Should I start lessons on Monday or not?  I was planning to start on August 4, but now that the children are finished with swimming, they seem to be having trouble finding things to do.  I would only get two days done next week because the HOTM conference is next week and I want to listen as much as I can.

So the question becomes:  Do I start a bit early and get two days done, or do I wait and start the following week?

I have mixed feelings about it.  I am excited to start the new year, and looking forward to spending more time with the children.  I am also sort of feeling reluctant to give up some of my summer free time.  I have a few things on my list to do next week, but I could still do them even if we did lessons on two days.  It would get us into the swing of things slowly.

I like the routine that regular lessons keeps us in, and I miss that during the summer.  However I like the ability to play spontaneously during the summer--both with the children and without.  What to do?  Give me your opinions, folks.  I would like to be a year-round homeschooler, but have never made it completely--I just have to take July off--but now I'm feeling like we might be ready to start, and it is still July for another week.

Tuesday we went on a field trip to a nearby museum.  They are hoping to attract folks by hosting Home School Tuesdays periodically.  The name of this event was Pioneer Days.  The museum is in the process of building a pioneer village, and if they do everything they plan to do in the next ten years, it will be quite an impressive place.  They have a few buildings all ready, and we toured those after watching a short film about early settlers in this part of Canada.

The children had a great time, and so did I.  I think Boo's favorite part was the Blacksmith shop, and Belle's was getting to see the log cabin and log house.



     


After the tour we went to a local park with another family from church.  There we enjoyed a picnic lunch and a walk on some of the trails.  They also have some interesting birds to see.  We saw a peacock displaying his fan.  It was beautiful!  My photos don't do justice because of the bars of the cage.



An interesting note is that the Home School Tuesdays thing was so popular that they had to do two tours, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and they were both full!

I am so ready for a Day of Rest tomorrow!  The last three days have felt incredibly busy, and full, and while they were good days, I am sore and tired now.

Thursday we worked on our Lapbooks, did a French lesson and then took the afternoon for baking.  I made a big batch of cookies, some of which I baked and the others are sitting in the fridge waiting to be scooped into balls and frozen.  Belle also made biscuits, so she did a lot of Home Ec. that day.

Friday we did everything we did on Thursday except that we did sewing instead of baking, and I cleaned the church, and ran errands and we went out in the evening with friends.

Today I cleaned house, and organized the "scary" drawer in the kitchen, and organized lessons for next week, and it doesn't seem like I did a lot more than that, but I am so tired tonight.

Part of the weariness may be due to the fact that I haven't been sleeping too well nearly all week.  I don't know what to attribute that to.

My PC stuff came this evening.  I don't know who was more excited, me or the rest of the family.  We sat on the living room floor and opened everything to look.  I washed it all tonight, and now I have to find a place to put it all.
My new muffin pan doesn't need a place until after tomorrow, because I plan to make muffins in it in the morning.  What fun!

On the weather front (pun intended), things are not looking good for tomorrow.  Another possible 30cm (foot) of snow predicted with a wind warning.  All that means, if it happens, is that no one will be able to see anything.  I am hoping for a clear answer as to whether my husband should cancel our services, early enough for our folk who come from out of town.  The wind is up right now, but I am not close enough to a window to see how hard it is snowing.  We've had a different winter every year we have been here, but this one seems to be a good one for white-out storms.  We just haven't had as much snow as we usually do by February with all the warming periods we have had.

You should see the snow now!  It is whiteout conditions and roads are being closed.  This morning we were the only county in this part of our province who WASN'T under a storm warning.  Looking at the radar it looked like the storm was splitting to the south and north of us, and wasn't going to hit us with much.  Late this afternoon it started snowing lightly, but after dinner, just when my husband was trying to decide whether or not to cancel Wednesday night Prayer Meeting, it started to really come down.  To make his decision even easier, folk started to call and say it was looking bad out their way.  I think we have gotten a couple of inches at least in that many hours.  My husband went out to turn off the heat at the church, and said that when he got back his footprints have been completely wiped out!

This afternoon I spotted the UPS truck delivering the Pampered Chef boxes to my neighbour down the street.  Now I am anxiously awaiting a call or delivery of my stuff.  Oooh, goody!

