1. Cake stand - Officially, if you turn ours different ways, it's supposed to be a veggie tray, punch bowl or cake stand. We just use it for cakes. Every birthday. 2. Ice cream making attachment for KitchenAid and a giant Tupperware container for storing the ice cream. Clearly, we're dessert people!

Wow, I think our last move was unpacked in a month. Maybe three. Y'all are impressive for getting it done in a week! But then, dh DID have to build more bookshelves. I also had a 2.5 yr old, two cats, and a horse. We moved just a week before Thanksgiving. My MIL thought it would be a grand idea for me to host Thanksgiving, complete with overnight guests, so everyone could see the new house. I nixed that idea quickly! Definitely wasn't ready by then!

Yeah, no special privileges here, either. Due dates are for everyone. Why should homeschoolers get special treatment? However, due to a funk in where the town boundaries are and where the libraries are located within the towns, we are actually geographically closer to the next town's library than ours. While they have a sharing protocol setup, they do limit "out-of-towners" to 10 requests at a time (not total checkout, but requested holds). I get around that by having a card for each member of the family. Might want to try that.

Wendyroo, your program sounds just like the one we're part of. Very cool electives through "community partners," which are really just extra curriculars that many parents pay out of pocket for. Mine is currently taking horseback riding lessons and Spanish. In the past, she's taken Kindermusik, art, LEGO, and STEM/nature classes. I think it benefits the school, as they can count my DD as a part time student for funding. We enjoy the fun things, but I REALLY hate Count Day and all the other bureaucratic headaches.

Is this OVA? Mine is doing that part time. Tell me about the NASA class!

English: Homemade reading and spelling, Writing and Rhetoric Narrative I and maybe II, plus other writing, Climbing to Good English 4 Math: Saxon intermediate 4, Beast Academy 3 History: SotW, finish Medieval and start early Modern. (It's taking us longer than a year per book, we go off on tangents. I've decided I'm not at all concerned about covering certain material in a certain amount of time. 🙂 Science: Physics for the Grammar Stage Spanish: Debating on Spanish for Children. We've already gone through La Clase Divertida 1 & 2 and all of PBS Salsa. Dd also takes Spanish as a part-time public school student, but I feel a strong need to supplement. World Religion: We're currently reading a storybook version of Ramayana (Hindu) and it's fascinating! I'm thinking of getting a storybook version of the Quran and something for Buddhism (Jataka tales?) Still ruminating on this one. Art: I oscillate between simply providing supplies and working through instructions/curriculum. Maybe we'll attempt some nature journaling? (I might just be looking forward to warmer weather. More snow is in the forecast! Enough already!)

Change a flat tire. Balance a checkbook.

Becoming?

Week 2 Report Crochet - I finished the ears and horns. Then we had two nice days (nice = temp over 25F) so I went outside instead. Then, once I was out of the habit, I stopped crocheting. Argh! I'm trying to get back in the rhythm of things. Spanish - Still coming along nicely, reading Harry Potter, gaming Duolingo, and creating some nice spreads in my bullet journal. I went ahead and bought the next HP book (I needed to pad my Amazon order!) My enthusiasm for this is high, so I'm not having a problem here, unlike crochet... Week 3 Goals: Spanish - Continue with HP, Duo, and bujo. Crochet - Bang out those flowers! Plan to complete one color per day. Six more colors, so I should finish the flowers this week!

Richard Scarry and some Indestructibles books (this is when I retell the story of my toddler eating the entire cover of a Little Red Riding Hood board book during a car trip. Her face was covered in red dissolved book bits!)

Human Body Theater is good. Macaulay's The Way We Work was too much!

Week 1 Report: Crochet - Have completed 44/50 ears, 18/25 horns, 2/50 flowers. Slightly behind agressive goal to complete by the end of the month, but this is so boring! The last two days, I started crocheting while listening to a Spanish podcast, which helped. Week 2 goal: Finish ears and horns, make 16 flowers. Spanish - I'm very excited about reading Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal. I'm farther in than my goal (yay!) and decided to learn vocab using the Gold list method (I prefer offline, but don't want 3 million flashcards.) I requested the audiobook through inter-library loan, but that usually takes about two weeks. I decided to start a bullet journal to document this year, and made a pretty cool spread for the first chapter. Also, I've continued with Duolingo, plan to reach the next checkpoint by the end of the month. I started a podcast - Coffee Break Spanish, hoping to improve my listening skills. I started with season two, but it's way beneath my knowledge level, so I might skip ahead or find something else. Week 2 goals: Read another chapter of HP and record new vocab. Write summary of chapter in bullet journal. Continue Duolingo. Investigate podcasts.

