Semester 2, Week 8

What I’m Reading: Lavender Blue Murder (A Teashop Mystery #21), A Dark and Stormy Tea (A Teashop Mystery #24), and Lemon Curd Killer (A Teashop Mystery #25) by Laura Childs
I started reading the teashop mystery series quite a long time ago.  I would read one or two new ones a year.  By the time I reached the 18^th book, I was frustrated by the formula and the trajectory of the main character.  I wondered if Laura Childs had started using a ghost write because the characters and situations seemed a little ridiculous.  I gave the series a break thinking I would probably never read them again.  Then a year or so ago I wanted a Christmas mystery to read.  I turned back to the tea shop mysteries.  This year I’m finally back in the mood for cozy mysteries.  All of these books increase my tea drinking cravings helping me clean out my never-ending stash.  They’re also good and predictable reads for the end of the day.  Just enough fun mixed into a formula so that I don’t have to do much thinking to enjoy the book.  If you’re looking for a clean, cozy mystery series, this is the one for you.

Co-op
We had two park days for co-op during this school week.  The first park day was one rescheduled for later in the week due to inclement weather.  It was a busy day for us between going to the park, ballet class, and a family dinner.  It was hot, but there was a little bit of shade.  I felt like a great mom because all the kids enjoyed the carrots I brought.  We only had four families come, but I think it was a great amount so that we could really get to know one another.

Our second park day was our end of the year “party.”  It’s basically another park day that includes ice cream.  It was a great turn out.  We were missing a few of our families, but we had a well-attended event.  It’s great that the last two park days have been close to our house.  We also are really enjoying the spring weather.

Fourth Grade Highlight

We are on the final lesson in the grammar book.  I don’t think we will complete the very last assignment.  We are analyzing two sentences a week, and we’ll get through what we can.  We are spending our other grammar day completing a Mad Lib.  Both the kids think the stories are hilarious. 

We started listening to Little Britches by Ralph Moody.  We aren’t very far in, but we’re enjoying it so much.  This book will carry over into our summer reading.

Kindergarten Highlight

We finally finished reading through the Beatrix Potter books! I’m still keeping our nice collection on the top shelf of the kids books, but I look forward to the day I can pass the box along to my daughter’s care in her room.  What a good series of books.

Mom Highlight

I’m busy planning next school year, but I’m in the encouragement phase.  I’ve chosen our books, divided our weekly readings, and now I’m laying out our daily plans.  I’ve been listening to a few podcasts and reading books/articles to remind me of my priorities.  I’m {currently} feeling confident in taking off some of the books and tasks.

Semester 2, Week 7

What I’m Reading: The Living Page: Keeping Notebooks with Charlotte Mason by Laurie Bestvater
I don’t know how long I’ve had this on my TBR, but I finally broke down and bought a copy.  It’s a good how-to on notebooking for the Charlotte Mason method.  Even though I already have a good handle on how to work out narrations/observations, this is an encouraging read and gave me a few new ideas I might be able to implement.

What I’m {nature} Journaling: My son discovered a tiger moth camouflaged on our back door.  It is a pretty moth and has intriguing antennae. I’ve also been seeing some interesting insects that have met their demise in the dogs’ water bowl, but I haven’t fished them out to identify them!

Co-op
We had our last co-op class day.  It was full of excitement as everyone is finally feeling comfortable around one another with better friendships…always just in time for everything to get wrapped up.  It was a busy day for me as we also had open house for new families.  I was completely peopled out by the time I got home.  We still have a few more activities planned with co-op for this school year, so we still have more to look forward to.

Fourth Grade Highlight

My son can now pretty well label a United States map.  Now we’re focusing on state capitals.  It’s always nice this time of year to see the progression of what’s been learned and accomplished over the school year.  We still have another month or so, but I feel like most things learned at this point are just icing on the cake. (I did have my son start writing out a list of things he wants to learn this summer, so the learning never ends in our house.)

History-wise Paul Revere was wrapped up and now my son is moving on to Thomas Jefferson.  I feel like I know very mixed things about him, so I’m looking forward to my son’s narrations to see if I learn anything new.

