Homeschool Mother's Journal

 

In my life this week...

I have been praying for A to find a homeschool pal or two her age.  I just think that as she enters puberty this is so important if we are going to stick to homeschooling (which is what we have all agreed that we want to do!).  This week, I posted a meetup for homeschool kids ages 10 & up on our local yahoo group...the response was overwhelming.  Within hours the moms were all chatting and joking on an email thread.  I am SO SUPER excited that this is coming together!!

I have decided to start a local homeschool yahoo group for activities for kids ages 10+, not to exclude the younger kids, but there is so many activities geared toward them and so few - at least in our area - for kids over 10.

In our homeschool this week...
It was birthday week around here.  After a slumber party, a family brunch and a day in Manhattan, I really needed a day off to curl up with a book in bed!  Tuesday was my birthday, so the girls and I went to homeschool roller skating, then I dropped them off at choir, went to happy hour with the hubs :) and then picked the girls up and went out to dinner!

We spent Wednesday through Friday working on the "Persephone and the Seasons" Lit Pocket, learning about compound subjects and imperative sentences and finishing up "The Lightning Thief"--to be fair, my girls found "The Lightning Thief" too exciting to read a chapter a day with me...and then took it to bed and read it themselves!  Works for me!  We also created a family tree for our family and one for the Gods of Olympus.

A is LOVING  Math U See...I think we have hit paydirt (finally!) with the program!

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

Gosh, we were just out and about ALL WEEK it seems...the city, roller skating, the park...choir, the library two days while I worked...and now today our Meetup with HS Kids 10 & UP!!!

My favorite thing this week was...

Snuggling in my bed with my girls on Monday and reading our books!

Roller skating with my girls on Tuesday!!

The summer reading program from the American Library Association: One World, Many Stories--is that not the coolest theme?  I had a blast brainstorming with my boss on Thursday of all the fun, awesome, amazing, cool, super rad programs we will be running this summer!!

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

I LOVE libraries.  I especially LOVE our library consortium.

I also LOVE Susan Wise Bauer.

After using Story of the World, I wanted to check out SWB's Writing with Ease program.

We have already completed 2 writing programs this year.  I know I am a nut.  I was told early on that all homeschoolers have their "thing".  Writing, apparently, is mine.  

We completed 2 writing curriculums, I bought out the entire Ralph Fletcher series for Writer's Wokshop and we are loving it...but I was intrigued by Writing with Ease.  But I didn't really want to buy another curriculum...on a whim I did a search and OUR LIBRARY CONSORTIUM HAD IT!!!

So I put it on hold...it came in three days later.

I read the intro...

I am sold...

My girls are strong writers, but I think we are going to start from the beginning and just do the exercises in the book to 1)model good writing and 2)practice our cursive and 3)not miss a trick.  

Depending on how it goes, I may just use this curriculum next year.

As for me, this weekend I am looking forward to...

Dinner with KOJ tonight!!!

Working on Saturday.

Church Blood Drive, Reading and hanging out with our family on Sunday :)