{1}
Well, the week started off with a bang for this little fellow, who fractured his arm Sunday night (we’re not quite sure how – probably climbing on something he shouldn’t). He wasn’t smiling like this when they put the cast on, and it’s not fun trying to keep it clean and keeping him from the sand table and backyard play set (we actually moved the sand table out of the yard). 🙁 But I guess we can’t expect to raise four boys without at least one broken bone!
{2}
We dived into our new Ambleside Online books this week, and while we didn’t get to everything (4-day weeks make that hard), it was a good start. And I was reminded once again of the richness of the AO curriculum, even in the books I’m reading with my 8-year-old! It’s good to be back!
{3}
As I’ve said before, I’m not a fancy planner. I did, however, try something a bit more complicated this year. 😉 I had been just printing out the AO schedules and using them to write up daily checklists in spiral notebooks for the older two (I got the idea from Amongst Lovely Things). It worked ok, but I didn’t like seeing all the stuff I wasn’t doing and having to write in my alternate choices – a bit messy. I read/watched some of Brandy’s planning series, and while she does a lot more detailed scheduling than I do, I did like the idea of copying and pasting the AO schedule into a Word document for modification. It took a while, but being able to delete the options we’re not using and add a book or change up the schedule a bit really makes for a cleaner-looking weekly list that will be easier for me to use. And I’m just doing one term at a time – not so overwhelming for me. And I think Mr. E needs a notebook of his own this year. 🙂
{4}
So remember I mentioned being intimidated by Utopia? Well, no more. I began reading it with Miss A on Wednesday night, and More had us in stitches just a few pages in! I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time!
{5}
Speaking of Sir Thomas, I followed Jeanne’s example and my husband, daughter and I watched A Man for All Seasons last night. The play it is based on is assigned in Year 8, and we’ll start to read it (hopefully) next week. There will certainly be lots of ideas to discuss and quotes to record. 🙂
{6}
Mr. D has been reading Gone-Away Lake, a free-read from Year 4, the last few weeks during quiet time. I have to assign “free-reads” to him, because he does not generally pick up books like that on his own – he’d rather read a Minecraft or comic book. I didn’t assign it on Wednesday because of all the other books I was trying to fit in on this shortened school week. So it was a pleasant surprise when he read the next chapter of his own accord because he was “eager” (the word he used) to find out what happened next. Just a little thing, but so encouraging to me. 🙂
{7}
Things are getting busier around here with soccer, robotics, homeschooling and trying to tackle that to-do list (among other things), and I need to get a better handle on organization around here. I’ve been trying to utilize my sadly-neglected bullet journal again, which helps. According to Mystie’s quiz, though, I need a digital side to my planning as well. I re-watched her Google Calendar video this afternoon, and hope I can make it a habit to update and actually use ours. 😛 Also this afternoon, I got our art supplies in order and mostly in one place. Can’t wait to share more about that in October!
School Edition "Pinterest")
My kids loved Gone Away Lake!
So sorry for your little man but you’re right- boys will break things (& sometimes girls too)! Sounds like a great week!
How do you use your bullet journal? Pictures?
I have a two-page spread for each week (didn’t do this much during the summer). Left side has a few lists: menu, general to-do, prayer, books to read and sometimes a list of possible ideas for a Seven Quick Takes post. Right side has a space for each day, Mon-Sat, to list music lessons, soccer, meetings, etc. happening that day, things that need to be done, and possibly something that happened that day. I also try to do a monthly page to list all the commitments we have that month, and I can refer to it when doing my weekly pages. I have notes for our CM study group, from the AO retreat, for the Simplified Organization e-course…just anything I need or want to remember can go here (but doesn’t always make it…). It really does help when I get things out of my head and onto paper, and there’s something about writing it, at least for me. Maybe I will get up enough courage to post pictures someday – my journal seems so plain compared to the ones I’ve seen on Pinterest. 😛 Although I do love that it’s PURPLE! 😀