We finished a week in our SL core today, and Belle finished her first book of the core!  So far with her reading at least a chapter a day, (for twenty to twenty five minutes) and me finishing the reading of the day for her, we are managing to keep up.  Her fluency is improving with time.

I wasn't looking forward to starting a new core week tomorrow, only to have to leave it until Monday to pick it up again (We do different things on Fridays.).  I discussed it with our Principal, and with his permission I plan to do a modified Friday schedule tomorrow.  We will add a couple of our regular subjects to it, so it will be a more full day than Fridays tend to be.  Then I plan to do our usual Friday lessons again on Friday.

I should be doing some cutting out of lapbook booklets right now, but I really feel like just relaxing.

We all woke up early enough to get a good start on the day.  Our lessons went very smoothly, and right on schedule.  One couldn't ask for a better day I don't think.

My difficulty was that by the time we were done, I was wiped out!  I think I focused so much on keeping things going smoothly that I wore myself out.  After lessons were done, I was not very effective at accomplishing anything.  I did get tomorrow's lessons planned before supper, but I had to push myself to do anything else.

The children helped me sort laundry before going to bed.  It was a huge help, and will get me started in the morning.  My husband has been making soup by the gallon (it seems), some to give away, and some for us, and the kitchen still needs some cleanup done.  I hope I can do that before falling into bed.  Tonight I am sniffling and sneezing, and my chin itches, so I think my allergies are acting up.

Just how do we manage to juggle teaching the children and doing the housework, and laundry and cooking?  Some days I just don't know how to do it all, or at all, for that matter.

Going to tackle the kitchen and then to bed.

I am seriously trying not to panic about all the things I have to do in the next two weeks.  How does one get the pace of life to slow down a bit?

When it comes down to it, actually doing things makes them seem not so overwhelming.

But I would rather not talk about that.  There must be something else to life besides busyness to talk about.

The children are doing well with their lessons.  Belle has been consistently spelling words correctly since we started her new spelling.  No more tears!  She is also doing better with reading lately.  She seems to have achieved a new level there.  Math continues along at a new level of understanding since she started Math U See in January.  She is still not able to do math in her head quickly when we talk math things in real life, but she does well in her work and I think it will get easier with time.  We are moving along in our history core--I am still hoping to finish it by late November or early December, although I don't think I will be as far along as I'd hoped by the time we leave.  And we finished our science book yesterday--the Astronomy book by Jeannie Fulbright.  We will start a new book when we return from Scotland.

Boo moves along speedily in his work.  So far nothing seems very difficult for him, and I am constantly trying to find ways to keep him challenged.  At least he looks forward to his lessons, so I know he isn't bored.  I've been cutting out what for him would be busy work, by not making him do both pages of his Saxon lessons.  As long as he gets the concept without struggling, I think we can get away with that.  He is reading the Grade 3 readers that Belle started with at the beginning of last year.  So far that doesn't seem to bother Belle that much, although I wonder how she will feel if he passes her up.

My plan at the moment is to finish this week, and probably do very little school next week.  We have to do errands, pack, plan for our time away, clean house for visitors the weekend before we leave, and clean for a family who will stay in our house while we are away.  They have younger children, so I need to think about baby proofing a bit.  I can hardly believe how fast our trip is coming up.

Well Belle is a bit better, although still definitely has a cold.  Boo started with the sore throat and runny nose today, and has been out of sorts.  I have been taking lots of Vitamin C and still feel a bit like I may come down with it too.

We've managed to do a bit of school--enough that I can't say we've taken any days off.  I was glad to finish our Sonlight week today (it was a light week, so we did three days of reading today).  It feels like we are progressing rapidly through the remaining weeks of this core.  I think we have only nine weeks left.  Belle won't finish all her readers though.  She is struggling a bit through the one we're doing now.  I am telling myself that it is okay not to read every book.  She made huge progress last year, reading lots of books, way more than she had ever managed previous to that.

Boo has started reading the Core 1 & 2 books.  He will probably eventually read them all.  I am planning to order him the Book of Time and the timeline figures for both this core and the next one.  He really wants to have his own timeline.  I doubt I will do the whole core over with him since we are reading Story of the World.  Instead he can listen to the Core that Belle is doing, and do all the readers he can out of both cores.

