What to do???

I haven't posted in quite a while.  One of the last posts had been about participating in the Outdoor Hour challenges and I was really looking forward to sharing, however my kids were not.  They began to look at me suspiciously when I pulled the camera out on our adventures.  "Are you going to post that on your blog?" one would ask, then be sure to stay out of the picture.  The same thing was happening if I took pictures of their science experiments.

When I first started this idea, my boys were fully on board.  However, over the past year they've decided they're not so sure they want all that information out there which means I'm trying to figure out how or if I'll go forward.  I've thought about posting my thoughts and feelings as we homeschool high school, but I'm unclear on how I can do that and still honor their privacy. This blog might be taking a hard turn right and changing its content or it might disappear into oblivion.  Only time will tell.

Weekly Review x 2: 1/30 to 2/10

I didn't get a chance to post a week in review last week so this one will cover some highlights of the past two weeks.

Bible - Last week we finished the "Quarter 2" lesson plans for Bible. We finished reading I Dare You by W. H. Danforth. Z-man really connected with this book and I've been pleased to see the way he's applying things. We also finished 1 John and read 2 John, 3 John and Jude.

This week I started the "Quarter 3" lesson plans with Artist. We'll be reading through the book of Acts along with Windows on the World. Z-man is trying to complete a Trek challenge for Awana that requires him to read a 250 page book. We had to request the book through interlibrary loan so we only have it for a short time. I told him that could be his Bible assignment for the next couple of weeks.

Fridays we usually meet to go over our Bible assignments and discuss the passages we read.  Even though the boys did different things we went ahead and met.  Z-man gave us an overview of If I Perish, the book he is reading.  He said he would give it 5 stars so far!  Artist updated Z with what we learned in the Window on the World book which covered Judaism, Druzes, and Azeris.

Literature - A and Z read the first half of Hamlet.  Our library didn't carry the recommended TOG selection so I went with a different abridged version.  Both boys are enjoying the story.  Artist and I are also attempting to memorize lines 56-88 from Act 3, Scene 1...you know, the well-known "To be or not to be," section. A has already passed me by.  He's been able to memorize much more in a shorter period of time. My old brain just doesn't work like it used to.  The sad part is I remember memorizing these lines in 9th or 10th grade myself.  You'd think it would come to me more easily!

Z convinced me to allow him to memorize a shorter passage.  He still has several lines of dialogue from A Midsummer Night's Dream that he's working on.  I agreed he could memorize Sonnet 116 instead.

Cheese Lover finished Huguenot's Garden.  He says it's only worthy of 2 or 2.5 stars.  When I asked him why, he said it's because it doesn't have much action.  I guess that's what makes or breaks a story for him!

Grammar - Last week A and Z finished Season 1 of Analytical Grammar.  They did very well on their test and were happy to have this week off from grammar.  Now they'll move into a period of weekly grammar review.  CL is working through Easy Grammar 5 & 6. The last two weeks we've been working on fragments/run-ons and punctuation.

Music - We finished our third composer, George Frideric Handel.  I didn't realize how much music Handel wrote that included vocals. Of course I knew about Handel's Messiah, but he composed so many other operas and oratorios.  The boys and I didn't really care for many of the selections.  The final tracks on the CD were selections from Water Music. This was more our speed and I think we all enjoyed these tracks.

We finished up a bit early Friday to head out for our second Outdoor Hour Challenge. The rain had stopped and the sun was peeking out when we left but its rays were short-lived.  Thankfully we didn't get too wet.

Our First Outdoor Hour Challenge

This was our first attempt at Barb's Outdoor Hour Challenge. I've been receiving her newsletter for a few months and decided in January to give it a try. One of the activities was "Chickadee or Winter Bird." The boys and I have always enjoyed watching birds so I thought this would be a great one to start with.

We used to have a bird feeder and would often see black-capped chickadees. But now we have a kitty who is quite the bird hunter which meant the feeder had to go. Friday we headed to a nearby park to see if we could find any.

I read up on the bird in the Handbook of Nature Study as Barb suggested. Before we left we listened to the chickadee's calls. Since they're such a small bird I thought we might hear them before we actually saw them. Walking down the familiar path, we were amazed at the variety of bird calls we heard on a January day. I thought most of the birds would have flown south for the winter but I guess I was wrong!

The first birds we came across were these:

There were dozens of them in the bushes we were walking by. They were not afraid of us either, especially that little guy above.
We saw so many things that day that we have yet to identify. Artist noticed this deeply grooved bark:

Then we saw these unusual pinecones:

Finally we saw the great outline of this tree:

I have no names for any of the above. We may work on some identification this week.

We continued our hunt for the black-capped chickadee. By this time Z-man and Cheese Lover were just in the mood to chase each other around so they weren't doing much bird watching. I had kind of given up and was just enjoying being outside. Artist has a keen eye however, and he spotted a chickadee up in a tree. Actually there were a few of them but they were too high up to get any good pictures with our camera.

