15 Goals for this Week

I have not posted goals in a long time. The primary reason is because I beat myself up when I don’t accomplished half of the goals. So I opted out but still beat myself up for not planning. Does that make sense? Well after rereading Crystal Paine’s book I realized that maybe…just maybe I am planning to do too much in one week. My type is was showing big time. This week I am going with basic goals and limiting myself to three goals per category. The primary goal this week is to access how realistic is my goal planning process. 

This week’s goals:

Family/Marriage/Mothering Goals 

1. Finish Phantom Tollbooth aloud at lunch.
2. Have a movie night with hubby and not fall asleep. 
3. Have 30 minute couch time three times this week with kiddo where we talk /read/listen to any subject of his choosing, including Star Wars. 

Personal Goals 
4. Memorize listen to Pastor’s sermon Big Dream. 
5. Complete 2 miles five times this week. 
6. Continue with the Early to Rise Challenge. 

Homeschool Goals
7. Do a complete a seven day school plan and post on blog. 
8. Schedule work on The Strange Case of Origami Yoda.
9. Establish and post March/April Calendar with all activities and play dates.

 Homemaking Goals 
10. Do a complete a seven day menu plan. 
11. Develop a Spring Cleaning/Decluttering project plan. 
12. Start T-shirt blanket. 

Business Goals 
13. Schedule co-op planning meeting.
14. Post in blog five times this week including Wordless Wednesday. 
15. Investigate how to update blog.


 

Happy Pi Day- Homeschool Celebration

Happy Pi Day!

We will be celebrating Pi Day with Co-Op friends.  We are scheduled to complete scavenger hunt, share treat and several Pi themed games.  At 3:14 pm we will sing Happy Birthday to Einstein.

We will post all the fun later.  But here is a peek how we kicked off Pi Day.

The Learning Power of Lego

Via: Online College Advice

Six Weeks On and One Glorious Week Off

The new schedule has been a God send. It has allowed us to focus on obtainable goals and bring the joy back to our home education journey. During our week off this year we got to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the Washington DC Cherry Blossoms.

Actually we had spring fever the last day of of the six weeks and took off downtown. Oh the joy of home schooling.

January Review

January In Review

In order to bring the joy back into our homeschooling journey I have switched to a six weeks on and one week field trip schedule. This allows me to plan six weeks of work and a week to be off enjoying what it means to homeschool. Also it allows me to add or alter lessons based on the progress of the pervious six weeks.

So far is it working very well because I print the weeks schedule out in advance. He knows what we have to do and I leave enough time in the schedule to follow what I call “Popcorn Subjects”. Subjects that just POP into your schooling adventure that beg to be investigated.

Co-Op

Co-op is going well new year we will be looking for something in the area of two or three days a week.

Bible and Character Building

January we studied the concept of Self Control with Studio 252 as well has studying his T&T AWANA book. Our memory verse for the month was .

Our big self control challenge was building a tower out of our favorite candy (gum drops) without eating them. It was fun to work together and talk about what it means to have self control.

We also talked about how to bring self control into our daily lives through prayer and practice.

Science

We are wrapping up our study of the human body with the Digestive and Nerverous System with an introduction Genes.

Our primary resource is R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey Life program with additional information from Usborne Science Encyclopedia.

We used resources from Bill Nye as our video portion.

It was fun to discover just how long the digestive track is in the average human.

We had a lot of fun doing the bar chart of reaction time of catching a ruler.

Music

This month we studied Mozart. Again we used Classics for kids as our resource along with books from the library and Brain Pop.

Our local classical radio station celebrates Mozart's birthday all month long playing every piece of Mozart music available. It was great to see his eyes light up as we drove around town to our different errands as he recognized a music concept or just enjoyed the music.

Next months goal is to attend an actual concert and find a percussion class.

Art

Epic Fail on art this month. We were suppose to finish Leonardo Di vinic but art kept getting moved to the back burner. I need to find a more interactive outlet for art.

Math

We have finally breached the walls of double borrowing and multiplication. He loves it. We are using Mammoth Math and Teaching Textbooks 4. TT is only one day a week when we have a lot of outside activities. He see it as a reward.

Handwriting

I decided we need to review some basic concepts of HWOT but did not want to take him back to the “ baby” books in his words. We found a good bridge in the form of HWOT's Can-Do Print. It is recommended for 5 ^th graders but it fits our needs and he loves the Greek and Latin elements.

