Even though I'm having surgery this coming week (see below) and will be sidelined a bit in coming days,  we decided to get our feet wet last week with slooowly getting back into some semblance of a routine. Which means new chore charts, looking at new books, remembering how to go to bed/get up at decent times. Here is my new favorite resource, Notebooking Nook.  There are free homeschool forms (like chore charts!), as well as many others that are worth buying. We are using the 'Mammal' and 'Viking' pages and I'll tell you, my kids, even my 14 yr old, are excited about 'school'! I figure them working on their projects over the weekend was a good sign.

We also attempted to explode a volcano--it didn't work nearly as well as the directions promised.

If anyone has any tips on how to get a good fountain of 'lava' out of these dratted kits, do let me know! Oh well...it was fun!

We rounded out our first week with a day off with Dad--going to Bridgeport (a river area near here) to catch tadpoles and swim.

Other activities of this week:

baking peach tarts...

.... my sweet second son making me salads, long walks and bike rides, The Sound of Music movie and popcorn, and I call that a good week.

Even though I am the mother of a 10th grade, soon to be licensed driver!