The Homeschool Mother’s Journal - 2

It’s time to take part in the 2nd edition of The Homeschool Mother’s Journal, hosted by Sue over at The Homeschool Chick.  (Have you been to her blog?  It’s so bright and cheery!  It reminds me of spring!)

In my life this week...

We had snow this past week.  Not a lot (not even what the weathermen were calling for); but enough to make for some slippery roads.  The older I get, the more cautious I am about driving in the winter. 

Yesterday, my family – and my parents – travelled about 2 hours to visit my youngest brother and his wife and to see their new home.  They just moved right before the holidays.  Now, they are planning something even more exciting – an adoption from Korea! 

In our homeschool this week...

We continued doubling up on our schedule and have now completed the first week of our 2nd 1/2 of the year!  I was happy to print out the first 1/2 of the girls’ daily schedules and put them in their binders (for future placement in their yearly portfolios).  It just feels like we’ve accomplished something now, you know? 

In our history study, we moved into the 1900’s and talked about The Great War (World War I) this week.  I dug out our American Girl books for both Kit and Molly along with the Welcome to Kit’s World and …Molly’s World books to use during the coming weeks.  We have almost all of those books, so we might as well make use of them!  I love history this week.  We only spend one day per week with the actual textbook and the rest of our study consists of reading biographies, researching people and events from that era, and fun stuff (like field trips). 

Places we're going and people we're seeing...

Does the dentist count?  All 3 kids have dentist appointments tomorrow.  Is it awful that we like to follow up our dentist visits with a trip to the Hershey Chocolate Factory?  LOL

My favorite thing this week was...

Hitting that 1/2 way mark with our schoolbooks, and finding out that TOS will be getting a booth at the CHAP convention after all. :)

What's working/not working for us...

Sue talked this week about how Institute for Excellence in Writing has been a Godsend in their homeschool.  To that, I say a loud AMEN!  My 10-year-old VERY RELUCTANT writer no longer complains about writing and is actually doing quite well – all thanks to IEW and Andrew Pudewa.  I’m wondering “where has this program been all my life?!”  But, really, I know that God’s timing is perfect in all things, even when we find a curriculum that’s a good fit. 

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...

I’m just thinking about how wonderful homeschooling is – what an opportunity to forge relationships with your children.  We tried the public school route with Ashley for a few years in elementary school.  I wish, now, that we hadn’t done that; but it certainly taught us all a lot of lessons. 

A photo to share...

On Saturday mornings, I often visit with my parents for breakfast and coffee.  On my way home, I noticed that one of our bushes was weighed down with icicles.  I grabbed my camera and Brian’s boots ---

This morning, I headed back outside with camera in hand, hoping to get some pictures of the Amish buggies going by on their way to church.  But, I was too late.  Instead, I snapped more wintry pics ---

Yikes, that’s more than one – hope that’s ok. ;)