My Homeschool Journal | May 2017

In my life this month…
  • we have had a busy spring soccer season, but the end is very near and life will slow down a little. 
  • we are cleaning and rearranging the house for a walk-through/inspection (our first since we moved into this rental 8 years and 8 months ago). 
  • Nathan is graduating from high school this month. 

In our homeschool this month…
  • Eliana finished Sarah, Plain and Tall and is planning a book club with a couple friends who are also reading the book. 
  • Malachi worked on All About Spelling 7 (review coming soon). He started UnLock Math Pre-Algebra, Lightning Lit 7, and is on book 3 in Rush Revere's American History books.  
  • we read YWAM's Heroes of History book on Orville Wright for the Crew. 
  • I skipped Hero Over Here, so I'll probably read that next, followed by Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and Miracles on Maple Hill. I'll have Eliana read Thimble Summer and that will wrap up Sonlight's D&E. You may not remember, but I added Sonlight's D&E onto HOD's Bigger Hearts to beef it up, but I ended up dropping HOD altogether, did some unit studies, and then started Prairie Primer. This coming year, I am planning to stick with one curriculum!  
  • We have been using Prima Latina and Whistlefritz French. We are doing one lesson a week and reviewing the rest of the week during a trial run of morning time. One of the reasons I shied away from a formal morning time is because I was afraid I would not be consistent with it. I discovered that when I make an effort to be intentional about it, it happens! Yesterday morning we had tea and toast and reviewed our Latin and French lessons from this week. I was thinking I could just start with those two things and add as we go. 
  • next time, I'll share more about what we will do for summer school! 

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…

We will attend Nathan's graduation ceremony on the 28th and see Jordan for the first time in months. Jordan turned 21 this spring, so we will celebrate his birthday, too, since we didn't get to at the time.

My favorite thing this month…

The trampoline! It may be the best thing we've ever bought for the kids. They play on it for hours and at all times of the day. After our morning time yesterday morning (when I started writing this), they all went out to jump while I got ready for my day. It has been nice to see them having fun and staying active.

What’s working/not working for us…

We are really liking Prima Latina. We do one lesson a week and then review each day the rest of the week. It's really a nice pace.

I've transformed the upstairs into my happy place, but the downstairs has since been neglected. I still need to go through buckets of school books to hopefully get rid of them and then hope to make it more inviting.

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have…

For those of you who do Morning Time or Morning Basket, do you continue over the summer? If you have a summer morning time, do you change things up during the summer? Or do you school year round and continue on?

The things we are doing now are products that I plan to include in our basket this coming school year, so I'm thinking we will break from them after the review period is over and do something summerish like a summer reading bingo, read aloud time, or a nature study. I have Exploring Nature with Children in my basket for this school year, so I may try to get in a good rhythm over the summer.

A photo to share…

My husband, the sports director, soccer coach, and ref extraordinaire.


He works incredibly hard to serve 600-800 youth and 125 volunteers each season to make the world's game Sheridan's game. I'll be happy to have my husband home for dinner a little more now that soccer season is almost over.

A link to share...

My Facebook page has been republished. I am still deciding what to share on there. Any ideas? I have been off Facebook for quite awhile, so I'm not sure what people want to see. I was thinking of sharing homeschool questions, or thoughts I have, such as my morning time question above, but I would love to hear any ideas you have for me.

I will continue to share on Twitter and Pinterest. On Twitter, I share blog posts I am reading on Feedly, my own blog posts, and Crew reviews. Pinterest is for whatever catches my eye.

I would love to be more active on Instagram. I have some favorites on there that I pop in just to see what they are posting and love watching people's stories. I wish I could post something half as good, but I'm not sure what that could be yet.

On my blog in case, you missed it…

Reviews I've posted...

Reviews in progress...
  • All About Spelling Level 7 
  • Thin Stix from the Pencil Grip
  • Heroes of History: Orville Wright
  • Prima Latina from Memoria Press
  • Whistlefritz French for Kids
  • Adventures of Rush Revere
  • UnLock Math
  • Lightning Literature 7 

Until next time...

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3 comments

  1. I didn't realize you had an Instagram page, I checked it out and love it!!
    We just finished reading the third Rush Revere book a few weeks ago and are in the middle of the fourth at the moment, the children love these books!!! (So do I) :-) I can't believe you have another one graduating high school, God bless you, you are an inspiration!!!! Keep up the good work!!! :-)

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  2. Why are you having to do an inspection after 8 years of living in the rental?

    We are continuing with our morning basket this summer. We will do a short devotional/prayer, then we will be doing a special summer school learning unit using the Beautiful Feet guide for California Studies. I plan on reading aloud the different books and doing some of the activities in the guide. I also hope to do some traveling around our state of California this summer. We are going to keep our morning basket short and sweet with lots of fun learning this summer.

    I am not on FB but I do follow you on Instagram. I look forward to seeing more posts from you! Thanks for the great update!

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  3. Carissa Anne, Thank you for your kind words! I have not been very active on IG, but I'm hoping to be soon. I"m glad to hear you like the Rush Revere books. Malachi keeps telling me I need to read them aloud to the other kids and that they are that good. :)

    Natalie, the executive that has been in charge of the rental is retiring, so they want to have all affairs in order for the new exec coming in. We have to sign a new rental agreement too (and get permission to have animals in writing, whereas our current permission was given orally). I might have to give up our chickens (hopefully not the cat - she's a good mouser). The house has wear and tear from so many years and kids and homeschooling, but hopefully it's all within normal limits and just needs a coat of paint and a few minor repairs (that we can't do, like electrical). It's sure good motivation to clean, haha. It sounds like you have a fun summer planned! I like the idea of keeping morning basket short and sweet (to cultivate in me a good habit). Thanks for sharing! I hope you have a great summer!

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