I had been thinking that the home-network would be the place for the kids' learning journals, but now with so many online options I am reconsidering that idea.

One option is to set them up to journal using Virtual Homeschool Group. There will be several possible ways to do these using Moodle. They could just simply use the journal tool and only I will see what they write. They could use the workshop tool and the entries could be peer reviewed. They could all three add their entries to one wiki. Even beyond the decision of which tool to use, there would be options as to where to put them. I could set up a course (public, password, or private) just for them to use. The number 0 box could contain all cummulative information. Box 1 would contain all journal entries and work from week 1. Likewise, box 2 would be for week 2, etc. I like the weekly idea because progress through the year would be so obvious.

Another option is to set them up with their own blogs here at HomeschoolBlogger.com The advantages of having one here is the search function. Another advantage that will appeal to them is that here they would have one continuous blog. I know them well enough that since the site is open to change the html they will want to modify the look and make their own blogs truly their own in style and design. another adantage is that when I want to print out a journal onto paper for archiving, I could just hit print here. If I tried to run a journal from Virtual Homeschool Group each entry would be separate. Mmmm, decisions, decisions.

Perhaps we will try a few weeks of each way to see which one they like better.

One of the tasks that I worked on today was to make the Online Student Product Binder page for learning journals. I am streamlining the information that we have gathered from multiple sources on the web into one quick concise entry. Kids and moms wouldn't want to wade through the pages and pages of printouts we have collected on the subject.

I haven't completed the Soak the Sponge section which was my big project for this last weekend. I have some slack in the schedule yet, so I am not overly concerned at this point.

We are a bit behind in starting up for this session as well. I had originally planned for us being up to a full schedule on Monday. The kids being under the weather made it reasonable to push that to today. We all felt a little scattered and low on energy today so we had another easy day. Melody's stomach was settled today, but she still has a whopper of a headache that no Tylenol or Advil will stop. Her immune system seems to be weakened as she began having a sore throat too. Hopefully she will feel better tomorrow.

Today, the boys finished up what we had been working on the day before. We listened to the last of the Tom Sawyer tapes. Now they will be reading the book and working on their notebook entries. Gregory is done with Jennifer's system and she picked it up. He has finished all but getting a few drivers loaded on the McNaulty's computer. Tim continued and is nearing completion of a variety of sub-projects for his and a friend's forums.

Zachary has been on an intense focus the last week or two with the computer. He is having a great time with it. He hit a wall with the educational program that I got for him that started this last stretch of computer fun. He is at a place where the game will not let him do anything until he masters this particular phonetic concept. He was getting frustrated with it to the point of temper and tears, so we have diverted him with a Spiderman game for the moment. He is passionate over Spiderman and has been for more than a year, so it was sure to be a hit. We were saving it for just the right moment and this was it. LOL. Spiderman is the only non-educational game he has ever done. I don't plan on letting these become a habit, but since Spiderman is such a love right now, this one is fine with me. Gregory has been such a wonderful big brother to him. Zach hits a hard place in the game and he calls for Greg. As busy as Gregory has been with the computers, he still drops what he is doing to come to the rescue. Zach has been especially cuddly with Greg because of it. I know that he appreciates all the help.