Homeschool Mother’s Journal- Week of 8/27/12

I’m keeping a running tally of what’s going on- so I don’t forget. This is after all my journal entry

Monday: didn’t get all school done and had a really tough time with attitudes; everyone.

Who knew grammar was so challenging! Well, I did somewhat but the grammar I did in school, high school at that, was so simple, requiring such little effort. I’m learning on a daily basis that I cannot compare my high school experience with what my kids are experiencing now or even would experience in public school. The grammar I’ve chosen for the kids is the bane of their existence, or so it’d seem. It’s Jensen’s Grammar for Fox and Traditional English Sentence Style for Lee, if you were curious. Fox wants me to look into computer graphics programs, or designing video games, for a ‘course’. I will investigate but there’s no way it’s going to make it into our schedule unless he tows the line with his current requirements.

Tried, or rather had hoped, to do Nature Study because we miss it on Fridays, but it rained pretty much all day. Rain is good so I’m not complaining too much. Nature Study is good too and I want to do that, but not in the rain. We did see an interesting thing: a squirrel finally noticed our cat in the window. They had a very long stare down and then the squirrel promptly took it’s babies and left! Even in the rain. We didn’t even know it had a nest/home in the tree! We joke and say our vicious cat scared it out of the neighborhood. 

Made tortillas for burritos. Made the burrito mixins with turkey- yum. Have missed turkey! We have leftovers for lunch. Well, the mixins, not the tortillas; they never last long

Started on things but didn’t get them finished, such as the dishes and laundry. LOL I put “laundry” but the extent of ‘started’ for that was piling them on my floor.

Started to keep track of the things I ate during the day but forgot to continue by lunch time. Did drink over 32 oz of water yesterday. Trying to do that more this week.

Tuesday: Lee babysits today so we have to leave the house by noon. Have some errands to run before heading to Mentor. School has gone quite well. We started before our 9 am start time, by about 1/2 an hour Fox has only 3 things left to do with me and Lee has only 1 more thing to do. Those can wait until we get back later today. Attitudes are much better today but still residual from yesterday. It’s a constant, wearying thing.

We had taco salad for dinner using meat that’d been prepared earlier the week before, for taco salad. Totally forgot about the water intake; drank 1 bottle of water =16.9 oz.

I went to Mom’s Night Out in Willoughby at the Café Europa. There were four moms. I had some yummy coffee- if you’re ever in the area, their coffee is wonderful It was nice to get out by myself but it’s not just that; it was nice to be with other moms. Too bad it only happens once a month.

Wednesday: Worked on finishing up Joseph Key Individual sheet- Lee really did good with this one, digging deep into Genesis 37-46:7 to find information pertinent to our study. Fox didn’t grumble but didn’t dig at all. Seemed to wait for the answers. Logic, using The Art of Argument, went quite well today. There was a dialogue between “Socrates” and a girl named Tiffany; Fox was Socrates, Lee was Tiffany. It was hilarious. Their assignment is to create their own example of non-argumentative persuasion. I think they plan on creating a video…Should be interesting We listened to the Ohio state song. Interesting… We read the original version and the ‘modern’ version, accepted in 1989. Fox then made a spoof.

I’m working on trying to give, *gulp*, grades more for the work the kids do. Since a lot of it is oral narrations, I’m a little unsure how to go about that. I can more easily do it for the written work. Actually, for Bible, Latin, Logic, Math, Science, Ohio Study, and Art/Music I can give grades because I actually have their work on hand. It’s the subject of history, and possibly geography, that give me trouble right now. We are using Seterra for geography work (along with a book each that is specific to their year) and I believe it records their score; I’ll have to look again.

Worked on a post for Finding Beauty, for A Week of Kitchen Organization. I ha two that were to be featured, one on Tuesday (I believe) and the other on Thursday (that’s my usual day). Now it is just my usual contribution. The other I intend to put on this blog, once I fix all the formatting errors that blogger added in to it.