On a non-school note, we got our wood for the woodstove today.  Winter is coming.  The leaves are already starting to turn on the trees here.  My husband is out in our garage/barn starting to stack it.  It will be nice when Boo is big enough to help him.  He won't let me help because of my back, even though I want to.  He is probably right though--all that bending and twisting would probably have me sore pretty quickly.

Boo is in bed right now making little sighing, moaning noises because he has to keep sitting up to wipe his nose.  He is very tired, but it is hard to sleep with a runny nose.

I did an unusual thing, for me, and blogged twice today.  The other entry is below.

It is Monday morning, a holiday in Canada, and we plan to start our new school year today.  Really a lot of it is a continuation of last year's work, but it still feels new after a break.  And I've rearranged notebooks and tried to give everything a fresh feel.  Also put the new subject listings in the sidebar.  We're trying to simplify some stuff--although maybe it doesn't look like it when you see the list.

I've been realizing my inadequacies as a teacher/homemaker even more than usual.  I love to teach, and I love to keep house (except for the cooking), but I struggle much more when I have to do both.  How often do I try to do it in my own strength, not trusting the Lord for the grace and strength to do what needs to be done.

My prayer this year is that with the Lord's enabling I can do this, and in the process find joy in my children and their accomplishments, and in my household.

I let the kids off early today.  The neighbour was having their lawn mowed, and they were longing to run out and watch.  I guess it didn't help that we were already outside doing our science experiment, and the day is positively lovely!

Our science experiment was from Jeannie Fulbright's book on Astronomy.  Yesterday we made a salt dough model of Olympus Mons, the volcano on Mars.  Today we concocted the ingredients to make it erupt.  Unfortunately my camera batteries died, and I don't think I got any good photos of the eruptions, but we had a lot of fun doing it anyway, and I was delighted that it worked.  The kids had a blast. (Har-har!)  Needless to say, we held our volcano session outside.  I wasn't sure how violent an eruption we would get, and I am not into cleaning red food coloring off my kitchen ceiling.

My sister, at 'Hawa's Ramblings' (link in the sidebar) has just done a post of her childhood memories in Africa.  I am the sister who fell (slept-walked) off the top bunk, and made her give up her bed in the living room.  Then I got to see the sun rise.  You'll have to see her post to get the full effect.  One of my memories is making trips out to the outhouse after dark with flashlights and seeing the stars!  No city lights to interfere.

Well, I have extra time this afternoon.  I should be doing something with it.  Weeding and laundry need doing.  Neither sound all that appealing.  What is appealing is sitting outside with a book.

Does any one else NOT feel like fixing supper tonight?

We made it through school today.  The kids had great attitudes for the most part, and did their work well.  I was amazed at Belle's recall of her +1's and +2's math facts today.  This is a huge accomplishment for her, as she has been working on these for about two years.  I think that Math U See has really helped her understanding.  Her lesson today was on adding nine, and she amazed me again by working it out on her own.  It took her a while, but she did it!

Reading started out a bit rough.  A new book, and I could tell she was not focused.  I talked to her about paying attention to what she was reading, and things improved after that.

Everything else Belle did today she did with concentration and focus, and did a good job.

Boo whizzed through his lessons with his usual speed.  It really helps that he is easy to teach, and loves to do school, because it gives me more time to focus on Belle.

Now that all that is done, I can't get my mind around doing anything else.  It is strange how drained I feel after teaching all day.  I've planned lessons for tomorrow, and I guess I need to go and see what I need to do before supper.  Maybe a nap?

I didn't have much school planned for today, and we did even less.  I woke up not feeling 100%, and Belle seemed to be struggling with a higher level of frustration today, so we called it quits early.

Belle is struggling with a math concept.  We have watched the video twice, completed the lesson, and done two pages of practice problems from the website.  She can do the problems with the blocks, but if trying to do it in her head, she is lost.  I am torn between wondering if we should do more practice problems, or continuing on and hoping she will get the idea in a later lesson.  The lesson was on "solving for the unknown"--basically subtraction in other words.  I am frustrated because I can't figure out another way to teach it so it is understood.  We are taking a break though--almost two weeks.  Maybe when we come back to it, we can review and move on.

In spite of the difficulties this morning, we managed to finish a reader and a read-aloud this afternoon.  We are now exactly half way through the Sonlight Core we are doing.  It is a good place to take a break.

