I am going to join in this year. I've tried for the last couple years but never stick with it. I'm not going to set a goal number of books, instead this year for my main goal I am aiming to spend more time reading and waste less time staring at a screen, unless it's a book on my Kindle! I started my first book, The Virgin's Lover by Philippa Gregory, on New Year's Eve and finished it this morning. It was a quick read about Queen Elizabeth. I guess it would be considered historical fiction. I think it probably qualifies as a bit of a "bodice ripper", lol. It was fun, the last book in the Tudor Court series. I'm not sure what book wil be next, I've got a few in mind. One other goal I have for the year is to stretch myself into some non fiction. I have a list of books I'm interested in, I just need to pick what appeals the most. I have to admit that I am really intimidated by some of you! You all seem so knowledgeable about books and how to discuss them. All I tend to look for in a book is if it is a good story, the kind that completely sucks me into that world!

Mine is going to be consistency. A couple weeks ago I started writing down New Year's resolutions. Then I stopped and looked at the list and realized that all of these resolutions could be achieved if I would just practice consistency in my daily life.

We are taking down our tree and the other decorations today. I usually like to leave them up until January 1st but I'm just not in the mood this year. We start school back up on the 4th and I don't want to spend the weekend before cleaning it all up. I want to start 2016 with a clean and mostly organized house. Beginning as I mean to go on and all that, lol!

We are doing this now and so far it has been great! My sister and BIL have a huge house, with a walkout basement almost the same size as the main floor,approximately 1700 square feet. We decided that it would be financially beneficial if we lived together and shared expenses for 3-5 years. So the basement was outfitted with a basic kitchen, and the rest of it was already divided into living areas, a bathroom and rooms for bedrooms. We have tons more space, indoors and out, compared to our previous rental. We disussed some ground rules ahead of time to ensure that everyone has the privacy and quiet they need. My sister's kids and mine are loving having cousins so close. It probably helps that all of us adults are fairly laid back people! This wouldn't have worked with one of my other two sisters and for sure not with any of DH's siblings!

I forgot I wanted to make peppermint bark! I'll add that to my list.

Not a really busy day but I've been sick for the last two days so I'm feeling a little behind on stuff. -breakfast -shower -take care of animals (kids) -wash dishes -my laundry -clean bathroom -bring wood in -vacuum whole house -go help my mom get a few things done -make ornaments with the kids -dinner: chili, salad, cornbread -DS8 basketball practice -work a little on school plans for next semester

I get together with my mom and sisters every year and we spend a whole Saturday baking cookies to put on trays to give to people. This year we did 15 different types, including fudge. About 10 dozen of each kind. I am cookied out at the moment! I am planning a Christmas Poetry Tea next Tuesday for my kids and my niece and nephew so I will be making a few treats for that. Planning on iced sugar cookies, Candy Cane Crinkles and PB Blossoms. Then I'm done, no more cookies!

I have one small thing for each of my kids so far. Tomorrow I will order what I can from online. On Saturday my kids are going to Grandma and Grandpa's to sleepover so that DH and I can go out and finish shopping. Then we will come home and have a quiet evening wrapping presents together. I almost always end up waiting until this close to Christmas, it usually takes me that long to start feeling in a Christmas mood. Plus I'm really good at procrastinating!!

Christmas Eve @ my parents - homemade pizza and finger foods Christmas breakfast @ home - waffles, scrambled eggs, fruit salad Christmas dinner @ my parents - ham, turkey breast, cheesey potato casserole, green bean casserole, corn, rolls, layered salad, dessert: chocolate bread pudding and I'm not sure what else, this is when we like to experiment with new dessert recipes. For the meals at my parent's house everyone brings either a dish or in the case of the pizza, ingredients, so the work is not all on my mom.

This has been a good day as far as school. At breakfast this morning I reminded DS8 that he needed to keep the complaining and stalling to a minimum today if he wanted to finish school before DH gets home. And he did! As usual math caused a minor freak out but it was so much better than usual. FIL stopped by to drop off the trailer load of wood that he and DH split this last weekend and the kids ended up spending an hour or so outside doing some good physical work helping him unload and stack the wood. Can I count that as PE? Lol! On the housework front, nothing happened except a load of laundry. I sort of zoned in on school and somehow ignored the mess but now its screaming at me to come fix it. I need to make dinner so that DS8 can eat before basketball practice. Then I need to buckle down and get some work done. DH is home and outside hanging Christmas lights but I will rope him into helping me when he is done. I hate it when the whole house needs going over, nothing is gross, there is just stuff everywhere!

