I have one child finished with her schoolwork for the year (insert bells, whistles and cheering audio clip!), and two more in close competition. We like to start school in early July, since it is so hot out that no one wants to go anywhere anyway. (We have our own desert version of cabin fever!) Besides that, it allows us to have a pretty relaxed “schedule” with lots of breaks. Sometime between now and July I will have to order curriculum, but I am really at a loss.

What the coming school year holds is a mystery to me. I am tired of boring school, and so are the kids. Today we were at the park with some other homeschoolers, the kind I don’t like, you know, the ones who have it all together and are confident.   One of the ladies at the park today quoted, “Comparison is the death of contentment.” Wow, does that sound like it ought to be in the Bible, or what?!  It probably is, in principle, anyway. These kids and moms are all actively and deeply involved in Mystery of History, Excellence in Writing, Math-U-See, and note-booking, and they LIKE it all. (At least that’s what the mom said :o)  I would love to find something that works for all of us, and just quit hopping around.  I am kind of wandering in the wilderness, wishing for a sign from God. (Whoops, “An evil generation seeketh after a sign…”) I am tempted to throw away every catalog I have and to give away all my hs’ing magazines, and just pray the Lord would direct my heart and thoughts to the things he wants my girls to learn, and that he would supply the materials.  Doesn’t that sound like what I should have done in the first place??  How could I go wrong that way??

So tell me, those of you who do note-booking, what exactly do you do?  Do you come up with your own questions for your kids to research?  It does sound like the kids learn more because they are personalizing the info they find, making it theirs.  You know, two  could do notebooks on the same topic, and come up with completely different information, depending on what was significant to them.  The rusty brain wheels are slowly beginning to move ....