I need a break too.  There is quite a bit going on tomorrow, and I have a lot of things I need/want to do.  I want to make a couple of new aprons for the kids.  We use aprons at the table to preserve clothes, and the kids ones I have are nearly all worn out.  I found a pattern this week for aprons in different sizes and I have some material I want to use.  It is a plain blue, and I need to find some way to spice it up, but more importantly, I would like to get them done before we go on vacation.  I am much better at cross-stitching than I am at sewing, so we will see.

I really should sit down and make a list--several actually.  That is a tomorrow thing too, I think.  I am too tired tonight.

It is thawing right now.  Wonder how long that will last.  So far all that has done is produce mostly clear roads and slush.  My least favorite part of winter.  I do like the clear roads, but I don't enjoy dirty brown slush.

Belle made my day today.  She did one of her MUS tests, and I could see that she had understood the lesson, and was making pictures in her head.  She didn't use the blocks, but you could tell she was thinking the problems through as if she were.  Finally something that works for her!

Boo is counting down the lessons until he finishes kindergarten.  He is anxious to start the Grade 1 phonics and math.  I estimate he will finish in a couple of weeks.  I may go ahead and let him start in the spring.  Otherwise I don't know what I will do with him.

I don't really have a lot to say.  I have a shower to go to tonight.  I'm in the mood to work on a cross-stitch project, but haven't had time recently.  I had a very LONG walk last night.  It was wonderful, and much needed.  Right now I am baking cookies, and I need to get schoolwork ready for tomorrow, and make supper.

Partly due to colds, and partly due to a change in plans for the week, we are doing a series of half days.  It feels good to take some of the pressure off, and still get some things done.  Boo hasn't done any of his lessons so far, but maybe he'll get them in tomorrow.  Belle has done math and Sonlight.

We're hoping to listen in to Communication Fundamentals online conference at least tomorrow and Friday.  On Saturday we are probably going to be busy at the time of the main speaker.

One of the things I've been able to do with the increased free time is go through old files and shred stuff.  I consolidated four boxes into two, and organized some of my stuff on the front porch.  DH bought several sets of plastic shelves, and has put them up on the porch with his book boxes on them.  While it does block some of the view from the living room, at least he can find a book without having to move five or six boxes to get to the one he wants.  I am really pleased.  Now we can almost walk from one end of the porch to the other without stepping over boxes.  He just needs to organize the books in the boxes now, so some of the piles inside can be circulated back out to the boxes when he no longer needs them.  I have a bit more shredding to do before I am done.

The other thing I did this week, was take out a 1000 piece puzzle to start on.  We have a severe shortage of 250-300 piece puzzles that the kids can do.  Boo is a great puzzle person, but I'm afraid this one overwhelmed him.  I have it nearly (about 3/4) finished.  He is looking forward to it being done so it won't be in his way and he can build a train track on the floor again.

I went to bed early last night, and still woke up forty minutes after my alarm went off, and felt very groggy for the first hour after I got up.  It didn't help that the house felt freezing!!  I shivered into my clothes and came downstairs to find the thermostat at 15 deg. Celsius.  That's just under 60 deg. F for you Americans.  The circuit breaker for the furnace flipped off sometime last night, and the furnace hadn't come on this morning.  A quick trip down the the very cold and wet basement remedied that, but it was some time before the house warmed up.

It didn't help my groggy cold mood to hear, from not just one, but both of the children, " I don't want to do school today."  Ugh!

We started about 20 minutes late, and a bit slowly, but somehow managed to finish the morning a few minutes early.  Belle had a small meltdown late morning when she got introduced to two new things--verb tenses and a new spelling rule--in quick succession.  I spent several minutes trying to encourage her that she wasn't expected to know everything about both ideas in the first day.  The rest of the morning, and indeed, the rest of the day, went just fine.

Both of the children are now outside playing in the snow, and I am about to tackle the job of finding something for supper.  I haven't a clue about what to have, really.  Dinner (at lunchtime) was leftover curry, and dinner tomorrow will be leftover lasagna.  Suppers are a different matter.  What to eat?

On a bright note--my TOS winter issue came in the mailbox today!  I can hardly wait to dig in--but tonight is supposed to be my walking night, so I don't know if I'll get to it before tomorrow.