We had a really hard time getting back into the swing of things after taking a week off for Thanksgiving but I think we are good now. I sat down last night and reviewed my plans for the rest of the year. When I am planning I tend to be a little over ambitious and there was just too much planned for December with all the other things going on, so I did a bit of cutting back. Just planning on doing 4 days a week for the next 2 weeks and then over our "official" Christmas Break the boys will be doing math 3 days a week because they are a little behind where I'd like them to be. Reading and read alouds never stop. I have some nature studyish things planned for the first day of winter and I am planning a big Christmas poetry tea to do with my niece and nephew. Also some arts and crafts. I'm excited! I am going to be creating a history course for us for the first time. I've only ever used someone else's plans so this feels a little scary! My kids want to do American history so we are spending the rest of this school year and next year on it, so like 3 semesters. That will leave time for another run through world history for my oldest in 6th - 8th grade. I have slowly started working on it but my goal is to finish at least the first 6 weeks of it before Christmas. Tons of housework to do today! We usually do quite a bit of it on Sunday but yesterday we went to visit my in-laws and were gone most of the day. The laundry is getting out of control! And the pet hair, oh my gosh! We have a German Shepherd and I love her, but the hair just drives me insane sometimes. I need to spend a couple hours doing a very thorough vacuum of the entire house but I just don't have that much time to devote to it today. Our outside activities this week are just the usual stuff. Tonight DS8 has basketball practice, Tuesday night is DD's last night of ballet for this semester and is also parent observation, woo! I love those weeks! Thursday night DS8 and DD have basketball practice and DS8 has a game on Friday night. There is nothing during the day this week. Today we have planned: DS10 With me: math, writing, spelling Independent: reading, handwriting, XtraMath DS8 With me: math, reading, writing, spelling Independent: handwriting, XtraMath DD7 With me: math, reading, writing, spelling Independent: handwriting, XtraMath Family Work science read alouds poetry memorization

I'll second this, it works great!

Thanks everyone for your input about reading after phonics! I tried to quote and respond yesterday but my phone wasn't cooperating. I am going to leave things as they are for now while I think about what would be best for DS10. Maybe I will have it figured out by next week, lol! Tuesday was a good day, we got everything done despite having a 2 hour science class in the morning. Wednesday was pretty sad. All we accomplished as far as school was reading, handwriting and XtraMath, plus DS10's Lego class and Art Club for all 3. I am going to be so happy next week when the Lego class is over! That weekly commitment in the middle of the day just throws my whole week off. The science class and art club are only once a month so not as big a deal. They did work fast (for once!) getting their rooms cleaned and their clothes folded and put away so they could go watch a movie at their cousins house. Today I have to help get DS10 packed for his birthday weekend with my sister and BIL. Not really a weekend because it's tonight and Friday night, but BIL wants to take DS10 with him to his barbershop quarter/choir practice tonight. I love that they decided to do these weekends with them instead of giving them gifts. My kids really love getting to hang out with them one on one, or I guess its really two on one. They let the kids pick where to go out for dinner and what activities they do. It makes them feel really special! Since he will be gone tomorrow I don't know if I will do school with the other two or do something else. I might see if there are any projects they want to do. DD7 will have no problem coming up with something, I'm pretty sure she has a list! DS8 I don't know about. Oh and I may or may not have a job cleaning a house tomorrow. Need to make contact again to double check. DD's first basketball practice of the year has been postponed until next week, conflict over the reserving of the gym. DS8's is still on. Outside Commitments for the Week Mon. - basketball practice (DS8) Tue. - science class (all), ballet (DD7) Wed. - Lego class (DS10), art class (all) Thu. - basketball practice (DS8) Fri. - basketball game (DS8) Today DS10 With me: math, writing, spelling, grammar Independent: reading - fun and assigned, typing, XtraMath DS8 With me: math, reading, writing, spelling, grammar Independent: fun reading, handwriting, XtraMath DD7 With me: math, reading, writing, spelling, grammar Independent: fun reading, handwriting, XtraMath ALL Afternoon Basket Science

