....is that what we divide our year into? I dunno. Anyways, we are nearing the holidays, where school tends to get a little crazy, so I found myself thinking about our school year and how things are going thus far.
- I can homeschool with 5 kids! It is crazy, messy, and takes way longer than it used to, but I am doing it. AND I think my kids are actually learning something.......most days. We are starting by 9am going until 11:30. We break for lunch and start back again when Audrey goes down for her nap from 1-3. Noah is seriously so good-natured he just is happy to be along for the ride. I have been going to bed by 9pm (except for tonight cause I am staying up "late" to update my blog....) and am up by 5am most days. I am such a morning person and I LOVE having the house quiet so I can exercise, read, pray or wander around the house and think about whatever. Talk to myself. You know, stuff like that. Noah wakes up anywhere between 4am-6am to eat and goes back to sleep for a bit so I am very happy about that! I feel very lucky he is sleeping so well at night so I can get up and have "me" time before our school day begins. It has made such a difference!
- I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the history cd-rom I have started this year. It is called "History Study: Time Travelers". My friend Jennie told me about them and I have been buying them off her when she is done with them. They are so awesome! Each lesson has hands on projects, penmanship, and lesson notes so you just read the lesson, do the projects and have a blast! I love history! We are doing the Civil War and we worked on: a lantern out of a soup can with the star constellations on them (the slaves used to follow the North Star to freedom), a map of the Underground Railroad, an ongoing newspaper with things the kids wrote based on events we learned about, and an ongoing timeline with pictures of important people or events from the Civil War period. I cannot say enough about this program!! It has been exactly the fun element I have been looking for with history and my kids ask each day if it's "history day". Hooray!
- We are learning the states and capitols; which was on my list of goals this year. The kids each pick a state a week, we get books from the library on their state, we look up facts about it, they draw a picture about it, we memorize the capitol and on and on. It has been cute to hear Addie tell Will, "Daddy, the capitol of Arizona is Phoenix". I also paid to join "Enchanted Learning" because they have some really good worksheets to print about all kinds of things, including states. It has made it fun for them.
There are still some things I need to improve on, and I will use the holiday break to reevaluate things. But, I feel good about our year so far. I go to bed totally exhausted each night, and feel like my housework is never done but all is well. Carry on.