We managed school today, and I think it went well.  I started out with Boo, and did both Math and Phonics with him.  He was done in 35 minutes.  Belle worked on handwriting during that time.  She did not do 35 minutes of handwriting--I believe there was a good deal of fiddling around during that time.

Then I set them both up with one of the Math Tutor DVD, while I watched a Math U SEE DVD that a friend had loaned me.  Pretty soon the kids were more interested in watching with me, so we spend a few minutes with the multiplication video.  I am planning to start Belle in the Alpha book, for a thorough review of addition and subtraction before moving back to multiplication.  I can hardly wait for my books to arrive.

That was all we did this morning.  This afternoon we did our regular schedule with science, reading and history.  After we were all done, I filed and organized the Saxon papers that Belle has done.  I keep all the assessments, but toss everything else.  I hope that if Boo continues with Saxon, I will be able to purchase just the first workbook.  I have everything else I need.  In the big binder that I was using for the workbook pages, I set up Boo's Phonics 1.  He has 37 lessons left in K.  By my estimate, we should be done at the end of February or beginning of March.  Then he can get a head start on 1.

We will probably take the whole of next week off.  I'll use Monday to run errands and get ready for my parents' visit.  Then they will be here until Friday.  I'm all excited about starting in again, but the time off will give time for the math to arrive.

My biggest question is when to expect Belle to work  more independently?  She is eight and almost three months old.  I am 99.9% certain that she has dyslexia.  She is not reading independently yet, and almost never has picked up a book on her own.  She can sound things out, but it takes her a while.  When she is writing, the thing she wants to write is often not what ends up on the paper--like making a 2 when she wants a 3, or writing the wrong letter.

My biggest problem at the moment is math.  She can do the work, and figure things out, but to get her to work at any reasonable speed I have to read the problem to her, and sometimes even remind her of the steps.  I love Saxon, because she is learning it, through the continual review, and the way they explain things.  I know that with them, I will not miss anything major.  But with Belle, it takes almost an hour to to do the lesson, fact sheets and first side of the worksheet--with me reading the problems and coaxing her on all the time.  Homework-- in which I often have her skip problems, if she does it on her own, it takes up to 30 minutes, at least.  Actually she never completely does it alone, because there is always someone to read her anything that she needs to have read.

I end up getting frustrated with the amount of time we spend on math, often to the detriment of other useful and fun things we want to do.  I have seen others work on their Math U See, and they work independently, but the ones I saw were a bit older.  Still a shorter math period is very appealing.

As I look ahead to Math 5/4 (is that the next level), I was envisioning letting her watch a Dive CD, and do her work more independently.  Right now I am wondering if she will be able to.  I have tried so hard to reduce the number of avoidable distractions, but she still gets distracted.  Just sitting here typing while she does her copywork, she has looked off into space more times than I can count.

This is a very confused vent.  But if anyone has any suggestions or input, they would be very welcome.

I had two very late nights in a row--on both, I didn't get to sleep until well after midnight.  I have still gotten up at the usual time, but I am tired, and I think it has shown in my attitude.  I have been a bit more grouchy and irritable than I like to be.

School seems to be passing by in a blur these days.  Basically it is going well.  Belle got a bit hung up on Spelling again today.  We are trying the Study-Test-Study method in Spelling power, and I think that maybe trying to go over all ten words every day is just a bit too much.  We quit at 15 minutes today even though she wasn't done.  IMHO, it is better to go slower and learn the words than to rush through it.  It takes my schedule-loving personality a while to get used to the idea though, and unfortunately I don't usually realize where we are until Belle has had a meltdown over it.  Spelling isn't easy for her, and it was for me, and I think it is my most difficult subject to teach at the moment.

Boo has tested through to lesson 70 something in his math, and would go farther if I did it.  The trouble with me is that I keep finding lessons in there that I think he would enjoy.  He could easily move to Math 1, I think, and I am torn between doing all these fun lessons, or challenging him a bit more.  The K book is so calendar dependent that it is kind of difficult jumping ahead too, but it is so easy for him.

On Saturday, Belle fell out of the kid's wagon, and hurt her arm.  I think it is just a sprain though.  Her muscle is very tight, but she can still use the arm.  We've been alternating heat and ice at different times, and it seems to help.  It is a bit better today.