The kids got all of the school work done yesterday. I didn't get everything done in the house but managed to knock grocery shopping and some of the laundry off my list. We won't get too much done this morning. We have to leave around 9:15 for the kid's science class, which runs from 10-12. It will be nearly 1 by the time we get home. I'm glad I decided to do both spelling and grammar yesterday, makes one less thing to get done this afternoon. Outside Commitments for the Week Mon. - basketball practice (DS8) Tue. - science class (all), ballet (DD7) Wed. - Lego class (DS10), art class (all) Thu. - basketball practice (DD7), basketball practice (DS8) Fri. - basketball game (DS8) Today DS10 With Me: math, writing Independent: reading - assigned and fun, typing DS8 With Me: math, reading, writing Independent: fun reading, handwriting DD7 With Me: math, reading, writing Independent: fun reading, handwriting How do you all handle reading with your kids who are no longer doing phonics? DS10 is a pretty good reader and I have been assigning him a chapter a day from a book that I choose and then having him read for 20-30 minutes from a book of his choice. He also reads on his own initiative for about 30 minutes before he goes to sleep. It feels kind of silly to me to have them separated out like that, but I'm not sure how else to get him to expand his reading horizons a little unless I'm assigning him a book. Do you discuss the books with them or just let them read? Occasionally I will ask him what happened in the chapter he just read but mostly I just let him read it and that's it. I guess I'm not confident that what we are doing is enough.

Good Morning! We had a fun Halloween but by Sunday I was exhausted! I pretty much laid around all day reading and watching TV, which was nice but meant that all the things that needed to get done didn't happen. This week was already a busy week and now I have to play catch up with all the housework too. Yay! :thumbdown: Not really. I love that the kids are enjoying their activities so much but I am ready for things to slow down a little. At Thanksgiving they take a step down and then the last two weeks of December look completely clear, only family commitments. Outside Commitments for the Week Mon. - basketball practice (DS8) Tue. - science class (all), archery (DS10), ballet (DD7) Wed. - Lego class (DS10), art class (all) Thu. - basketball practice (DD7), basketball practice (DS8) Fri. - basketball game (DS8) Today DS10 With Me: Math, writing, spelling, grammar Independent: reading - assigned and fun, xtramath, handwriting DS8With Me: math, reading, writing, spelling, grammar Independent: fun reading, xtramath, handwriting DD7With Me: math, reading, writing, spelling, grammar Independent: fun reading, xtramath, handwriting History, States and Capitals

Since so many suggest the concise versions I think I'm going to buy the first one to get a good look at it. If we don't use it now maybe we will later. I was digging through the US history resources on the Rainbow Resource website and and ran across this, Artner Readers Guide to American History. Has anyone used this? Maybe I'm thinking about this wrong. Maybe I need a spine, like the DK Children's Encyclopedia of American History and then fill in with the suggestions from the readers guide.

That's pretty much what I was already thinking. Thanks for the input!

My kids want to study American history, they are just done with world history for awhile. I have been poking around on the forums reading old threads but still have questions about Hakim's History of US series. I have looked at the samples of the books on Amazon also. So here is what I was thinking, that we could cover one book every 6 weeks starting this next week and spend the next year and a half on them. We would finish them by the end of my oldest child's fifth grade year. But, I've got questions! Are the books going to be way over the heads of my younger two kids? Can one book even be read over 6 weeks without having to really rush through it? Would keeping a timeline and asking them for narrations be enough for output? Discussion ideas geared for 3rd to 5th graders would be helpful. My kids aren't really into projects unless they think of them on their own so I'm not worried about finding ideas for projects. Is there something different you would suggest instead? I bought The Complete Book of U.S. History, thinking that maybe that would work as a spine but it feels like it is missing something to me. I've thought about doing all the American history units from Homeschool in the Woods but I'm pretty sure that the notebooking/lapbooking and the projects would kill us! Any alternate suggestions welcome! Has anyone done something similar with their kids? Please give me some feedback! Thanks so much!

We got almost everything done yesterday so overall it was a good day. Today we've got to be out of the house for most of the day. I have to go pick up tickets for a couple of free symphony shows, we have a play to go to, DS10's Lego class, have to pick up the pottery we painted a couple months ago (oops!), and then there is a Halloween party for homeschoolers we are going to. We need to leave in an hour and still have to make lunches and pack all of the stuff we are bringing. Time to get the kids moving! Hope everyone has a good day!

