Monday Meanderings...

I joined up with Sarah @ In Light of the Truth to do Monday Meanderings!

Bible Study:
I have been reading throught the New Testament, I am in Colossians right now...

Memory Verse:
I don't have one...although I would like to! Hmm...

Husband Encouragement:
Do more of "his chores" (taking our trash...etc) around the apartment so he doesn't have to...start over on the 30 Day Husband Encourangement Challenge... let him nap when he gets home from work

Train them up:
Pray with them daily, having patience with them is the hardest part of my day...so working really hard on being patient and loving and not using harsh words or tones! Its no wonder they talk to each other the way they do...they hear it from me all the time!

Personal Goals:
Walk for 30 minutes Monday-Thursday evenings with a new neighbor! Read my bible daily, have patience!!!

New habit of the month:
Getting dressed in the morning before school. We just moved into a new apt building and everyone around us homeschools. So there is no telling when someone might show up!

Must do:
Get the kids on time to their homeschool classes, go to the public library to get books on hold, go to seminary library to return books and give the librarian her mail (we live in her old apt!), go to used homeschool store in Slidell, clean house before the in-laws visit his weekend!

Zone:
Pretty much the whole apartment, since we are having visitors this weekend!

Menu:
Monday- Kaiser roll sandwiches
Tuesday- Pulled pork sandwiches
Wednesday- Eat at church
Thursday- Ham and Cheese calzones
Friday- Chicken Empanadas

Fun things:
We are saving up all our fun for the weekend (see my last post for all the weekend activities!)

3 things I am thankful for today:
My husbands job, The Swap Shop, new friends!

Busy week

This past week has been quite busy! I think I had something to do every night. Monday we all went to the CHESS (Christian Home Educators Support System) picnic, Tuesday I had a Ministry Wives class, Wednesday we went and ate dinner at church, Thursday I had a Student Wives fellowship, and Friday we had a BBQ with our apartment complex. Good thing there was nothing planned today, it hasn't stopped raining!

I finally made it to the main library here all the way in downtown only to find out there is only "pay to park" all around it! Really? Who is going to pay to park at the public library? I was so annoyed! I requested the books I wanted from that branch to be sent to a more local (and probably more more scary!) location.

Our first week of homeschooling went well. The boys are really liking My Father's World. Here are a few pictures from this week...

Their vocabulary words for this week:

Tyler working on his continents:

The kids will start their co-op classes this week. Everyone is taking P.E. on Mondays and Fridays, and Tyler and Colby are taking Choir and Science Lab. Then at the end of the week Kyles family will be here! Here is what the kids want to accomplish while their grandparents are visiting:

-Get fudge from the The Fudgery at the Riverwalk

-Ride the streetcars

-Go to Cafe Du Monde and eat beignets

-Go to WWII Musuem

-Go to the Aquarium

-Go to the Zoo

-Go to Superior Grill

and go to a Zephyrs game...all in one weekend!

My Father's World

We started school this week!

I was scared to make big plans and make lessons that I wasn't sure were going to work for us so I figured we would just start and learn by trial and error. So far that is going great! I haven't wasted any time making lesson plans or writing out strict schedules to follow. I just try it out and if it works I write it down. Now, I am only on day 2, so I don't know if this approach is going to continue to work or not, but I like it so far!

The boys are loving My Fathers World. Here are a few of the things we worked on today:

Kyle found a globe ball at the Dollar General and I used it to cut up and show the boys how and why maps can be distorted compared to globes. It really helped them "get" it. ( I need to remember to take more pictures!)

We also worked on our John 3:16 poster! Tyler said, "This is fun Mom", which I never heard from him when we did A Beka!

I bought Applications of Grammar for the boys to do for English but we barely got throught the first lesson! It was really hard. I am going to have to piece together another English curriculum for them out of some old A Beka books I found in the resource room. We are gonna review 5th grade for about 8 weeks and then go into 6th.

Math is going as well as can be expected. I am not really impressed with the DIVE dvd. I think the guy teaching could make things a little clearer and go along more with what is in the book. We'll use it for a while longer and see if things get better!

Lesson Plans!

I am up to my ears in lesson plans!

I am glad I decided to wait until the 30th to start school or I might not have everything ready in time! I think I have everything ready for MFW, I got all the supplies for the first 2 months. I wrote out lesson plans for their Saxon math, their Writing Strands, and Applications of Grammar. Its hard to decide how much they need to get done in a week with the writing...I might just end up letting them take a writing class with the local homeschool co-op...we'll see how it goes! I have only made up 8 weeks of plans, and I am not looking forward to having to do it all again! There has to be a better way...

I haven't even started on Aidan and Jackson yet. Today I got Aidan the Explode the Code books 3 1/2 and 4 at the Lifeway store. I need to figure out how many pages to do a day, not too sure about that...

I also still need to plan out their hymn and artist study, not too sure on how to do those either. I'll probably have to do some more research online, maybe find some good ideas from other CM mommas!