Homeschool Notes Week 34 - Just the Highlights

Saturday's highlights started with a library book sale. Who doesn't love browsing books and coming away with an entire paper grocery bag full for just $5? We find a lot of fun books this way. Mid-morning was the weekly grocery shopping trip. It's always amazing to me just how much food I need to get to feed my family for a week.

Makayla and Colton

If you ask Makayla what Saturday's highlight was, she would say going to prom.

She found a great dress, a cute date, and they had dinner with friends and went dancing. How is my daughter already old enough for this?!

Sunday we started the day with church. That evening was the family birthday party for April. This month happens to be my husband and my birthdays. He turned 40 this week and at the end of the month I will be 37. We had chocolate éclair, lemon éclair and no bake cookies.

Monday the weather moved back to cold and snow. We hit the homeschool week hard and then had lunch a little early. Then we surprised the kids with a trip to the bowling alley at noon for Family Home Evening.

Today was the first day of their Kids Bowl Free program in our area. Every day between now and September our kids can bowl 2 games for free. We also paid for the family pass ($30) so that Jason and I, as well as Makayla, who is too old for the program, can bowl 2 games every day with the kids. The only cost is shoe rental, but we find it is much cheaper to just buy bowling shoes online and pass them down to younger kids as feet grow.

The day only got better because a surprise science kit arrived. It has been years since we have raised caterpillars and watched them change into butterflies. We've got 10 little caterpillars in the house now from Insect Lore.

Tuesday it was still cold and snowing off and on. It was a perfect day for a slow start to homeschool, lots of reading aloud (Esperanza Rising), and playing all sorts of board and card games.

Wednesday we rocked through homeschool before the kids insisted we open up our Art for Kids Hub membership and do some drawing tutorials. We had kids draw Black Panther, a scorpion, and pea shooter from Plants vs. Zombies. In the evening was the usual Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and youth group.

Oliver's current reading book.

Thursday I didn't get any notes written down. I know we had a pretty typical homeschool day. Mason had physical therapy. Oliver was telling me about the book he is currently reading while I made dinner. That's really all I remember!

Friday kicked off with a few kids sleeping in and others diving into school right away. Mason is working hard on his handwriting. He's had a lot of challenges with fine motor control that relate to his spina bifida and other diagnoses. When we started this school year he couldn't draw a circle or a straight line. Really. Everything was super wobbly and difficult. While he still has a ways to go, I was so proud of him today. This week he has been doing some drawing one on one with me, because it is another way to work on his fine motor control that doesn't feel like "we're doing handwriting' to him.

He's been fascinated with the circus ever since we say The Greatest Showman so today he requested we do a circus drawing. One thing I've learned is that you can't give him the option to erase! He needs to write or draw with pen, marker, or a pencil with no eraser. If erasing is an option he will erase over and over to get things just right. When he knows he can't erase, like with the markers he drew this tent with, he just does his best and accepts it.

Late in the morning Joseph started packing for his campout. He packed his food, including making 40 cinnamon rolls from scratch. We ate part of those for lunch today, he packed some for breakfast on the campout tomorrow, and the rest will be eaten as a snack by the family. Grandma came too visit in the afternoon. We had a lot of fun talking and laughing.

It is now nearly bedtime. Joseph is off to his campout. Makayla is out watching another play that two of her friends are in. We're heading into the weekend and it's time for some relaxing!