Product Description:

Can-Do Print is for fifth graders or older students who prefer print to cursive, but still need practice.

• Students receive a quick, thorough review of printing.

• Practice pages reinforce other language arts lessons (grammar, Greek/Latin roots).

• Printing skills are used to write paragraphs, poetry, plays, autobiographies, and thank-you notes.

So once a week we do cursive and the other days we do CDP.

History

This month has been a study in Roman for SOTW. He finally got his question answered about the tow children on the front of the SOTW Volume 1 book. We will be focusing more on the time in in February.

Language Arts

I finally broke down and bought Sonlight LA for Grade 3. Simply because nothing else worked and we fast approaching boredom with LA. It has some good elements but it is still not as exciting or challenging as FIAR. The components are not holding his interest and the stories either bore him or depress him.

So I will be using it as a spine and incorporating BYFIAR into our six weeks schedule.

He still loves Worldly Wise 3 and at this rate might finish it by April which is when I will begin All About Spelling.

Lego Quest- 2 Brick Challenge

We completed our first Lego Quest Challenge. It was fun for the whole family.

Praise Report

So we just got back from running errands, so it is Quiet Time in house. Ironhide has the option to color, read a book or create crafts. He decides to pull out his AWANA manual just to read. Then he gets his bible to look up scripture passages they are discussing in that section because he says he wants to understand lineage of Timothy in 2 Timonthy. THEN he pulls out a notebook and starts making notes about it "kinda like the Jesse tree mom."

Just watching him sitting at the table engrossed in God's word filled my heart to bursting. All on his on...he has a love for the WORD!

I told him that it is good to understand the word and what it means, he then said that's what they learned in 2Timothy 3:15.

I try to document these days because all to often we focus on the days like earlier this week where we want to send them to their rooms until they are 18.


Blessings,

Composer of the Month:Georg Philipp Telemann

Georg Philipp Telemann

We are continuing our study of the Baroque period composers with the most of productive composer of that time Georg Philipp Telemann. We will be listening to his music and completing the activities provided by Classics for Kids.

Pressing Forward

This has been a tough summer. I was literally burned up and out. There have been months of financial struggles, close friends divorces, illness with family members and a chaotic home life. So I finally just stopped the roller coaster that is our fast paced lives and just shut down for a couple of months. Not that a mother can ever completely shut down, but we are operating on the bare basics without outside activities, classes, field trips and entertaining visitors. We needed to bring the laughter and joy back into our home and homeschool.

Most people don't understand how much energy, planning and creativity that is required to mother as well as educate a high energy, curriculum absorbing and strong willed male child. It has been a great challenge and I have loved every minute of it. So much in fact that I think we were overextended and my expectation of myself were to high. We all longed for the last day of school and did not look forward to starting up again.

It has been a season of praying, debating and doubting. There are so many changes happening in our live, community and small homeschool group. A lot of days are spent without friends and that has been my biggest concern. My prayer has always been “Am I doing what is right for him? Can I keep up the pace? Where can we find Godly friends?”

This year for the first time of our almost four year journey we seriously considered public education. At first my prayer was not directed at what was best for our child, I admit that. It was the fear of not measuring up in some way...him being that weird socially awkward kid that gets bullied .....or the kid that never had the school experience or overprotected child who later can not cope. Fear that he would be lonely and would not have friends. FEAR!

It manifested itself physically with sleepless nights, stress headaches and depression. Through it all a fellow homeschooler, my spiritual sistah kept reminding me:

2 Timothy 1:7...
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Every place I went I kept hearing this message in church and on the radio. Faith that is what was missing. Faith!

So I started to pray again. Asking for the faith to follow what God's plan for us. Because God does not want us to live in fear. It brings him no glory or joy. So we started anew with a spirit of faith. We sat down wrote out a pros and cons list and prayed over it. God began to work, not in large flashy ways but on my heart, in still quiet moments. Everyday showing me where I needed to work, labor and rejoice.

So again this year with step out on faith and move forward.

Knowing Faithful Is Our God lyrics

Virtual Learning for free

Salman Khan talk at TED 2011 (from ted.com)

Homeschooling vs Home Education?

Which do you prefer homeschooling or home education?


home·school·ing/ˈhōmˈsko͞oliNG/ Noun: The education of children at home by their parents.


home ed·u·ca·tion Homeschooling or homeschool (also called home education or home learning) is the education of children at home, typically by parents but sometimes by tutors, rather than in other formal settings of public or private school

Does it matter?