Blessings From Home

So it's Saturday....

Hello Friends,

        It's hard to believe we're already at the end of the first full week of September. This week felt kind of long for some reason, maybe because we're adjusting to a new schedule. We still have a lot of work to do on our daily schedule. We tried several different ways of doing school but I think I favor doing it first thing in the morning, just as soon as the kitchen chores are taken care of and Maddy is on the bus. When we did that, we usually started at around 8am and were done with our one on one instructional time no later than 11am. Then we took a lunch break and Nick did some individual study time....reading and finishing any work he didn't get done, while I did my daily chores and spent some time working/playing with my 2 year old, Emily.

     Our first week of school went really well, and we both learned a lot about new things and each other. I learned that although the math I was doing with him was considered a kindergarten level in some areas, it still had a lot of things that my son did not know. We're moving along through it at a quicker pace though as a lot of it is just review for him. As for the other subjects, we're taking it sort of slow, because I went ahead and started him at just below his level.

As for my What Curriculum? post, I went shopping yesterday at the Christian Bookstore, and here's what I bought. I got the McGuffey Second Reader and Speller, and I also bought a supplement workbook from schoolhouse books that covered worksheets for every area from language arts to science to math. I spent less than 25 dollars for everything and was pleased with what I found. The only thing I may continue to save up for is a new math program. I'm kind of interested in using Ray's arithmetic, but don't know a lot about it.  I saw a few other things that I may be interested in buying eventually, but for now, with the plethora of info online, who needs to. I just need to learn to take whatever I'm teaching him and make it fun. For instance, for science, this week we are learning about cats. So I took our cat, who is very relaxed and showed him her paws and claws and showed them how they work, etc. He thought it was too cool.

This last week, my housework suffered a lot because we didn't follow the same routine every day and my housework just didn't get done. So today, my hubby and my two older kids are at my parents watching more OU football, this will be a regularity during the rest of the season, and I am sort of thankful for it as it gives me a day to catch up. So the youngest and I will be keeping busy, getting the house in order, laundry caught up, and school stuff ready for next week.

This next week, we have a few things going on. On Tuesday, we will have an especially busy evening. I'll be dropping my son off at Scouts and I am going to a ladies night at church. The rest of the week we will be busy with our usual daily to do's.

Some goals of mine for the next week are....

~Work on potty training our pup. I've been slacking on being consistent with her and we've had a few accidents.

~I have a ton of sewing and handwork to do. We have some immediate sewing needs and a lot of things I have lined up to make for Christmas. I've moved my sewing desk into the room where we do school, so maybe I can start working on some things while he does his work.

~I really need to focus on drinking more water this week. I've been having a lot of headaches and I know that this is why. And I vowed to buy no more soda. Only tea, juice, water, milk.

~As I said earlier, I really want to nail down our routine. I really think it would make for things to run a lot smoother.

~I need to spend some time working on our budget. I won't be getting any income from watching my nieces, so we need to look over everything. The money I recieved was just extra, so it shouldn't hurt us any, but I want to be able to keep sticking a little into savings.

~I would like to sit down and make out a menu for the rest of the month, and stick to it. Something that I'm not too good at. I'll post my menu for this next week in a bit.

And that's about it. My, I didn't intend to ramble on this long. But sometimes it's just nice to get all those thoughts out of your head and onto the screen. KWIM? Well, have a blessed day!

Sara

Hi!

{ 01:29, Saturday, September 8, 2007 } { Posted by 3jemsmom }

Sara- So good to hear your week went well. It sounds like you're off to a good start with school. The scheduling is hard, try not to stress about it too much. I think most HSing moms struggle with this. There are some fairly good math workbooks (I got mine at Wal-Mart) that cover the basics. These might help give you breathing room until you can choose a curriculum. (they have a blue cover, and are only a few dollars.) My girls are using these until I can afford Saxon. Best wishes for the coming week. Peace- Shari