Weekly Report: Week Ending August 27, 2009

Well, in all honesty, we didn't have a very productive week - from the planned homeschool realm. However, it was fun as far as the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants perspective.

As you (may or may not) know, our homeschooling week begins on Friday and goes through Monday. Sometimes, because Daddy is home on Saturday and Sunday, we can get off course. So, it was one of THOSE weeks.

Friday was good... We started discussing the Moon, did all of our Language Arts and Math work, started our Chapter for Catholicism for the week, and got a lot of work done. As I've blogged before, Saxon 2 isn't wowing me this year so far, so Casey is working between 3 and 6 (yes, 6) lessons per day. It's so much review right now and she worked and reviewed all summer the things she learned from Saxon 1 last year. On Friday, I also discovered the juggling required in teaching more than one child at a time. I had Casey doing her independent work, then got Will going on a color, cut and paste activity, while I worked with Tricky on shapes, colors, and counting. Whew! I must admit, I was quite proud of myself when they were all working quietly for about 20 minutes!!! I had a few moments to organize part of the school room.

Saturday is when the "plan" started to crumble. After attending a co-worker's baby shower, Richard and the children picked me up. As we were heading home, Richard and I discussed how pleasant the weather was. First we thought of just going on a hike, but then decided we couldn't pass up the opportunity to go camping. We wound up on top of a mountain in a state park and had a blast! Grilling hot dogs, toasting marshmallows, making s'mores, air mattress not holding air, pain for the expectant mommy, so the expectant mommy read a book until 4:00 in the morning until she was able to go to sleep sitting up in camping chair. A BLAST! (Sarcasm inserted here.)

I did take the opportunity to discuss the stars and Moon, begin our SOTW2 chapter on Islam (even using my iPhone to show the kids a few videos of Muslims in prayer).

We did manage to make an edible oasis, begin our 28-day Moon observation, start Music Matters for Tricky and Will, and throw in some piano and performance classes. All in all, not a complete loss!