Somehow we got all of our schoolwork done before noon yesterday. Not sure how that happened?! I kept checking my list to make sure we did everything on it and we did. We started half an hour earlier than normal. Very unusual! I told DH last night that it was a great day but that I was betting Tuesday will be awful because that's just how it seems to work for us. Well, its not awful so far because we haven't even started yet! Usually start at 9 and its going to be 10 today. The weather is cool, cloudy and rainy here and all of us are moving at snail speed this morning. It's perfect weather to cuddle up with a blanket, a book and a hot drink. Must resist! So, the plan for today: Math - all Reading - phonics for the younger two, assigned reading for DS10 Language Arts - writing, spelling and grammar for all/handwriting for the younger two and typing for DS10 Science Geography Ballet - DD7

Yesterday was a good, productive day. We got a lot done around the house and I worked on the boys' Halloween costumes. Ended the day with a book and a long hot bath, it was so relaxing! Started looking at the calendar yesterday, only 4 more weeks until Thanksgiving break and then 3 more on after that until Christmas break. Eeep! I don't know if we will be where I wanted to be by the end of 2015, things have been a little too free form around here lately. Math, reading and language arts are getting done consistently; history, science and geography are not. I guess I need to take a look at it all. I changed some things around in our weekly schedule. DS10 has been taking a Lego Robotics class in the middle of the day for the last 7 Wednesdays and it just registered this past week that we don't get much done that day. So instead of feeling frustrated about it I moved stuff around to lighten the load that day to what we can actually accomplish. Too bad I didn't figure this out earlier, he only has 3 weeks left. For today: Math, Reading, L.A., History and Poetry Tea for everyone Washing windows for my mom Basketball practice from 6-8 for DS8

Oh fun, I love seeing what other people eat! It helps me get some new ideas. This week: Sun.- grilled hamburgers/hot dogs, baked beans, salad, chips for kids Mon.- chicken tacos w/toppings: lettuce, tomato, cheddar, sour cream, salsa Tue.- beef penne, green beans, garlic bread Wed.- chicken noodle soup, rolls Thu.- Mexican Rice Skillet (new recipe to try), salad Fri.- pizza night!! Sat.- Halloween themed dinner at my parent's house. My mom is awesome and makes a bunch of those fun but time consuming foods from Pinterest. I think it's my kids favorite part of Halloween. We tend to repeat some things from week to week. We have a taco night (alternating beef and chicken), pizza night, we grill once a week all year round, soup night during the fall and winter, usually have pasta once a week too. This makes it a lot easier for me to menu plan!

:grouphug: That sounds like a rough morning, before your morning officially got started. When something feels wrong with our homeschool I usually do what Critterfixer mostly does, complain and then carry on. Occasionally when the feeling is really bad we will have a long weekend so I can think about school without trying to do school at the same time. I try to get some feedback from the kids about what they are enjoying or not enjoying. That is how I ended up deciding to change what we are doing for history. Sometimes there just isn't anything to fix other than my attitude, so I make a list of all the awesome things about homeschooling and try to read something that inspires me. So far I've been lucky and that has worked.

Yesterday didn't end up going so well. Halfway through the morning I started to feel like I'd been punched in the face. My sinuses were hurting really bad. So I took some cold medicine and a long nap while the kids played. Thank goodness they are old enough to safely entertain themselves! DS10 did his math and did some fun reading, DS8 and DD7 did Xtra Math, handwriting and some fun reading. I decided that today we will just finish up what we didn't get done yesterday. I need time to do some laundry and to clean up the kitchen that didn't get taken care of last night. Plus the kids want time to put up our Halloween decorations. It looks like the books I ordered to start our American history study should arrive today, yay! I want to get started planning that so we can begin next week. On the docket for today: DS10: XtraMath*, assigned reading*, handwriting*, spelling and writing. *independent DS8: math, reading lesson, writing, spelling DD7: math, reading lesson, writing, spelling, ballet All: afternoon basket, geography, poetry tea?

I seem to keep posting once on these threads and then never getting back to them. But I'm still going to keep trying! Last week was pretty good despite all of us having colds. We accomplished about 75% of what I had planned and made it to all but one of their outside activities. I'm satisfied with that. Everyone is better so this week should be a good week! I decided last week that we are going to change our history plans. We have been doing world history and the kids are just bored with it. They kept telling me that they wanted to learn about American history, not world history, but I kept pushing on with the world history because I felt like that is what we are supposed to be doing. We've done SOTW 1-2, 3/4ths of level 3 and I wanted to finish level 4 by the end of DS10's 4th grade year. But you know what? They are young. We still have plenty of time to do a full run through history before high school. So we are flipping over to American history for awhile, the rest of this year at the least. We need to be doing something that sparks their interest, that they want to learn more about. Changing the plan is good for them. Today's Plan Math and XtraMath Reading Writing Spelling Handwriting Geography Poetry Tea Basketball practice - DS8