The Homeschool Mother's Journal - August 30, 2013

I would like to post to The Homeschool Mother's Journal this week and Weekly Wrap-Up.  This was our first week back to homeschooling this year.

In my life this week...My girls started back to their wonderful Catholic high school.  Therefore, it was prime time to start homeschooling my second grader.  It is always so much easier to homeschool him when everyone else is at school or work.  The week didn't finish off as I had planned because my girls had off on Friday and I had to bring them for their physicals so they could participate on the swim team this year.  Plus, hubby had off on Friday.  So we didn't do any homeschooling on Friday.  It was a shame because I was going to begin note booking with him for his history.  The beginning of the week was also a little rough because I had to not only drive the girls to school on Monday...but also pick them up.  Usually my hubby picks them up.  This took away from our homeschooling day.  Wednesday my husband also stayed home to work to stay out of the traffic from the Martin Luther King celebration in WDC.  This also cut into our homeschooling day.  Nevertheless, we accomplished some important things in our week.

In our homeschool week...

Religion:  Devotion, Bible and Prayers everyday.  We discussed the importance of prayer and vocations.  One of our favorite verses was: "For the virtuous his paths are level, to the haughty they are steep..." Sirach 39:24.  We say the five daily mysteries and a decade of the rosary with a morning offering.

Math:  Word problems, patterns, addition, equal groups, fractions, time, money, line segments, regrouping, subtraction, hundreds, liquid measures, shapes, dates

Latin:  Completed Lesson 1 - Learned seven Latin words, vowel sounds, and watched instructional CD

English:  Alphabetical Order and Sentence Types - Declarative, Interrogative, Imperative, and Exclamatory

NOL Journaling:  Wrote draft on Three Cajun Pigs. The virtue was diligence and the bible verse was Proverbs 13:4. Drew and colored picture and neatly wrote the final.  We orally discussed his edits.  I will have to work harder on having him be more serious about the edits next week.  I think I'll be using our new white board for this.

Spelling:  Survey Test and Placement Test

History:  The Glory that was Rome, map work and test. Learned about the Celts of Britain and the story of Craith and his companions.  We will be learning about Beowulf next week and I can post our note booking pages on this.

Helpful homeschool tips...I use my journal idea every week.  Here is a link on my website for some of the most recent stories we drew and wrote about:  http://www.nucleusoflife.com/apps/blog/show/32669614-nol-sample-stories-group-4

Places and People...We went to Cold Stone for ice cream after the physicals on Friday.  Have you ever had their smoothies?  Best smoothie I've ever had and only 110 calories.

My favorite thing...There is something so heart warming to observe puppies and children together.  I'm so grateful to have rescued our puppy, Bella, from the shelter back in February of this year.

Whenever we begin our homeschool day, we cuddle on the couch together with our Bible, devotional, and rosary.  Bella comes right over and lays between us.

My son is seven and his four older siblings are either in private high school or college.  Therefore, he is our last child being homeschooled and Bella is a welcome friend to him.  It is such a joy to see him interact and play with Bella between subjects while we homeschool.

On Wednesday, my son hurt his knee when he fell on the hard floor in our basement.  My husband and I both heard his cries and ran to see what happened.  Of course, Bella ran right up to him and started wagging her tail and licking him all over.  His cries immediately turned to laughter.  Bella is a great comfort to us while we homeschool.  No wonder they call them man's best friend.

My kids favorite thing...My second grader is excited because I ordered him a nice sling shot this week that will be coming in the mail.

Things I'm working on...I'm still working on getting a learning center for homeschooling in our basement.

I'm cooking... Oven roaster, potatoes, and peas

I'm grateful for...My oldest college son who was here on Monday and took my second grader to the pool.

I'm praying for...The country of Syria

I rewarded my kids by...I let my girls get pedicures before school started.

Something I have my eye on...A day to put up my white board.

A photo...Here is my son and our puppy Bella in between subjects as we homeschool.