Notes for the End of June

Emma finished this manga version of Doctor Strange this week.

It has been a normal, quiet week at my house. There really hasn't been anything out of the ordinary for a summer week. I don't even remember what we did on Monday other than a trip to mail out items that sold on Ebay and Makayla going to work. It was just an ordinary day.

On Tuesday I had a Happy Homeschool Mom Moment - the last of our homeschool materials arrived! I pre-ordered The Good and the Beautiful High School 1 Language Arts on May 1st and today opened up a lovely box of goodness. Makayla is a senior and I'm finding it an interesting year to plan because we can focus on priorities and do things in the way that makes sense for her as an individual. I also decided what the base of her government and economics course will be. She's going to use two video series from Crash Course on YouTube:

1. U.S. Government and Politics (50 videos)
2. Intro to Economics (35 videos)

Homemade bread and playdough

Wednesday I got up and got productive. Makayla requested I bake homemade bread the night before, so I made it early before she headed to work. While the bread dough took time to rise I made three batches of playdoh for the younger kids. Kids did chores and played Pokémon. We listened to our current homeschool book club title, Swallows and Amazons, during snack time. The oldest 3 had youth activities Wednesday evening.

One day I snapped pictures while we were listening to

Swallows and Amazons. Kids were coloring or drawing.

Thursday arrived with sunshine and heat and another day of work for Makayla. Toys R Us closes this week so she'll be finished there and looking for another job. Mason and I headed to physical therapy as usual. It is an activity that he enjoys, even though it is hard work. His current PT is amazing at working with us to challenge Mason, explore possibilities, find his limits neurologically, and keep everything fun at the same time. She's also really open to my suggestions or to brainstorming with me to find solutions or to find the right questions.

Thursday I spent a chunk of time on homeschool prep and planning. I do a lot during the summer to get things ready for a smooth school year. One part of that is going through each child's course of study and pre-reading books, making notes on things, getting materials organized, and working out just what their day to day work will be. Some examples of that:

• I need to pre-read the books that came with Makayla's The Good and the Beautiful course so that I am familiar with them. The books are: Just David by Eleanor H. Porter, Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington, The Story of John Greenleaf Whittier by Francis E. Cooke, Into the Unknown by Matthew A. Henson, Jacob Bull, and Bernadine Bailey, and Patterns on the Wall by Elizabeth Yates.
• I make notes on things I am still sorting out, like creating a daily checklist for each child or deciding how to handle the cards for All About Reading and All About Spelling for multiple children in multiple levels. 
• I get materials organized such as filling pencil bags with fresh pencils and erasers, getting books into each child's bin, and organizing our art bins.
• I work out the day to day plans by deciding how often per week each subject or curriculum needs done for each child and sort that into how many weeks we will school. Some things I've used before so I already know what we'll do each week, but other materials are new to me so I'm starting from scratch. 
• This leads to needing to decide when we will start our school year, finish our school year, what breaks we will take/how many days we have available to take off during our school year, and so on. I originally was planning to begin the first week of September but now I know Mason will be having surgery in September so once that is scheduled I will decide if we're going to start a bit earlier in August instead. 

Each child's books will be in a bin this year.

Friday morning between kids and chores I would pull out a child's bin of school books for next year and start reading through and making notes of things they will need (like tracing paper for Daniel). I'm also trying to get a feel for what their day to day and weekly schedules will be. A perk of homeschooling is the flexibility, but it also leaves me responsible for planning everything and making the decisions.

Saturday and Sunday pretty much flew by and here it is Monday afternoon. This morning I mailed 8 packages out (curriculum sales on Ebay), went grocery shopping, oversaw the kids making glitter slime, and now I've sent my husband off with the six oldest kids to see Jurassic World 2 at the movies while I hang out with the youngest four children. We are going to play ball in the house and do some art (aka. make a big mess with paint or glue).