“Insta”-replay skipping ahead to Christmas

So I have been even more lax than normal about blogging, mostly because my mind was preoccupied with school for most of the last few months.  And not the homeschooling which I love sharing but my school.  It is my final year and senior classes are hard! Then as I was finishing up my hard classes came the holidays and more distractions. So I won’t bore you with my math but I will share some of our holiday fun!

We put up our tree early, during the Thanksgiving break. It is full of memories and personal ornaments.

My mom celebrated her retirement with her entire family! It was great to see the Idahoans.

Since so many cousins were in town we had a Ward family Christmas party. My aunt Sandy showed her music teacher skills, letting the kids play along with a variety of percussion instruments while she played piano.

We seemed to spend a lot of time at shopping centers yet still forgot a few gifts, sorry.

I finally got to go to the movies with my family, last month I stayed home to work on school while they went on more than one occasion. And Mary Poppins Returns was a cute movie.

Christmas Eve at my moms was a blast, so much laughter. And Christmas crackers which are a family tradition. Merry had three crowns on at one point.

Another Christmas tradition is the girls playing Christmas songs. Honestly I don’t think they are getting any better, but I think they would if they practiced.

A Christmas tradition I hope to keep is going for a walk before eating all the goodies. And I spotted a hummingbird, although it’s kinda a blur in the picture.

My brother-inlaw and his family were in town the entire week after Christmas! We had a great time visiting, not many pictures but I had to share this one, someone knows how to spot a camera.

New years is coming, and that means new goals. One of mine is to blog more, I like being able to look back at my year.  Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that the new year will inspire you to reach for a few new goals.

“Insta”-replay: picture of the week

September is off to a good start. Girls went to visit their great grandmother, without me so no pictures. And we finished up our first week of school.

In order to stay on schedule, we doubled up on subjects and tried to stay focused.  I also attempted to stay focused on my own school, not sure if I succeeded or not.

Long story short, I took only one photo last week:

Merry completing an experiment. 

Hopefully next week I’ll pull my camera out more!

“Insta”-replay: goodbye summer

August is over, September begins.  Where I’m from this marks the end of summer and being of fall.  Despite the calendar insisting the first Day of Autumn isn’t until September 22.  Which to be honest has always kinda bothered me, but c’est la vie.

We already jumped back into school so summer break has ended.  How did we finish of the season?

Planning for next year: 10th grade

Highschool is tough yo plan for.  On the one hand you want your child to enjoy learning and find classes that interest them.  On the other hand you see your child’s potential and want to push them to continue to learn.

Hopefully Charry will have a balanced year of  working hard on things she enjoys learning

Planning for next year: 7th grade curriculum choices

Usually I start with my older daughter, since each year is a new grade I’ve never planned for before.  But this year I started with my younger.

About half of her subjects will be following in her sister’s footsteps, the other half will be new curriculum I’ve never tried before.

“Insta”-replay: heat wave continues

The summer continues to be a hot one.  Funny thing is, we have still been busy, I just haven’t been taking pictures.  So here is what we’ve been up to:

We went up to Washington to visit family.  They live right on the Idaho border so we spent a day visiting that state as well.  And exploring cute shops.  As a bonus it was an artists day so roads were closed off and artists stalls were set up.

The main reason for our visit was to go camping.  It was our first camping trip of the summer and the only pictures I took were of a deer outside the bathroom to show my kids.

Because of the heat we have been spending time inside.  This week that meant legos! 

And Aunt Katie had leftover crafts from a party so she let the girls stencil plates.  It was a lot of fun and allowed directed creativity which is a different sort of crafting than they usually get.

The month is half done, I’m nervously waiting for my summer grades.  Coming up is the start of the school year! Summer has gone fast but I expect the summer weather to continue for a while more.

Planning for next year: morning time

So over the years I’ve found various ways to work with both girls together.  We had calendar time, knuffle bunny adventures, we did combined science class, then history class.  I enjoyed every one of those! This year we are trying yet another together time; story time.

My plan is to read a picture book a day, focusing on the literature.  We’ll look at different art styles, different story telling devices, and different audiences books are written for.  My hope is to encourage my girls to look at all books not just novels and to enjoy literature even if it is written for a slightly younger audience (which not all picture books are.)

So here are the five I plan to start with (and why.)

Growing Strong Inside: because it was my favorite.  I received this book as a birthday present when I was three, and I still have it.  Some stories stay with us forever, this was one of those.

Grumpy Cat: Grumpy cat is a meme parents will laugh at, we bought it for my husband.  It’s funny to parents for different reasons than why it appeals to kids. But it is written with simplicity and humor for kids. 

Monster at the End of this Book: I learned a new term this week, “meta fiction”, that’s when an author talks to the reader making them a part of the story.  This is one of the classic examples.

Ubi Ferra Sunt: “Where the Wild Things Are” in Latin. Some stories are translated into lots of languages and read around the world.  So what makes a story easy to connect with and why do some inspire across languages.  The author’s story verses the author’s words.  Also I love Latin and this one is simple enough that we know all the vocabulary.

Dinotopia: I’ll be honest this story bores me.  But I love the pictures and the idea.  And it is a good example of a picture book that wasn’t written for young children but rather for kids their age.

So those are the first five with talking points.  I’m excited to see how this new start to school goes, and if it lasts the entire year!