We also made a small change in dictation this week.  I’ve added in the grammar from Simply Charlotte Mason.  It’s a good review in most cases, but it’s also some new lessons we haven’t gone into depth with.  The way I laid out the week also gave my son more focused chances to study the spelling.  I was giving him a lot of this on his own before, but it’s become more challenging.  I can see that we need to work on better habits. 

Grandpa engineering was this week.  They learned more about energy, potential energy, and pendulums.  They applied this to real life with my son on his bike.  Then my son built a car.

We finished listening to By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  It was good, not quite as enthralling as some of the other books.  It was fun to hear Laura’s very first mention of the Wilder’s crossing her path.

Kindergarten Highlight

My daughter had her very first lesson in math about place value.  I’m not quite sure how much of that actually got across to her.  I guess we’ll see the next time we do math!

Phonics/reading is going well.  My daughter is looking forward to her summer challenge.  I don’t think she quite understands what it entails, but I guess that’s what bribery is for (bribery is anti-CM).

Mom Highlight
I’m feeling far more encouraged about school this week.  I guess it has to do with getting over that middle hump.

Semester 1, Week 5

What I’m Reading: An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis
I don’t know what prompted me to finally read this.  I’m so glad I did.  I thought it would be a very difficult read.  While there were parts I didn’t understand, I got the gist of what he was saying.  I think it also helped inform my view of grace on other’s reading (and entertainment/educational) lives.

What I’m {nature} Journaling: Spring is quieter than usual in the backyard this year.  I am not planting my usual wildflower garden or attempting vegetables.  The puppies are too busy exploring every nook and cranny and below every nook and cranny.  We cut down our only tree in the fall.  Our backyard is a bleak mire of mud and weeds.  Sad, rather.  BUT in the midst of the bleakness, there are small reminders of life.  Many of our native weeds are flowering.  I have spotted grape hyacinth, orange fameflower, baby blue eyes, and sweet William.  I also saw the first hummingbird of the season the first week in April (later than previous years). That is still the only day I have seen a hummingbird at the feeder.  I assume I won’t see as many due to the loss of our mimosa tree and complete lack of flowers.  

We also watched the eclipse.  It wasn’t quite as amazing at 2017 since we weren’t in totality.  However, it was still really cool to watch it get twilight over the hour.

Co-op

We had class day four.  I pulled double duty assisting in my son’s first class and then teaching his second class.  It’s a watercolor class, so it was pretty easy finding a project for us to follow.  The kids painted a coneflower.  I loved all their interpretations and color choices.

Fourth Grade Highlight

The major highlight of the week was finishing The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis.  This was the reigning favorite of mine when I last read the series.  I still really liked it, but currently The Silver Chair is my new favorite.  My son also really liked this book.  He says it’s one of his favorites right now, but I don’t know if I unduly influenced him or not.

Kindergarten Highlight

All is going well in the kinder land.  Spring is a pleasant time to be outside picking all the weed flowers!

Mom Highlight We’ve had kinda a crazy week.  I’ve had more requested of my time and attention than usual, but I know it’s a very temporary season.  And today I finally have a little respite.  When I have these times, I do my best to maintain a routine and set aside time for reading or knitting as a bit of rest. The downside of these times is that I usually start reading too many books at once because I have a shorter attention span.

Semester 2, Week 4

What I’m Reading: Black Ships Before Troy: The Story of the Iliad and The Wanderings of Odysseus: The story of the Odyssey by Rosemary Sutcliff

My husband’s favorite books are Rosemary Sutcliff’s Eagle of the Ninth series.  I will eventually get around to reading them, but I thought I’d start with some familiar stories first.  I read The Iliad and The Odyssey in high school and college.  My son is reading the Mary Pope Osborne Odyssey aloud to me while my daughter is in her ballet class.  I’m enjoying these summary versions of the stories as they are reminding me of the full story.  It is also interesting to see which aspects the authors choose to tell.  Rosemary Sutcliff versions are story driven rather with little to no dialogue.  I don’t think I would have noticed that these books are missing dialogue if it hadn’t been for the Mary Pope Osborne version.  If you want a summary of the full stories, I think these are good books.  However, I do look forward to reading the full poetic version again in the future.