I made macaroni and cheese for lunch. Tonight it’s supposed to be chicken salad wraps but that means I need to make tortillas. And …it was! Made enough tortillas for a meal for tomorrow as well.

Thursday: Uh…well, I didn’t do so well with recording what went on today. But plenty did. It started with me getting up at 6am, leaving by 6:30am to take dh to work, driving back home, but first stopping at the grocery store for some kitty food, starting breakfast at 8:10am, waking the kids at 8:15am (and why were they not up already?!), and finally by 9:06am, starting school. Our school day was all out of schedule –eh, what’s a schedule for but to be ignored? We got to everything but Latin and Poetry, poor neglected Poetry. About 3:30pm we left to pick up dh from work –I hate Cleveland traffic. Period. We made it back home around 5:45 but I had to get gas right then. After we got home the kids made their ‘ad’ for a non-argumentative propaganda –turned out great. I’m going to share it once they finalize it. Well, we liked it anyway.

I’m reading lots about Australia, all over the internet. So much information, so little time! Also rediscovered The Common Room. Especially this post about boys –quite timely for me.

Just remembered that I have to reread a review item. I’d read it when I first got it and printed out quite a few things but I think I missed something somewhere. It’s due by 9/6.

Dinner was the tomato soup I had made on Sunday with grilled cheese for hubby and I, and crackers, cheese and pepperoni slices for the kiddos. They ate their bread for snacks throughout the day –yeah, they ask for a piece of bread (and water hahaha! just kidding) for a snack –so they had to improvise –I think that the substitution was quite acceptable to them

We had hoped to go to a softball game that the church was putting on but it didn’t work out that way. With all the driving earlier in the day, I was tired and it was cutting it close when we got home. I’m sure the kids would have loved it; I would have enjoyed it. Just didn’t work out this time.

Friday: I stayed up way too late last night on the Ambleside Online new forum (it’s ‘school related’ so it’s allowed *wink*). Oh, I just love that place! I don’t think that I will ever get caught up though. I am spending way too much time there this morning already. First thing this morning was coffee. Hasn’t kicked in yet. While I was checking my email, I read Ordo Amoris’ post about writing well –even for blog posts. She has including a link to a grammar checker. Sweet! When I had the first two sentences of this day checked, it was very weak, it said. And I have an error of a “modal verb”. Yikes! I’ve no idea what that is! If I go back and refresh my knowledge, I’d probably get it but for now, nope. And I just came across Kindle It –again. I had found it last year…? …but it didn’t work yet for the Fire so I just left it be. It now is compatible with all the Kindles. And from there –the internet is so distracting –I found other extensions to put on my Google Chrome browser (Evernote clipper, Awesome screen-shot that lets you annotate the screen-shot). So many cool things, so little time.

It’s a little before 8am now and although the kids were both up at 7am, they seem to have retired to their beds again! It’s Friday before break week! We are going to do the ‘important’ subjects today and have a light last day. Oh, I’m all giddy!! Heehee.

We need to do grocery shopping today. For perhaps the second time this month, our fridge is looking a little bare. No milk, eggs, bread, butter. Of course we do still have oatmeal and other hot cereals but with no milk or butter, the kids would prefer to go without. I would never wish to be without food for so long that they will eat anything, within reason, that is presented to them, but often times I am aware of how spoiled we are.

Using just about the last of my gift card for Amazon, I purchased The Lively Art of Writing. It’s primarily for Lee this year but I’m hoping it will be good and can be used with Fox at the appropriate time. She had also found on Paperbackswap a book about Christian writing. Let me see if I can find the title…The Complete Guide to Writing and Selling the Christian Novel. She actually found that one and ordered it last week, possibly the week before, I’d just forgotten.

At some point, perhaps it was Wednesday, I finished the laundry that I’d started. Lee and I were planning on going to evening prayer service at church but I felt sick about 2 hours before. Went to bed on time and slept well. I don’t like not feeling well.

I’m not recording what happened school-wise, a break down for each kid, in this post because it’s already quite long. Suffice it to say, it was a good week. Works for me!

So…How was your week?