The Homeschool Mother's Journal Week Wrapped Up

In My Life This Week:
      We slept in Monday morning with no anticipations of school work, just bringing out our Christmas decorations & putting our tree up. We did get our tree up completely by Tuesday evening. My daughter & I worked on getting the tree decorated as daddy & brother was putting up the lights on the outside. With team work both tasks were accomplished. The only thing I have left to do today is hang my wreath on my front door.

Sarah decorating the Christmas Tree.

Elton & Matthew putting up our Christmas Lights on the outside of the house.

The works finished, we have lights!

In Our Home School This Week:
      Between Thanksgiving & Christmas we don't do any strenuous school work so our next few weeks will look light.
     While we were putting up our tree we began listening to the second book in The Red Glove Series by Karen Kingsbury called A Miracle For Maggie. We listened to the first one last year & loved it. It was called Gideon's Gift. It was so enjoyable I put it on our agenda to make sure we read the second one this year. We began that book on Monday & have finished it because my children could not get enough of it. We've just listened & listened & listened this week. They want to listen to the third one now, but I'm not sure what we will do next for our Read Aloud.

     For history we began book 2, The Secrets of Vesuvius, from the Roman Mysteries Series by Caroline Lawrence. There are six books in this series about 4 children who are friends & they are traveling around to different places & living during the Ancient Roman era. I was not familiar with this series, just happened to run across it so we are going to see how it goes. So far we are enjoying it.

     For math this week we used some hands on math. We played Life & the children handled all the money, including figuring the interest when loans were taken out.

     In Literature we are still reading through Robinson Crusoe. We are running a little behind on our schedule we had planned for this year in Literature, but that's OK.

     I did not have any English/Grammar in our lesson plans for this week, but my children have been working on books they are writing. Sometimes when we read a book it inspires my children to write a little booklet similar to it with their own characters. When this happens I use that for our schooling. They write the book, illustrate it, & then we come back in & look at the grammatical structure of it. Sometimes we correct them. Sometimes we just talk about what should have been done. I try not pushing corrections all the time. I don't want to take the fun out of their desire to write. Since I have become more relaxed over their writing I have seen them have a greater desire to write. I am seeing more than usual. I would say that is working for us.

     For Science we worked in our Apologia: Exploring Creation with Physical Science Module 4. We are learning all about water. WE, that's children & Mom are all enjoying the experiments.

Brush the comb thru your hair quickly & hold the teeth toward the stream of water coming from the cup. The static charge pushes the water away from the comb.

Places We Are Going?People We are Seeing:
      Friday we went to see the musical/theatrical play of A Christmas Carol. It was fabulous! We were so blessed. We did not know it, but when we got there our home school group had front row seats, the first three rows. The children were totally captivated during the production. And what was even greater is that the cast came off stage at the end shaking the children's hands & wishing them a Merry Christmas. Here's a few pics of the production.

One of the Historic "Saenger Theatres" presentations, The Christmas Carol.

Here's old Scrooge himself.

     Friday night was our local Christmas fest. We always go there with family every year and walk around to look at all of the booths & my hubby always buys me a "Honey Bee" candle. Pecan caramel is my favorite.
     Saturday was the local Christmas parade. Our church was in it so we road on the floats.
Helpful Home School Tips or Advice to Share:
     Don't get so caught up with school that you & your children can't enjoy the holidays & all the joy that this season brings. Enjoy the season & each other.

My Favorite Thing This Week Was:
       When my hubby & I walked around at the Christmas fest by ourselves. We walked around, held hands, & had some great quality time to chat/laugh together.

I Am Reading:
     Cape Light Novel book 1 by Thomas Kinkade.

     I think this about sums up our week. For more great weeks drop over to WUH & to The HMJ for some more great posts on other home school family's weeks.