January 31, 2008
January 30, 2008
January 12, 2008
January 12th
Been a long 10 days. I had a tooth pulled. I developed dry socket and infection. Narcotics didn’t touch this pain. I would have gladly given birth to another child or two, than endure the tooth pain. But, after much medicine, time and soft food diet.. I seem to be on the mend and I am relieved.
While I was out of commission, my school room never got done. It is overwhelming out there. As you can see from this series of photos, that I have a miracle to perform.
I need to paint and put up shelving first. Then all those boxes and baskets of stuff will have a place to go. I will be purging as I go, because that is alot of stuff!!! We bought another rolling desk cart to hold the other computer. That needs to be put together.
Oh, the possibilities of this room. I am so excited. I am hoping that this weekend we can get it done.
cold snap
we had a freeze last week. Unusual for Southwest Florida. Good thing I have king sized bed. Do you think they were cold?
January 3, 2008
School starts soon!
Yep, we gotta get back into the swing of things! We took the whole month of December off. Now it is time to go back to school. It would be nice if we could move into our new school room. I have been sick all week and have gotten very little done. Hopefully, tomorrow I will feel better. I need to sort through all our stuff, and do some serious purging. I can’t paint the room untill Todd is home to move out the wooden hurricane shutters. I need shelving installed as well. Oh, well. I can’t have it all done at once. All I really need is the table up, the computer running and our lesson plans all set.
Speaking of lesson plans, I don’t have any written for January. I am sitting here, surrounded by stacks of curriculum books, and contemplating our focus and direction. Nathan and Todd really want to focus on science. I need them to focus on everything else. LOL
I have been contemplating on the importance of certain TOPICS in certain subjects. I had started teaching the boys ancient history. Interesting, but not at all necessary is it? I would rather start with history a little more current. American History is where I would like to begin. World Geography is also something I want to focus on too. Current events would be excellent for the older boy. That could also lead into Social Studies a bit. One thing just leads into another, really.
Language Arts is another subject I would like to pick apart. Nathan should definetly learn the basic parts of speech. Both boys must learn grammar and puncuation rules as well. But, really… does anyone remember what a dangling participle is, and why would we care anyway? I wonder how much of this is on the SAT’s. Language Arts is important for reading, writing, vocabulary and spelling. They all go hand in hand, so why can’t I combine them and they learn as they go. The constant slew of worksheets to underline direct objects and predicate nouns is just BORING. I am still thinking on this problem. I did create blogs for each boy. I want writing to be interesting for them, so I figured if they had an audience it would help. We shall see how that works out. If nothing else, I have touched on computer science and technology.
So, anyway. I sit here surrounded by the possibilities of a new semester. The beauty of homeschooling is being able to change the plan, go with the flow. Nathan hates his science book. He has asked for a different one. So, I found one probably 2 grades above him. Covers the same material, just a little more in depth. I bet he could handle it. He doesn’t need to master it, just absorb the concepts so they are familiar when they come up again next year and the year after that. That is the beauty of education. It is just a layering of information and the layering doesn’t stop untill we go on to meet the Lord.
