Recently...

Goodness, I haven't blogged in forever. Life has just gotten in the way.

I've been tweaking our homeschool day again and I think I have finally gotten it the way I want it.

I've made some changes to Robert's history program. AO 5 has been a bit much for him this year, so I've cut out a few things. I've also found that I really prefer that each week have a specific topic to center things around, so I'm using an adapation of the Truthquest American History II schedule I found at Ambleside Classical (look in her sidebar).

One thing that is encouraging is that Robert is very enthusiastic about his history studies this year. I think a big part of that is the AO books. They are wonderful!

I've also changed Ruth's Sonlight schedule to more closely follow Higher Up and Further In's Year 5 schedule. Lindafay has British history scheduled with this. I have replaced it with Robert's spine reading. This way, they will be at the same point in history next year, when I plan on combining them again. Ruthie's main focus is still the Eastern Hemisphere study, but she is learning the American History that Robert is, too.

We have changed from CLE Reading to a Total Language Plus study of The Cricket in Times Square. A childhood friend of mine is a rep for them and she was able to answer all my questions. It's going very well. I like the time we spend together working on it. Also, it includes vocabulary, spelling, and dictation, so those are finally getting done.

Our Art Project Friday has not happened for a couple of weeks. It seems that something always comes up. One Friday a friend called up unexpectedly to ask us to go to lunch with them. Then we had eye appointments. Our conflict today is a rescheduled cello lesson. I'm going to have to get control of this, but I can't quite figure it out.

In other news...

I had to share Robert's Halloween costume. He was Mario and it turned out great! (Can you guess why he's in that pose?) Ruthie doesn't like Halloween (she scares easily), so she chose to skip dressing up and trick-or-treating this year. She stayed home and passed out candy, instead.






Ruthie got braces this week. She has adjusted to them well. She chose blue rubber bands, but wants to change the colors for different seasons/holidays. Braces were not this fun when I had them.

You can click on any picture to make it larger. Please excuse the red-eye. I had to choose between fixing the red-eye and getting this post done. Posting won.

This school year is going by so quickly. Is anybody else shocked that Thanksgiving is only 2 weeks away. How did that happen?

Put Title Here

I could not think of a single good title, but wanted to give an update, so there you go.

We've had a bit of a hard time getting back in the swing of things since the hurricane. We took a week off (I was feeling whiny about having no power) and I think we're paying for it.

One thing I did was move us to a definite time schedule. As in, 8:30, 9:00, etc. You get the idea. It's had mixed results. Ruthie loves it. It keeps her moving and she has consistently gotten her schoolwork done. Robert fought it, but actually has gotten more work done. The big drawback with him is if we start school late for some reason. He cannot be convinced that we can just move everything back. We'll work on that.

Even with the new schedule, though, we've been lagging this week. One thing the new schedule showed me is that there is no way we can be done before 2:30 pm. That is not what I want for our school days. So, I'm making more changes.

The biggest change is to our Friday schedule. I dropped math. That was difficult to do because we haven't caught up to grade level since we switched to CLE. I also took science out of the daily schedule and put it in a block of time on Friday. I'll see if that works better. Overall, our Friday is now more of a project day (science, notebooking, art, etc.).

I also took out our read aloud time in the morning. We've been reading Inkheart. It's a good book, but it's not school related. It also means I haven't been doing Ruthie's Sonlight read-aloud like I should. So, it's been moved to a different time of day. Book Basket and instrument practice have also been moved off the schedule. I still expect them to do it, but as long as it's done sometime during the day, I'm okay with that.

In an effort to make sure they do things like reading and practice, and in an effort to work on attitudes around here, I'm creating a "nobility record" for the kids. I got the idea from Trivium Academy. If you haven't seen it yet, go check it out. It's a marvelous idea.

In other news, Ruthie and I went camping with her Girl Scout troop this past weekend. As the camp-trained person, I was in charge of the whole event. I do not like being in charge of things, so it was very stressful for me. We had a great time, though, and are already planning another trip for April.

Robert had a friend over for a late birthday celebration. They were originally going to see the new Star Wars animated movie, but it was no longer in theaters by the time the power came back on. So, Griff took them to play laser tag instead. We also took them out to lunch and had cake and ice cream at home. It was very low-key, but Robert enjoyed it. I'm thankful that both of my kids prefer smaller parties.

If I get it together, I'll post some pictures later. I make no promises, though.

Never Give Up... Never Surrender

Okay, I know I said I never make a New Year's Resolution about being organized. That's not to say, though, that I'm not constantly trying to be organized.

That said, I ordered the 2008 Motivated Moms chore planner a couple of days ago. This is the 3rd year in a row that I've bought it. You might think that means it's been highly successful for me. Well... no. I found that I still have to do the work. It's not going to magically get done just because I bought the planner. Nope. You have to actually use it for it to work. I finally figured that out. (I'm smart that way.)

I had decided I was not going to order it this year. Then, it seems that everywhere I go, people are talking about it. I can't get away from it! So, I figured it was a sign, and ordered it again. Eh, it's only $8.00, and now that I've figured out the key to it, maybe it will work for me.

My kids are going to love it. I'm going to use it as a method for assigning chores. (Hee!)

Happenings

The latest...

I took Robert on a Cub Scout camping trip this weekend. It went okay until the rain started Saturday night. The thunder and lightning lasted 4 hours! Thankfully, Robert slept through most of it. We got 6 inches of rain. At 5 am I found more than 3 inches of that rain in our tent. I had forgotten to close the bottom zipper on the door. (I'm smart that way.) Ugh. We were dry because we were on a blow-up mattress, but just about everything else was soaked. I decided then and there we were headed home. So we packed up and left. My rain poncho split down the front while loading the car, so I got soaked and filthy. It was so good to get home and be warm and dry again.

I found out this weekend that somebody is using my personal information (name, address, phone number) to create and forge checks. Not on our account, thank goodness, but I am getting the bounced check notifications and am having to deal with that. Identity theft is no fun, let me tell you.

We will be having more than 25 people at our house on Thanksgiving Day. I think it's going to be a great day, but I'm beginning to be stressed about cleaning my house and things like that. I'm trying to concentrate on thankfulness, and not on impressing everyone with my spotless home. :)

I hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday!

Rhonda

Busy Days

Do you ever have a time in your life when you're so busy, you feel like you're meeting yourself coming? I am going through that right now. I feel that I am spending my days treading water, but never really getting my head above it.

Between school, church, orchestra (Griff's and the kids), cub scouts, girl scouts, and oh-yes-let's-not-forget-the-home, I am just about all done in. (Would somebody please remind me why the Arrow of Light is so important?)

I'm not complaining. Life is good. Busy, busy, but good. It does mean, however, that some things are going to have to slide. This blog is one of them. Oh, I'm not really going anywhere. I'll still be posting. But things, like this week's "weekly report", are not always going to happen. (believe me, you're not missing anything this week)

I am going to go to bed now. It's only 10:40. If I try very hard, I may actually get to bed before 11:00. Woo-hoo! :)

BTW, my back is better. I still get the occasional twinge, but it's greatly improved.