Time to Play Catch-Up

The kids and I lost quite a few days of school due to my Dad's health issues, so starting tomorrow, we have to play catch-up. We started this school year in early August to get a jump start...I had planned to take the entire month of December off....but that plan didn't work out very well. God had other plans for us, so as it stands now, we will be working hard in school until at least the 21st of December. It's not a big deal really, but we had high hopes of having a LONG holiday break. We're only behind in a few subjects - not all of them, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

The hardest thing I'm finding is Lionel's history. We absolutely love reading the books that go along with the Beautiful Feet curriculum (Early American and World History - grade 8), but they take so long to read through together. The books we're reading through are:





These books are awesome, but the first 4 take so long to get through. I had Lionel read the first book alone, but he didn't grasp it as if we read it together and talked about it after every few chapters. So...we've opted to read the rest of them out-loud together, only I have to do most of the reading since Lionel stutters...a story which I'll share with you in a future post.

Anyhow, Sweet-Pea often sits with us when we read, so she too is learning quite a bit. Sometimes though my throat hurts so bad and I can't get through our reading of the day. I wish that I could find these books on cd so we could listen together instead, but I haven't been able to. Last year we read through a few of the G. A. Henty books (AWESOME reading!), but I was able to find those on cd here. It was easy to get through last year without taking oodles of cough drops and drinking gallons of herbal tea like I've been doing recently! Any thoughts?

Sweet-Pea has been improving in her reading (1st grade), but needs to work harder on compound words. She has a hard time figuring out where the first word ends and where the second word begins. She'll get it - I'm not worried! Both of the kids are doing fantastic in math...Daddy is a great math teacher!!!! Science is one of our favorite subjects. Sweet-Pea is still studying birds and is thoroughly enjoying every moment of it. She has found a love for birds that she never knew she had. She now recognizes many of the birds we see when we're out an about, and it makes me so proud that she's learned so much already. We're having fun with Lionel's science this month too - we're studying water. He's in Physical Science this year, but there's quite a bit of chemistry mixed in already. Phew!!

Well, it's time for me to get things ready for school tomorrow. The kids desk is covered with some of my 'junk' and I need to clean it up. We just added another cubical unit in our school room (thanks to Ikea!) which we had sitting downstairs in the playroom. I threw a bunch of 'stuff' on the shelves for now, but have yet to organize it. I don't do well with chaos, so until it's all sorted out, I'm probably going to be bothered by it. Here's a photo of what the big wall looks like now...if I ever get it cleaned up a bit more, I'll snap another photo.



I hope you all have a blessed evening! Today was my birthday and I had a fabulous day with my family!! They spoil me and I LOVE it! :::grin::: I also got to spend some time with my Dad which was wonderful. He didn't remember my birthday, but that's ok...he still remembers me, and that's what matters!!