Goal 1: Complete afghan (alternating octagons of rainbows and unicorns, with star squares in between) January Goal: Crochet ears, horns, and flowers. At a rate of 5 horns or 6 ears or 4 flowers per night, this should be done by February 3. Goal 2: Improve Spanish. Complete the last third of my grammar book, continue Duolingo, and read two novels! (Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal has 17 chapters. At one chapter per week, I'd finish April 30) January Goal: Read one chapter of HP per week, taking notes on unfamiliar words. Complete 2 lessons per day in Duolingo (this is a cutback from my current level, but I want to try adding a novel into my studies and I'm not sure yet what that time commitment will look like)

A fellow language learner! My goal is to study Spanish every day, to stay ahead of dd8! I do some on Duolingo, but my grammar book is just collecting dust. I did just finish reading the first chapter of Charlotte's Web in Spanish, though! My second goal is to finish an afghan I started ages ago. I'm trying to do at least something on it every night. The "squares" are done, but there is so much detail work, ends to weave in, sew the pieces together, and add a border! A group to keep me accountable sounds fun!

I always give my daughter a couple of books with a note inscribed from "Blitzen, Santa's Most Literary Reindeer." This year, I signed them from Rudolph (totally not intentional, I just wasn't thinking clearly.) Dd8 (who still completely believes in everything Santa) was completely distraught, thinking that Blitzen must have gone blind or died. She became melancholy and out of sorts all morning. Later, we called my grandfather (whom she also believes is really Santa Claus, but that's a different story). He explained that Blitzen and Rudolph traded roles this year. He went off on a great digression, talking about how with global warming, he didn't absolutely need Rudolph's nose to guide the sleigh, giving Blitzen a turn. And how Rudolph is trying to improve his reading skills and did the book selections this year. But alas, he's not sure if it'll all work out or not... Grandpa for the save!

Dd8 has gone through Saxon K-2 and will finish Saxon 3 by end of January (we do math year round). I've been debating between Saxon 5/4 and Intermediate 4. I've googled the differences... It looks like the workbook for Intermediate is just a copy of the text, not really extra room to solve the problems, correct? The Adaptations book seems crazy to me - $50 add on seems steep! I'm thinking that whichever I go with, I'll just get her a stack of graph paper and write out the problems, transitioning to DD writing them out. Thoughts in favor of one or the other? Dd8 will be on the younger side for grade 4 math, but so far hasn't had any math issues. She enjoys writing, but I still expect the change from worksheets to writing things out to be nontrivial.

Zoobooks and/or Spider. Agree with the ads in National Geographic.

Russian tea cake cookies work really well with almond flour!

Mine liked the Pathway readers and the Alice and Jerry readers at that stage. Also, Henry and Mudge series.

Instead, Amazon has been running a buy 3 for 2 sale this week. But it's only on select books! Drives me crazy! Target is running the same sale, but it's on all books, so I stocked up there instead. Target's selection isn't as extensive, I'm still missing a couple of requested books, but I m so annoyed with Amazon's sale only on select books, never the ones I want!

I'm trying to think of a plan for next year (third grade.) I've been winging science for the last three years and I'm completely exhausted. What options are out there? What we've done thus far: K - classes at local museum/nature center. Not currently an option. 1 - read Magic School Bus and Read and Find Out books until they fell apart and bought second copies. Completed random experiment books, focusing on scientific method. 2 - Microscope unit (summer), 4H entomology book (fall), electricity/snap circuits (winter) We did begin the year attempting Chemistry for the Grammar Stage, but when Grandpa gave us his old microscope, that quickly fell off in favor of the vastly more interesting microscope. While dd8 has had a fair bit of science, some part of me worries that it's so hodge-podgey and disconnected. Should I find a curriculum and follow it through, so that she gains a complete science picture? But then I think, she's had more science than I had (public school) at her age! In any case, I'm tired of planning my own thing. What cool, interesting science curriculums are out there?

Dd8 has decided that she is a Big Kid and doesn't want toys. She's asking for a microscope and other science supplies. When questioned about her current toys and whether we should get rid of them, as she is a self-proclaimed Big Kid, she said her stuffies were companions, not to be classified as toys!

Slippers, books, and chocolate!

I picked up an old Illustrated Golden Dictionary a few years ago. Today, dd8 looked up some of her vocabulary words in it, but they weren't included! (scruples, interlude, compunction) Does anyone have suggestions for good kids dictionaries? If it matters, dd8 is using the Memoria Press lit guide for Charlotte's Web.

1/2 oz?