I really miss my friend's page, and my visits have dropped dramatically with the change.  I wonder if that is true for my friends too.  If it weren't for my Bloglines, I wouldn't know when anyone posted a new post., and not all of my friends have their feed on so I can subscribe to their blog.  I am trying to be patient though.  I think I do like the system, and it will be much better when things are running smoothly.

I guess I have rambled on enough for this post.

It feels so good to be able to blog again!  Even though nothing earth-shaking happened this week, I have really missed my blog.

Belle had a math test today.  I gave her twenty minutes and the promise of ten Skittles if she finished in time.  She finished in fifteen minutes, and did very well.  We were able to do the lesson and fact sheet in addition to the test.  We haven't been able to do that for at least the last two tests!

We did math and Bible this morning and Sonlight this afternoon, with Belle.  Boo did his phonics.  Then my DH and I had a lunch to go to, so the kids went to stay with friends for a couple of hours.  Often when we have something going on, I don't get any school done, so it felt good to do it today, and actually accomplish something.

I do feel a bit disorganized tonight.  I missed my evening walk this week, and I had several cups of tea today, so that may be contributing to my jitters.  I guess I should try to walk in the morning, maybe.  I haven't done that for a while, and the weather isn't too bad just now.

I have to admit, I borrowed that title from a comment on my last post.  Thank you, Teacher Person.

This week seems to have gone really fast.  We have done four solid days of school so far, and I am trying to decide what to try to accomplish tomorrow.  Our schedule has gone so well that I am loathe to take a full day off, but I can't decide what I want to, or should do.  I feel that if I try to stick another full day in, I will be too pressured on the weekend.  I would love to just do school, but the house really does suffer during the week, and right now, the thought of preparing another day's lessons is not appealing.

In spite of our solid schedule, in which we got most things done each day, it was not entirely smooth.  Belle seemed to be very easily frustrated this week, and often that frustration made its way over to me.  Math was a struggle--we did two lessons in four days.  Spelling was a struggle, and I think I am going to alter my approach.  I have a couple of options in that area right now.  I threw in another Critical Thinking book, Mathematical Reasoning through Verbal Analysis.  Because it has a workbook, Belle wanted to do it on her own, without talking through it as the book suggests--so there was frustration there.

The subjects that I felt went well this week were 1) science.  Both kids are really enjoying the Astronomy book right now.  We are doing as many of the activities as we can, and I think that is making it stick.  2) reading.  We opted to go with the next reader in the Sonlight books--even though it was much more difficult for her, with smaller print and many more words.  We have started alternating reading pages.  I read one, then she reads one.  I think she is enjoying it much more.  3) history.  That pretty much goes without saying--anything I read to her is more fun than her doing it herself.  Basically that was our afternoons, which all went better than the mornings.

Boo is working quickly through his phonics, and reading words everywhere he can.  He won't be five until January.  I keep forgetting that because he reads so well.  In fact, I feel bad for not recognizing Belle's difficulties earlier.  In math I did several assessments--which put him at lesson 50 something, and I think he could probably do more than that, but at the moment we are back to doing lessons.  As long as he is having fun with it, I am content to stay with the kindergarten program.  If he gets bored again we will move ahead.

Other than school, I haven't done very much at all.  We have a lot of snow right now, and that has made it easier to stay inside and do school.  After school the kids go out until it starts getting dark, and I try to get something done around the house.  I love Flylady's routines, and Kelly's missions, but have a hard time finding the time to do the missions. 

I'd best be off to find something to do tomorrow.

We finished Gladys Aylward today, with a marathon read!  I read for 1 1/2 hours without a break.  There were a few tears on the part of Belle, and she sat so close to me that I could feel her heart beating faster with the intense parts.  Poor thing.  I almost wonder if that book was a little too much for her.  She said she had some bad dreams about it while we were reading it.  I found it quite intense myself, and although I didn't cry as much as I sometimes do, it certainly had its sad parts.  It was clear to see the Lord's protection and care of the people around Gladys and with her.  It is a powerful story for sure.

We also finished another Little House book.  We have been working through the series over the last couple of years.  Belle loves them, and I am enjoying reading them again.

Between Belle's reading, and my reading to her, we have finished nine books since the beginning of August!

And Belle is wanting to read more herself too.  That is so exciting for me--although hard too because she still struggles a lot.