What I’m {commonplacing}:

Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 1, Duke Senior   

Co-op

We have a couple weeks off from co-op, but I did have a board meeting.  It’s fun getting involved with leadership since I really enjoy our group and want my kids to really feel like they’re part of a good community. I will be helping with membership/registration.  It fits well into my past life experience.

Fourth Grade Highlight

We are in full preparation mode for co-op family night.  Piano song(s) have been chosen and crafts are being designed.  We also had some great moon viewing in the morning hours this week. 

We did end up having one day with a longer than usual math lesson reviewing all the problems my son got wrong in his lessons this week.  Most of his misunderstanding came from not reading the problem well and not giving his full focus.  Some of the concepts are tricky too and I can see that he’s relied heavily on his memory or a formula rather than learning the concepts for himself.

I’ve increased the copywork time from 10 to 15 minutes.  I did the same with his grammar only because I handed him the worksheet to do on his own.  He seems to be doing fairly well labeling all the parts.  We also fit in a couple games of geography BINGO. 

Kindergarten Highlight

My daughter completed her very first potholder this week.  It was fun to see her thought process as she began her second.  She has about a 15-20 minute attention span for working on her potholder.  Even though I only have it on the school schedule for every other week, I may start pulling out the handicrafts for other times to give her more opportunities to work on her potholders for the family night sale.

My daughter also had her first lesson with coins.  She loved it.  I don’t know how much she’ll remember, but it sure was fun!

Travel

We ended up taking the puppies with us on our family road trip.  We found a family friendly Vrbo and brought them along.  It worked out so well.  One of the pups is more nervous than the other, but she did well in the end.  It was such a delightful experience for us to snuggle with them during the drive and all the downtime we had during our visit.

Semester 2, Week 3

What I’m Reading: Murder at Vicarage and The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
A few years ago I completed my quest to read all of Agatha Christie’s books.  Now I’m making my way through the Marple mysteries in order.  I was so scattered in my read through of all the other novels that this is giving such good continuity.  I’m able to focus on one mystery solver, get to know a smaller area of the world, and see different characters pop up again. Despite previously reading these books, I didn’t remember the specific murderers as I read.  I did vaguely remember that background characters played more of a role than I expected on the first reading.  I know a lot of people recommend the Poirot books when they’re recommending first reads of Agatha Christie, but I feel like the Marple books capture a lot of Christie’s talent.  (The Tommy and Tuppence books are my very favorites.)  The books develop everyday characters and places well.

Co-op
We had our third day of class.  I really enjoy helping in my son’s storytelling class.  During this class the kids were broken into two groups.  Individually they were given specific topics/things to draw on a little paper.  The group got together to put these into the “pool” to create a beginning, middle, and end.  (This is all from Show Me a Story by Emily Neuburger.)  It was fun mixing up all the elements that the boys and girls created.

Fourth Grade Highlight
We’ve already hit a groove in this semester that I feel like there’s nothing fun to talk about.  My son did finish reading Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare and then we watched the movie.  I also ended up buying my son his own copy of As You Like It to make it easier for him to follow along reading aloud. Oh, and he had engineering with grandpa.  They made a fan of some kind…

Kindergarten Highlight
My daughter is doing well with phonics.  While she doesn’t feel confident in what she’s doing (since it’s a challenge), I think she’s doing really well.  She’s getting quite a variety of the short vowel sounds in her sentences.  She still looks to me a lot for reassurance, but I’m encouraging independence where I can. She is also obsessed with watching Super Why DVDs from the library.

Semester 2, Week 2

What I’m Reading: Howards End by E.M. Forster

I’m reading this to follow along with The Literary Life Podcast.  This isn’t a book I would have chosen on my own.  I didn’t particularly like it, but I didn’t hate it.  I didn’t really like the style of writing jumping from one event to the next and not always understanding the timeline of going fast and slow; it didn’t have a great flow. The really compelling part of the book was the story of the classes and place/home. Forster wrote a clear picture of the middle and lower classes in their social/educational/working life but also the cultural story of where we find refuge or sanctuary and ultimately ourselves.

