get signed up for the Summer Reading Program. Goodness gracious it was busy! We are used to going on a weekday while other kids are at school! Books and people were everywhere! I was impressed we were able to locate anything we were looking for. I was pleased to see Eli and Brynne taking ti...

We are a part of a wonderful Homeschool Coop. During the summer season our Coop will have available group activities on Fridays. However, I was really hoping to help Brynne form some closer friendships with girls her age. Because of that, and because it's sometimes easier to coordinate events in smaller groups, four other moms and myself formed a Play Group to meet on alternating Wednesdays. Between the five of us we have seven girls who are right at the same age and four additional siblings. We met for the first time today at our house. Our plan is for the moms to read and discuss the book Seasons of a Mother's Heart by Sally Clarkson. The hosting mom will plan a craft for the kids/moms and provide snacks. And, of course, the kids will have plenty of time to play. Because we are library freaks here, and because it's fun to have new stuff, we made fun new personalized library bags for the kids. The girls picked out their designs and helped spray the bleach. The moms ha...

This is technically the last Weekly Wrap-up of this school year for Journey to Excellence . School is over for us. Yay!! I didn't plan on schooling over the summer. I thought we'd just have fun. But, then education started becoming a way of life, instead of an institution. That happens in homeschooling, I have found. So, looks like school will continue, somewhat, over the summer. The older two kids won't be required to do anything formal. Kyndal will be working at her job, sleeping late and hanging out with her friends. And other than reading, and working with his grandpa for a couple of weeks, Dawson won't be doing anything other than being a teenager. At Eli's IEP meeting it was clear that he needs some reading reinforcement this summer so that he is fully prepared for 2nd grade next year. And Brynne loves to read. So the two of them will be doing reading lessons every day (a reading lesson sheet, Saxon reader and silent reading). And Eli really wants to lear...

When Dawson came downstairs a little while ago and said that he had completed his Pre-Algebra final and made a 91%, I experienced quite a wave of emotions! First I realized that WE .. ARE .. DONE !!!!! That was his last assignment. He and I were so excited! We high-fived and hugged. We made it through our first year of homeschooling. Then I almost started crying because I took a brief moment to look back on all that we have accomplished this year as teacher and student, mother and son. I was a little overwhelmed. And we are both still really happy with our decision for him to come home. We are ready for another great year next year, but are also ready for a break. Let the break begin!! (Brynne is also done, other than our final field trip tomorrow to the zoo. We had a great year! I don't think the emotions are as high for her or for me because we knew our time together would be great. And, it has been! And for her, the learning never stops. She has plans to do lots of reading...

To celebrate Brynne completing the entire study of a letter-of-the-week curriculum, we will be doing a week-long lesson on The Zoo from A-Z . How will we do that? My amazing bloggy friend Stacey at BrainInTrainin (I get so many of my ideas from her) posted about a website for the Indianapolis Zoo. You can download the materials by going here . (It's the 3rd grade program.) I printed off the relevant materials for our study and put them in a binder for a full week of activities. Many of the items in the materials can be used, no matter where you live and no matter how old your kids are. We will do the following: sort and diagram the provided animals using a Venn Diagram to plot animals with claws, beaks and tails sort and chart habitats of the animals (grassland, forest, ocean, swamp rain forest, tundra and desert) choose three animals from our animal fact cards and discuss the different ways they all do the same type of activities, like eating, foraging, moving, protectin...

This week was kind of a blur .. just trudging along trying to get done what we need to get done. Brynne did finish her alphabet study and she was thrilled! Each week she did a tracer page, made a mini-book, did a word search for her letter-of-the-week, and read four books about the letter. She completed "Z" this week. We finished up our Princess study and concentrated on 1 Peter 2:9 and Psalm 45:13, the fact that she is a common girl chosen by God to be His princess. We read the scriptures and she copied them. We also correlated the importance of taking our role as princess seriously, just like the new Princess Catherine has to take her role as princess seriously. Here is my favorite princess. Speaking of favorites, here is a picture of Dawson's favorite homeschool lunch: garden vegetable Ritz crackers, sliced mozzarella cheese and pepperonis. With studying the Italian Renaissance , we continued to discuss the artists of that time, and read more of I, Juan d...