With our hopes renewed A and I kept a lookout on the way back to the car. Z and CL took their own route, still oblivious to birds:

Finally we came to an area with 3 or 4 large trees that had scads of birds. A and I decided to take a closer look. We saw a lot of robins and a few other unidentified species. A decided to creep closer to one of the trees while I held back. And what do you know? He found one! This is our one and only picture of the black-capped chickadee...the little guy just wouldn't hold still:

Can you see him there?  Sorry the photo's a little blurry.  A few short minutes later we were back to the car.

We all enjoyed our hour outdoors. I'm really looking forward to seeing what ideas Barb has in store for February.

Week in Review 1/23 to 1/27

What a difference a week makes!   Last Friday we were digging out of this:

I took this with my phone so the picture's not so great 

Today we woke to this:

It was nice being back to the regular routine.  Here are a few things we accomplished:

Math:  Artist had new co-op assignments in his Transition Mathematics book.  They covered adding and subtracting negative numbers and fractions.  They also reviewed the commutative and associative properties.  Z-man finished Lesson 17 in TT7 which went over various types of algebraic equations.  CL completed Test 4 in TT6 which reviewed long multiplication and division.

History: We completed Week 16 where the focus was on Martin Luther and the Reformation.  Artist and Z-man’s work had them defining terms and describing events that impacted Luther’s life.  During discussion time we went over the religious, political, social, and economic causes that led up to the Reformation.

Literature:  This week’s literature lesson introduced us to William Shakespeare and sonnets.  Actually Z-man already knew some things about both that he was happy to share with Artist and me.  His drama class is doing A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream for their play this year, so his teacher had already introduced him to Shakespeare. 

He also showed us how we could clap out the iambic pentameter used in sonnets.  This was good practice since part of the literature assignment was to determine which syllables should be stressed in each line and then practice reading them out loud.  After our attempts we listened to some readings on YouTube to see how they sounded when professionals read them.  They were so smooth and flawless compared to our stilted attempts!

Cheese Lover’s literature this week was supposed to be Thunderstorm in Church.  It’s not carried by our local library so I went with an alternate.  I even had notes on HST reminding myself to use the alternate so CL read The Queen’s Smuggler instead. 

While looking ahead to next week’s lit for CL, I saw another title that I remembered not being available at the library.  I was pretty sure I had bought this book so I headed over to the bookshelf to double check.  Guess what I found on the shelf right beside next week's book? Thunderstorm in Church!!!  Huh, how’d that get there?   I’d completely forgotten that I had bought the book at some point along the way!  Grrrrrrr.  I guess we never needed the alternate.  Oh well, CL enjoyed his lit book this week anyway.

Friday we ended early.  In a prior post I mentioned how I wanted to start doing this so I could spend time doing some different things with the boys.  One of those things was participate in Barb’s Outdoor Hour Challenge.  I’ll have a separate post that specifically talks about the challenge but here I wanted to mention how much we enjoyed our time at the park. 

This is something we did quite often about 5 years ago when I was very into Charlotte Mason and her teaching theory.  As the boys grew older I let other things crowd out this time.  We did a lot of reminiscing on this walk…”remember when we…”or “I remember the time we came here and…”  It made for a pleasant afternoon and a great way to end the week.

Week in Review 1/16 to 1/20

It was a snowbound week here at Enjoyin' the View.  We had about 10 inches of snow which is a lot for western Washington.  School went on most days because I didn't want to veer too far off schedule.  This was tough for the kids since their friends were out of school for the entire week.  They were proactive in their response however.  Each night after dinner they would spend about 2 hours working on their schoolwork for the next day.  This meant they were usually able to get out into the snow by lunchtime!

Here are some of the things we accomplished this week:

Math - Artist didn't have too much homework because co-op was cancelled.  His teacher e-mailed a few worksheets to reinforce some concepts and assigned some online games as well.  Z-man and Cheese Lover continued working in Teaching Textbooks.

Science - A and Z completed Module 7 for Apologia General Science which covered the fossil record.  The module started with two experiments that we completed last week so this week was primarily reading and answering the On Your Own questions.  They'll take the Module 7 test on Tuesday.

Literature - The older boys finished listening to By Right of Conquest by Henty.  This book gave us a good feel for Spanish exploration and their interaction with the Aztecs.  While the story was interesting, it didn't always grab us, so we needed to make a conscious effort to listen to it.  We're all tired from that and looking forward to next week when we move on to Shakespeare sonnets. 

Cheese Lover's assigned literature book came into the library over the weekend. I had planned to pick it up Monday but then the snow hit and I didn't want to venture out.  The library closed early several days so dh couldn't even pick it up for me. CL ended up reading the Magnificent 12 book that he got for Christmas.

