It's time for a post on all our homeschool happenings. Tomorrow we are going to a pumpkin patch with a bunch of LDS homeschool families in Knoxville. This will be our first outing with other families who homeschool. I hope the kids can meet some new friends and that we can have a ton of fun! With everything that has happened the past three months with me I haven't been as invested as I would have liked. I have tried to keep things going as smoothly as possible and some days have gone better than others. I was feeling frustrated on Monday with my short work out that should have taken about 30 min but ended up taking about an hour from all the interruptions. It is difficult for me to manage all the things I need to do for myself and the house while still making sure that the boys are getting all their work done. I find that I am nagging a lot lately (something that I hate!) about putting books away and having pencils and erasers ready for the next day. The house is much dirtier than before and I am exhausted by the time bedtime rolls around. So, it definitely makes my life more complicated, but I think overall, it's going well.
I have been really pleased with how self-motivated the kids are. There are some days where I want to pull my hair out trying to get the kids to stay on task but for the most part they have a schedule, I write their daily work on the board, they write their work in their planner and then they get to work. I have been having a hard time getting myself going in the mornings the past few months and I've been so pleased to see that when I get up (at 7:45!) the boys are showered and dressed and starting to get their reading out of the way. Piper just follows them around and sometimes they even get her some cereal for breakfast. It's so nice! By 1 they are usually done and sometimes by Noon, depending on how early I get up and how well they stay on task.
So, here are some pictures I've taken this month:
We learned about the Greeks and had a Greek Olympics (javelin throwing, chariot races, and a ball throw game). We also made head wreaths and had a Greek themed dinner.
The boys learned how to bake over the last few months. We baked some banana bread and some different cookies and then froze the dough and the bread until our bake sale. The boys made all the cookies and the banana bread and then asked me to bake some muffins as well. Of course, they had to taste some of their cookies. They ended up selling all of their bread and all but about five cookies, making $107!
One of the things I make the boys as part of their school day is spend 30 min each with Piper which allows me to exercise or wash dishes, shower, or do some work for the business. Plus, it gives the boys a break from school work and gets Piper away from the TV or kindle. The boys love this new development. They read her books, do Starfall with her, jump on the trampoline, play Just Dance with her, or do crafts.
So far we have had two "guest teachers." My brother Jess was awesome enough to teach the boys some Geography and tell them a little bit about what he does for his GIS job. It was super cool and the boys were interested the entire time. I had planned on having the kids lunch out of the way before we began but I had some people over for visiting teaching and we didn't get lunch in so they ate as they listened and took notes.
Another thing I focus on with the boys is incorporating stress relief tools into their lives. I make them do Yoga with me, which they don't really care for. I have a big list of things that we have talked about and done to practice using these skills. It's been fun and I hope that as we do them regularly the boys will find themselves using the skills automatically.
Usually for PE the boys have to practice their basketball skills since they are starting basketball soon but a lot of times I just make them come exercise with me.
Finally, we have been learning about Volcanoes and earthquakes this week. The boys got this volcano for Christmas like two years ago and painted it and everything but we are finally getting around to using it after much begging on their part. I'm not sure why it took us so long to get to. We also tried the soda and mentos trick and it worked but didn't explode like I had hoped it would. So, that's the low down on what we've been doing lately.
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