What I’m {nature} Journaling:  We have had so much rain building a natural pond of our backyard that I got to observe a wonderful bit of nature the morning we finally had sunshine.  I could visibly see the evaporation happening all over our backyard, deck, and neighbor’s yard.  The shear volume of moisture plus the perfect rays of sun made for a magical five to ten minutes of vapor swirling rise.

Co-op

We went on a field trip to a local bread factory.  It was amazing.  We had fun watching the entire process of loaves of bread and buns being made.  By the entire process, I mean everything.  We heard the flour being sifted in the silos, dough being lifted into the final mixer, the mixed dough being dropped and then processed to the pans, the oven, the cooling rack, the slicer, the bagger, and finally the loaves being loaded for delivery. (I’m leaving out steps but only because we saw this on such a giant scale that it’s difficult to remember things in order.)  We also left with a loaf of bread and a bag of donuts.

Fourth Grade Highlight

My dad and son complete an engineering project together once a month.  The previous month my dad left a packet to read along with questions for my son to answer.  He’s slowly been chipping away at it.  It’s a completely different task for him as I have never had him do reading comprehension worksheets before.  This does not fit into a Charlotte Mason education, but I do think it’s a good skill to learn how to research, find pertinent information amongst all the other information.  I don’t know if he’s actually assimilating any information.  I do like that my son is writing out some definitions.  I would prefer that he could see these things on his own and want to put them in his science notebook.  However, he hasn’t quite caught on to the significance of keeping such information.

Kindergarten Highlight

My daughter is finding more moments for independent play and crafting.  We opened up one of her birthday presents of jewel crafting.  After a little help getting her started, she can finally do it on her own.  She also started weaving her first potholder this week.  She’s not completely independent on it yet, but she has caught on quickly.  It’s a matter of practice to make her better.

Mom Highlight

We took the puppies to our vet for the first time.  The kids were very helpful since the puppies aren’t quite ready to be on the leash.  Both pups are growing quickly and getting into everything!  It’s like having the days of a newborn and a toddler mixed into one.  Their cuteness covers over a multitude of teaching moments. 

We also finally made it to our living library as a family.  I accidently checked out the wrong Roosevelt book, but I told my son it was a good opportunity to learn about a different Roosevelt than the one he intended.  My daughter found plenty of princess books and a really good one about dogs that both of the children enjoyed. 

Semester 2, Week 1

What I’m Reading: Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution by Natalie Bober
I don’t think I meant to read this book in its entirety, but I did and I liked it.  I’ve checked out a pile of pre-reading books from the library in my usual fashion of seeing what’s available and if I’m going to assign them for next school year. As usual, I’m having difficulty settling on what we’re going to do for history and science.  Even though we follow Amblesideonline in many ways, we’ve gone another route in those subjects in the past.  However, I do skim the books from the list that I’m able to find.  (Sorry, a little tangent there…no need for planning notes here.) Abigail Adams was an enjoyable way to read more about her life.  I’ve read snippets of her relationship with John Adams, but I’ve never read any other books about her.  This was a great biography that wasn’t too detailed to make it boring but also not lacking in substance.  I was able to get a full picture of her character and hopes for her husband, family, and herself.

What I’m Commonplacing: “You only care about the things that you can use, and therefore arrange them in the following order: Money, supremely useful; intellect, rather useful; imagination, of no use at all.” E.M. Forster, Howards End, Warbler Press 2021, p 25 

Co-op
We had our second class day.  My daughter’s classes are about holidays and animals.  She’s having so much fun.  I liked my son’s storytelling class and hearing all the stories the children came up with.  His second class is watercolor painting. I subbed in one of the youth classes.  Nothing like feeling really old than when you realize you haven’t had many conversations with teenagers since you were a teenager…a looooong time ago. (My job was easy.  I only had to be the adult once. They’re self-sufficient.)

Fourth Grade Highlight

Math went very well this week.  I didn’t have to teach any of the lessons, and we only had to review four problems total. 

We finished The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis.  I loved it!  I didn’t remember anything about my first reading of this book.  I loved everything about this book especially after everything I’ve learned through the House of Humane Letters and The Lit Life podcast. 