History - We completed Week 15 in TOG which covered the Northern Renaissance and introduced the Reformation.  This was one of those weeks where we "just got it done."  Discussion time didn't go as well as I would have liked.  It was disjointed and I felt disorganized.  The boys were frustrated because they were unable to find the information for the assigned accountability questions in their required reading.  This is when I feel the need to tweak TOG but I'm not sure how.  I have to keep pondering.

Writing - Artist completed Week 9 in Writing with Skill.  I've been pleased with what he's been learning in this curriculum.  I'm going to start looking for ways for him to apply his newly found skills to some of his history assignments.  I may veer away from the SAPs I mentioned above, and require some form of written work from A instead.  I'm not sure what this will look like yet. 

Z-man is working on Lesson 7, "Describing a Place," in Write Shop.  Cheese Lover got the week off from writing since he takes this class at co-op and there was no new homework due to the snow.

Grammar, geography, vocabulary, music, and art appreciation sat on the shelf this week. 

It's Sunday afternoon now and most of the snow is gone.  There's just a few patches left here and there.  I can't believe tomorrow is already Monday and we'll be back to our regular routine.  In many ways it will be nice but we all enjoyed the winter blast while we had it.  You can check on the week (and maybe even the weather) that other homeschoolers had by clicking on the link below.

Wordless Wednesday

To Resolve or Not to Resolve...

...that was the question.

This year I went with "not resolve".  Nope, no resolutions for me.  Yes, I wanted to make some changes around here, but it seemed like what I really needed was to focus on my priorities. My priorities are in front of my face every day.  You can see them here:

That plaque hangs in my kitchen. It's something that dh and I picked up one weekend. I love how it spells out my priorities and in the proper order too.  But lately I'd been feeling like the way I spent my time didn't reflect my true priorities.  As 2012 rolled in I decided to make some changes.

First up:  faith.  I'd gotten pretty lax in my quiet time.  I'm up about an hour to an hour and a half before the kids...perfect for quiet time.  But it's also a great time to browse the Well Trained Mind forums, read blogs, and check e-mail.  As fall rolled along I found myself spending more and more time on the web, often until the boys got up.  By then it was too late for quiet time, so days would go by without reading my Bible.

Then, because I'm following along with the boys on their Bible time as they read through much of the New Testament, I found myself trying to cram all of my reading into a day or two.  When you approach it like that you don't have time to really think about passages.  You're just reading in order to check another thing off your to-do list.  I needed to make a change so that it became a priority for me.

I decided I would still start my day with forums and e-mail because I'm pretty groggy when I first wake up. But I've started setting my timer for 30 minutes.  I drink a cup of coffee and check my e-mail or read a blog and the forums while I wake up.  By the time the timer goes off, my brain is much more alert.  Having to physically get up and turn the timer off prepares me mentally to finish whatever I'm reading on the computer.  I come back, wrap things up, and move onto my Bible reading.

Second priority: family.  Because I homeschool some would say that I spend a lot more time with my kids than they do.  However, I was feeling like I was spending so much time in "teacher" mode and not nearly as much time in "Mom" mode.  I've been trying to find more ways to spend time just being Mom to my kids.

Friday, Z-man finished up his school work early and we spent the afternoon together.  We stopped and got him some new athletic shorts he needed.  He also found this awesome Angry Birds hat on clearance: 

While we were out we stopped at Starbucks.  I enjoyed being able to focus on just him and he was able to share things freely with me.  Z is a guy with a big dreams and big ideas and I loved hearing all about them.  I've decided to make this a once a month event.  Next month will be Cheese Lover's turn.

I'm also planning to start finishing up early every Friday.  I have some ideas on how we'll spend those other 3 Fridays each month that I'll share as we begin implementing them.

In addition to that we've been having a lot more family time in the evenings playing games.  This was inspired by Daisy's post here.  The main idea is that our kids will remember their home by how their evenings were spent.  I know this is true for me.  When I think back to my childhood home, I often think of watching certain shows as a family or the dinners we shared together and things we talked about.

I want my children to remember home as a warm place where we enjoyed each other's company and had a lot of fun together.  I don't want it to be remembered mostly as a place where Mom was always harp, harp, harping.  With all the, "Did you do this?  Don't forget to do that," that I do around here, I'm hoping to add some balance by upping the amount of enjoyable time spent in our relationships. 

Hubby was great about playing games in the evenings but I usually bowed out because "I had too much to do."  Well, no more! We all just learned how to play the domino game called Mexican Train. Everyone enjoyed it so much that we played almost every night for a week straight! Last night we had a rousing game of Uno. We also have a couple of favorite shows that we DVR to watch Friday nights.  My hope is that these memories are the ones that will linger.

Finally:  friends.  This one is still a work in progress.  We have friends that we enjoy doing things with but in the midst of everybody's busy schedules, it's easy for weeks to go by without seeing or talking to them.  That is not the way to nurture a friendship!  I think it's just one of those things where if it's important to you, you make time for it.  That's what I'm hoping to do in the new year.