Homeschool Mother's Journal

In my life this week...

In our homeschool this week...

We continued on our journey with copy work. Actually  Cameron finished the 23rd Psalm. Nathan is continuing the 100th Psalm at his pace. We also played games. 
Places we're going and people we're seeing...

This week we had a play date with some co-op friends. Cameron got to play Wii and now that is all I've been hearing about...  We also had dinner with my family for St. Patrick's Day (Friday evening) and Purim... since we aren't Catholic or Jewish we blended the 2 (dinner Corn Beef and Cabbage)  ( story and desert Purim).. All the boys had fun and my youngest nephew loved the Hamentaschen I made... he ate 3 of them and he isn't even 2 yet..
My favorite thing this week was...

Playing letter kid with Nathan Friday morning... (read previous blog)
What's working/not working for us...
Our classroom is still not cleaned up so we are using the dinning room table and living room floor.. Copywork is still our best friend though.

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...

Homeschooling is still a blessing for me, I can't even imagine my boys in school during the day and not with me.
 quote to share...

Make a joyful noise until the Lord.... Psalm 100

 (from Nathan's copywork)

Letter Kid

This morning Nathan and I were reading a book "G-O-O-D spells Good" and decided to turn Nathan into as many letters and numbers as we could...  He made the obvious letters (L, N, O, V, C,T) and then tried to make a couple more but realized he would need brothers help, so we moved on to the numbers... 1 and 7 were pretty easy, then he tried a 2 (that was a challenge, but a success).. he wanted to make a 4 and a 5 but didn't quite get there... We were laughing to hard to even get pictures of it...

 I did however take pictures of him vacuuming, he decided that housework was part of school time too, I guess he gets an "A" for home ec. today...( I would share them but my camera deleted them... I so need a new camera... )

Image via Wikipedia

Tonight after everyone had settled down , Nathan went to bed and Cameron wanted to make a story so I told him to draw a picture and I would help him with the sentence... He changed his mind and got out the travel Scrabble tiles and made as many words as he could figure out only asking for help if he was unsure of the spelling... 9 words later he was still going through the letters, he isn't linking the words just putting letters together for a word then moving onto the next line for a new word.  Guess if you let them they will do school time even into the late late night.

Doorposts of Your House | Weekly Encouragement and Ideas for Applying Scripture in Your Home, from Doorposts and the Forster Family

As I was sorting through email this morning one of my email friends shared this giveaway on Doorpost. I am always up for a good giveaway and following another wonderful blog. You should stop by and check out Doorposts of Your House. One fo the giveaway prizes is winer's choice of one of these wonderful books.

Doorposts of Your House | Weekly Encouragement and Ideas for Applying Scripture in Your Home, from Doorposts and the Forster Family

Recycling Crafts a free ebook

Here is a fun free e-book full of ideas for green crafts. Recycling crafts is a great homeschool project as well as frugal and environmentally friendly.

42 Ways to Recycle eBook | FaveCrafts.com

The Homeschool Mother's Journal

In my life this week...
This week has been a week of ups and downs. Had some pretty good days, but we are battling a cold bug so is has been a roller coaster of sorts.

In our homeschool this week...

This was the final week of our co-op for the term. We had a guest speaker before classes began. Alter Weiner a holocaust survivor spoke to the group telling his amazing story.  He is the author of a moving memoir "From a Name to a Number"  I'm still processing the whole talk as it was moving, power, inspiring, and heartening.  The group was blessed by his talk and then he stayed for the afternoon hanging out with some of the moms during their free periods.  
My husband and I ran the sound and lights for the presentation so I was not totally focused on the presentation and can't wait to read the book. (I will borrow my Dad's copy when he finishes)  
Places we're going and people we're seeing...
Between co-op and our regular Adventurer club meetings this was a week of activity. We were blessed on Monday being able to pick up some bread at a local church. Tuesday was our Adventurer club meeting and my group on kids finished their book work for the year, now we can focus on some fun creative honors and have them help teach the younger kids an honor...


My favorite thing this week was...
I'm not sure I had a favorite... 


What's working/not working for us...
I really need to work on getting us back to our workboxes and get our classroom area decluttered. I think I will have the boys help this afternoon (Monday is garbage day so Sunday afternoon seems to be a good cleaning day)


A photo, video, link, or quote to share...


"Every Jew was a victim, every victim was not a Jew"  
quote from Alter Weiner during his presentation to our homeschool group.

Lesson Planning online Co-Op

If you haven't noticed we love In the Hands of a Child . We have participated in the online co-op for HOAC since we found them 2 1/2 years ago. The upcoming unit is a Peek at Poetry, where I will be finding and putting together the preschool activities. I usually try and find stuff that can be used for PreK through Kinder as Nathan is K this year.. Poetry is not something we have studied a lot with the boys so this should be a great new unit for them. We have both this unit and the coordinating younger kids unit Preparing for Poetry as they were Super Member units last year.
********  If you love lapbooks or Notebooks as much as I do and want an easy way to do a unit study in your workboxes a Super membership at Hands of a Child is  an awesome deal.   ******

I hope to find some fun activities for younger kinds related to poetry that are more than just learning nursery rhymes. I'm thinking of early reading activities and such... We will see what I come up with. Whatever it is I know the ladies at Hands of a Child will take the ideas and create wonderful graphics to go with it.

The Lord's Prayer

Today for school time I did copywork. Mom printed out the Lord's Prayer from the web.. I worked hard to finish the whole project today. I am glad to did.

 [



*** from Mom:  He was only assigned the first 2 pages but did all 10 pages today.***