In preparation for our Shakespeare play, we read through the Lamb’s version of As You Like It. It’s one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, so I look forward reading through it with my son. Z

We started reading Clyde Bulla’s story of Wagner’s Das Rhinegold.  We enjoyed the similarities to The Lord of the Rings. We’re also listening to short selections of the opera.

Kindergarten Highlight

We finally finished reading Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.  Both kids seemed to enjoy the stories. It was a good, nostalgic experience for me.

I’ve been sneaking in a Bob book every other week to introduce new sight words and to work on my daughter’s skill of sounding out words and blending sounds on her own.  She prefers the Bob books to our reading lessons. 

We had perfect weather this week to spend a lot of time outside.  It perfectly coincided with our neighbor’s school break. 

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that we’ve been following the lessons on Children of the Open Air on YouTube.  We’ve been doing it for quite awhile now.  We’re going very slowly through our progression of the videos.  My daughter came in yesterday showing me the hand signs for sol, la, and mi.  It was super cute, and I’m glad that she’s learning from the videos. 

Mom Highlight

After being really slack and laid back in our (non)routine, we are back on track getting up early with mornings free of tv and full of responsibilities and starting on school early freeing up our afternoons for outdoor time. The day that I didn’t enforce our new routine, school took all day.  Being the responsible party is work!

Semester 1, Week 15 a.k.a. the week that took several weeks a.k.a. the time we got two puppies

What I’m Reading: Tex by S.E. Hinton
I was first introduced to S.E. Hinton in eighth grade.  We read The Outsiders and then watched the movie.  The entire experience was great.  I don’t know what took me so long to read more of her books.  The beginning of Tex is even better than The Outsiders and I wondered why this wasn’t the book chosen for us to read.  I got the answer father along in the book.  Tex has a few more scenes that are so relatable that I feel like they might be more influential in real life.  I felt more removed when I read The Outsiders.  Maybe Tex was more realistic since I’m older now.  I guess I’ll just have to go back and reread The Outsiders.  Anyway, I highly recommend Tex. 

What I’m {nature} Journaling:  I made a few notes about our new puppies in my nature journal.  It reminded me of keeping a baby book.

Co-op
Co-op is back in full force.  We started off the semester with our first class day.  My daughter enjoys being with the kids.  My son missed the first day since he was traveling with his dad.  I look forward to hearing his reaction once he’s back in his classes.  I’m helping in his storytelling class and liked to hear the kids retelling about one of their favorite moments.

I went to the mom’s morning out.  It was at a local coffee shop that I’ve been wanting to check out but have never gotten around to.  I had a delicious everything bagel with cream cheese and a honey vanilla cinnamon latte.  If you haven’t had either, go now and get one if not both of these things.

Finally we had our Valentine’s party.  There were several crafts, a few games, and lots of treats.  No card exchange this year.  I liked that it was simple, but I also know how much I enjoyed the card exchange when I was a kid.  I always loved decorating my card box and picking out my valentines.

Fourth Grade and Kindergarten Highlight

This was supposed to be a very quick and easy week.  Of course, every single time management plan immediately got thrown out the moment we decided we were going to get puppies (and we were ready just like you are when you have a child…except a little more because we’ve actually had dogs before). We were completely on track to finish our semester before Valentine’s Day so that I was going to give us a slow start and special few days to gear up for our second semester.  Instead, we were completing the academics during puppy naptime.  The end of the semester is being completely overshadowed by the puppies.

My son has been asking for a puppy for years.  I always said no because our dog was high maintenance.  Since we knew she was reaching the end of her days, we have been saving, planning, and researching for puppies and the best fit for our family.  We decided on two goldendoodles.  We’re in love.  They’re snuggly and playful.

Field Trip or Travel
A perk of homeschool is the flexibility to put school off a few days for last minute travel.  My son accompanied my husband to pick up the first puppy.  They traveled north and I travel west.  The week was chaotic and getting into a new routine even harder.  However, we have faced this bump (is it a bump if it’s joyful) in the road with grace.  I did ask my husband to review geography with my son while they were on the road.  I don’t know if they did, but they did travel through at least one capital, so that’s something!  The trip was definitely a good lesson in responsibility as it was my son’s job to look out for the puppy while my husband was driving.